Autumn

A week ago I thought, it’s Autumn now, so I should start some clearing of my large garden. But everything in the flower borders seemed to be having a second flush, so I started in the vegetable garden.
My vegetable garden, that I made nearly 30 years ago on the solid clay of an uncultivated former apple orchard, has never been dug. I took the advice of an old farmer some of you may remember, Colin Underwood. He said “don’t dig it, that breaks up the soil structure”. Which was quite forward thinking for the time.                                  So I never have. Instead I hoe, frequently, with a digging or draw hoe, not a dutch hoe, and I add loads of my homemade garden compost on top of the soil, every year in late winter, into which I plant in early Spring. The weeds I hoe off are left for a day or two to shrivel up, and then roots and all are added to the compost heap. But I try not to add weeds in seed.

So I cleared and hoed away the beans of all kinds, and the green courgettes.
This year has been a bad year for beans. My broad beans gave me a good harvest because I sow them early in the greenhouse and plant out early. They don’t mind cold, and an early harvest mostly avoids blackly predation. I gave up sowing direct because then you get gaps. The runner beans were a total failure. Loads of flowers, and I thought great, a good harvest in store. But the flowers mostly dropped off and those that didn’t, gave me tough short little beans. Other people have had good results with Climbing French beans, which rarely fail. But this year, after the first early  pickings mine did 🙁
Just goes to show, gardening, for all your effort, is a game of chance.
My green courgettes had come to an end, although my one yellow plant is still producing.
So I hoed, and  I actually like looking at the clear bare soil. Isn’t that funny?

So in the borders, although everything is gigantic this year, and they’re looking very jungle like, I couldn’t in all earnest, start clearing anything yet. The cosmos are over 6’’ tall, the sunflowers, which Ive never had much success with previously, are about 12’ tall!
Lavender, osteopernum, buddleia, pelargoniums, and oh my god, the roses, just won’t stop. I’m deadheading like crazy and enjoying it while I can. Of course the Japanese Amemones are flourishing now, both pink and white, the zinnias are still producing fresh flowers, the salvias are still providing colour, red and blue, and the African Marigolds are having a field day, both in the borders and in the veg garden.
And so is the borage!!!!
I do have flowers in amongst the veg, for pollinators, and to discourage pests, or in the case of nasturtiums, as sacrificial plants. Although I’m always clearing away borage because it’s a real thug, the bees love it, and anyway, once you’ve had borage, you’ve always got borage.

I do not use any pesticide sprays in the garden anywhere, but I do use eco slug pellets when I first plant out tender veg seedlings. I’m a wimp about slugs, well it’s a phobia really. Eco slug pellets mean they go underground to die so I don’t have to see them. I always garden in gloves because I cannot bear to accidentally touch a slug. Every evening I go outside in the garden by torch light with my little dog, and when I do see slugs and snails, I carefully avoid them and pretend I haven’t seen them. 🙂

I also love looking at my wildlife pond by torchlight. Over the summer the frogs have been absent, but this week my big  fat spotty female has returned. She was fat like this last autumn and winter. On a wildlife gardening website an expert told me she’s full of spawn. So I know she’s been enjoying herself over summer!

Next time I’ll return to what and how I gradually clear more in the garden,  mulch everywhere and what with, and when I get my son to turn my compost heap into the adjacent bay, and prune my apple trees for me, jobs that are beyond me nowadays.