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 seem 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 veg 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 manure and compost on a day it isn’t raining (few and far between of late) and then cover again for the worst of the winter months. The cover will come off in late winter early spring. Once I have cleared the main veg bed of all weeds, I will treat this bed in the same way this year as I am not growing any winter vegetables.

The Greenhouse, having been cleared and cleaned, can now be utilised for winter storage. I have placed my Agapanthus plants in there for the winter as I do every year as well as having moved my Salvia Hot Lips growing in a pot to the shelter of the tall open fronted log store I have that I use for storing plants over the colder months. The Kniphofia Flamenco Mixed has joined the Salvia, this will die down over the winter being perennial, but I like to give it a little protection from the worst of the British winter. I lost three Salvia Hot Lips plants to the heavy snowfall last winter and have learnt my lesson from that experience. If you can offer your plants in pots some shelter, I would heartily recommend doing so.  

The leaves are falling at a rate of knots at the moment, I think the Cherry Tree dropped all it's leaves in a couple of days tis year, and they will naturally be raked up and added to the leaf-mould bin though that is a job easier in drier weather than wet. The lawn is also unnaturally long at this time of year following all the rain and I may give that a light clip over as and when the sun shines or it will be knee high come next spring! 

I am toying with the idea of putting up some more nesting boxes in the garden. I had Blue Tits nest in 2022 but nothing took up residence this summer; though the boxes were checked out by a few Tits they clearly didn't offer what they wanted! I will hang them on the fence pointing as north-easterly as I can get it. The RSPB advice is unless there are trees or buildings which shade the box during the day, face the box between north and east, thus avoiding strong sunlight and the wettest winds. Fingers crossed they catch the attention of the local Tit population in 2024. 

Cheers 🍺