A busy Sunday afternoon in the Garden tidying and harvesting

-

It was a chilly day down my way Sunday but one of those lovely sunny afternoons which as long as you are suitably wrapped up against the cold is lovely to work in. I dug out the old West Ham woolly hat and a thermal vest and ventured bravely into the cold. 

I mentioned earlier this month that the clearing of leaves will be high on the list of jobs in November and as you can see from the photo below I've had a few fall in the garden over the last few days! It might not be everyone's idea of a fun afternoon but once you get going raking-up leaves can be quite therapeutic and gives you a little cardio workout to boot. Okay, it's not like going on a ten-mile run but you can get a sweat on plus you do get a feeling of a job well done when finished. 

I decided to cobble together a Leaf Mould bin; as described in the What jobs need doing in the garden in November post it doesn't have to be the most elaborate of structures. As you can see from the photo I have  simply wrapped some chicken wire around four sticks to create a very simple 'bin'. The leaves were dumped in and will be left to slowly breakdown over the coming weeks to form Leaf Mould; this will in turn be used as a mulch around the garden or added to compost to form potting mixes in due course. 

The Agapanthus have been moved to their winter quarters in the Greenhouse. Truth be told I am not sure which are hardy and which aren't so rather than tale a chance all have been moved undercover for the coming colder weeks. I may repot some of them at some point during the winter or in early spring. I am a huge fan of Agapanthus and expect a few more will be purchased in the New Year as well. 

Having had a slight frost in the morning, and being in the mood, I have pulled up the first two Parsnips. I have been growing the Gladiator F1 variety and on early evidence they have gone well. As you will see from the picture below one is a thing a beauty straight, long and of impressive size, plenty enough for a roast dinner on a chilly Sunday afternoon. The other is a bit of an ugly duckling but will, I have no doubt, taste just as sweet when roasted! 

Cheers 🍺


 


Location: London Borough of Havering, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Planning for the garden in 2024

-
Tis the season to be jolly and all that , and tis also the season to begin planning for the garden in 2024. I have been thumbing through the seed catalogues, a pastime almost as dangerous as Christmas shopping . I always s eem to find something that I had never heard of , but now knowing of its existence , simply now must have! Rarely does a year pass that I am not growing a vegetable or flower completely new to me; for me it is one of the great pleasures of gardening, there is always something new to grow.    I have been busy clearing the ve g beds removing the remnants of the Butternut Squash plants and Runner Beans to be composted and digging out the inevitable Dandelions , trying to get the entire tap root out as I do so. I will be adding quite a bit of compost and manure to the beds over the winter so having cleared and slightly dug over the bed where I grew outdoor Tomatoes this year, I have placed tarpaulin over this bed for now to keep weed seeds out . I will add the
Read more

Gardening through spring 2024 & the wind and rain

-
I have for one reason and another unable to update the blog as regularly as hoped so far this year, all being well usual service can now be resumed.  In my monthly column for the Romford Recorder I have spoken earlier in the year  about how with the somewhat wild weather we have experienced through late winter and early spring a lot of my time in the garden has been spent repairing wide damage to fences and the climbing rose trellis along with retrieving a compost bin lid that had flown two-doors down and collecting various flotsam and jetsam that had landed on my plot! Between the numerous rain bursts earlier in the year copious amounts of homemade compost, farmyard manure and blood, fish and bone were added and dug in across the veg patch beds and a sprinkling of chicken manure pellets was also added.  The soil in the Greenhouse was similarly refreshed again with some fresh compost, farmyard manure, blood, fish and bone, chicken manure pellets and in there potash as well all added an
Read more

Preparing the garden for winter and next year

-
Perhaps it is because I garden and as such become more attuned to the seasons, but I quite enjoy the onset of autumn. The shorter days, the s oftening light, the changes in the garden and the world around us as everything prepares for winter; there is a certain beauty to it. That said, there is plenty to be getting on with readying the garden for the weeks ahead and into next year.    The English Lavender has already been pruned back with the flowers now finished meaning the Miscanthus Indian Summer grasses are now the highlight of that bed. The plan for this bed was for the bronze stems and feathery seedheads of the grass to sit beautifully behind the green/silver foliage of the mounded Lavender plants and it is working I am happy to report and thus far the grasses are withstanding the battering they have received from all the recent wind and rain. It has to be said, though we haven't had it as bad as some parts of the country, the garden as a whole has withstood the storms pr
Read more