Autumn has crept up rather more quickly than I hoped it would and even though I've harvested lots of fruit and veg, there's still plenty to gather and plenty more jobs to do! There's tender plants to cover or move indoors, as well as all the jobs I've listed below.
Harvests:
There's fruit to be picked now. There's no more blackberries but I do have Chilean guava and sloes. Unfortunately, there isn't any fruit on my damson tree, so I can't make any tasty damson tarts. The Chilean guava is a hit with the family though - I like a handful with some plain yogurt in the morning. There's only three plants on my patio but they have produced a lot of fruit so I'm hoping I'll be able to propagate these three so I can double my yield next year.
Chilean Guava - irresistible to everyone in my family!
Sloes can be picked now. We have some in the garden, and have picked enough to make about 1.5ltrs of sloe gin. This is always a Christmas treat for the family!
500g picked for 1.5ltrs of gin. Yummy!
Pumpkins have been harvested too and I've made some soup out of one. They are such a versatile vegetable - I love them in a sweet or savoury pie or just roasted too. They store very well, which is an advantage as I don't ever have the time to do something with all of them in one go. I can just pop them somewhere cool and dry.
OK, so I lost one pumpkin as my daughter wanted to carve one for Halloween, but I still have about five to serve up in various dishes.
No dig:
I'm planning to improve the soil for the veg patch next year and have been reading up on the no dig theory. To me it makes sense and I'm hoping that it will help produce a bigger yield in everything I grow. It should introduce more nutrients in the soil and make it a better texture, thus making weeds easier to pull out. I've been storing a lot of cardboard and been composting as much as possible although I find myself limited on manure at the moment. I'll be preparing the soil over the next few weeks and hopefully it'll be of a good condition by March/April time next year.
Worm, worms, worms:
The one thing that has been a great success this year is the free wormery I got locally (from someone who didn't want theirs). It's produced a lot of worm tea and currently I have twelve litres of the stuff in storage. I do check it regularly and make sure I empty it of the liquid content at least once a week. There were some modifications that it needed though - I have to add a net curtain to try and stop the worms from falling in to the bottom shelf as they would drown. The tap also needed a little filter as it got clogged quite often. Now it's a dream and I would be without it! It's become another job for me as next year I want to build more wormeries out of things I have at home.
Sowing for next year:
Well, despite all the work I've created for myself already, I've also sown some broad beans, onion and shallot sets, plus get some garlic in. This time I've purchased the following varieties:
Broad Beans Superaguadulce
Onions Electric and Radar
Shallots Jermor
Garlic Topadrome
I'll be producing a video very soon on sowing the broad beans, onions and shallots, so watch out for this!
Wildlife:
This time of year we all tend to tidy up out gardens. While this is something I do, I still make sure that I leave some quiet corners for wildlife. There needs to be places were insects and mammals can hibernate so there's a few hiding places right at the back of my garden, away from where I'm working to avoid disturbing anything. It's a good time to put out feed for the birds. I have quite a few species visit my garden and they have a mix of berries as well as the suet and seeds on offer from feeders. I also regularly clean and top up water for the birds and any visiting mammals (we do get mice, foxes and badgers). Mrs R, the local robin, likes to visit me for a handful of meal worms but she also accompanies me when I'm working on my no dig patch and it's always lovely seeing her.
