Jobs in the garden and on the vegetable patch preparing for winter

I am writing this article on an unseasonably warm Saturday morning in October, the thermometer tells me it is twenty Celsius. The garden is still looking surprisingly fine considering the clocks go back this weekend and next week we are into November. The Salvia Hot Lips remain covered in bloom, Marigolds are still in flower in their pots, I have tomatoes ripening outdoors (hopefully anyway) and one of the Agapanthus still has a bloom on it! 

I will be pruning the Climbing Rose this afternoon and as it is now pretty established it is a simple case of training the stems I want to keep horizontally to encourage flowering and cutting back where it has outgrown its support. As for new stem for next season which will carry the flowers, when pruning climbers, cut just above a bud that points in the direction that you want a new stem and let the rose do what it does. 

I have already taken a few cuttings from my Zonal Geraniums, Pelargoniums to give them their correct name as I understand it, and this is a little job I undertake every autumn. You can overwinter the mature plants under cover but this requires quite a lot of space and digging up plants in borders to be placed in pots, so taking cuttings is the best approach for most people. They are amongst the easiest plants to take cuttings from, simply cut from the mother plant just above a leaf joint on the main stem and then trim the cutting you’ve taken to just below the joint. Remove most but not all the leaves and pop into a small pot of decent compost to stand indoors over winter, I use the Conservatory, keeping them in a light, dry atmosphere, don’t over water but don’t let them dry out. I have three plants in the garden at the moment that were cuttings overwintered and these can trace their lineage back through several generations of cuttings all the way back to plants my father grew over ten years ago. So far this year I have taken three cuttings from the red flowered plant and three from white flowered plants giving me six little plants that will, hopefully, overwinter before going out into the garden come spring 2023.

I will be cleaning out the Greenhouse over the next few days as the Tomatoes in there are finished. They will be chopped up and composted, and the glass given a good washdown to clear any pests and disease as well as help let in plenty of light over the winter as the Agapanthus will be stored in there for the coming colder months.

The Vegetable Patch doesn't need much work yet as most of it still has Parsnips, Carrots and Leeks growing all of which will sit happily over the next few months and I will harvest as required. The Courgette will be taken out and the Pepper as they are both done; I have already cleared away what was left of the bitterly disappointing Runner Beans this year.

I will be having a bit of a tidy up in the potting shed as they has become an organised mess recently, as it so often does at the end of the growing season. I actually quite enjoy a winters afternoon or evening in there with the radio on pottering about cleaning tools and planning for next year. Talking of next year I have already ordered a number of seeds.

Thus far ordered from the seed catalogue's are Tomato Pink Brandywine (no surprise if you have read any of my other articles), this American heirloom beefsteak variety was a huge success this year in every sense of the word. I have also ordered some Tomato Buffalosteak again as they were also a big success in the Greenhouse, are very tasty eaten raw, fried or baked and make great Tomato Ketchup. I will also be trying a new variety to me, another heirloom, this time from Germany, in the shape of Tomato Bloody Butcher. Another that has Potato like foliage my research into this one suggests it will produce crops of gold ball sized fruit with a dark 'blood-red' juice. It reportedly is one of the first varieties to ripen, ripening in only about 60-days, and continues all summer long. Other seeds ordered are Carrot Paris Market Atlas, rounded, bite-sized carrots with a smooth, bright orange skin that can be grown in containers; I grew them once in an old Paddling Pool. They are a favourite of mine as well as many family and friends, easy to grow and tasty, what's not to like. Good old Parsnip Gladiator is on the list again, a standard on so many veg patches, its the variety I grew this year and have done many times before. Finally I have Leek Autumn Giant 2. I have never grown this particular Leek,  but it has the RHS Award of Garden Merit, has good resistance to bulbiness and bolting I am told and stands well all winter so hopefully should be a winner. 

Finally, a little job for this afternoon is planting my Narcissi Paperwhite. A delicate Narcissi that actually doesn't do very well outdoors in the UK, it is native to the Mediterranean, but will grow happily in a pot indoors and if sowed now should be in flower for Christmas - flowers 8-10 weeks after planting. 

Cheers 🍺