Beautiful Autumn Blues

It’s been a very busy few weeks in the garden. It’s mid September and harvest season is drawing to a close. My raised beds are beginning to look very empty, the polytunnel is bare and my perennials are beginning to wither away for the winter.

Strangely enough, even with the plot looking worse for wear, it’s a great time of year in the garden. The weather is good, there’s always something to harvest and all the plans for next year begin to form. On Saturday, the weather was surprisingly hot for this time of year, it seems we’re having an Indian summer. It hasn’t rained in a few weeks, which shows on the plot, my soil is dry and cracked and very difficult to cultivate. That being said, I’m not complaining, I’m enjoying the nice weather while it lasts.

A few weeks ago, I harvested my red and white onions and I’ve had them drying in the polytunnel. I didn’t have a huge amount of success with my onions this year, most of my red onions didn’t bulk up, no doubt because of the very dry summer. However, I did get a lovely crop of Stuttgarter Giant onions. I’ve had another rhubarb rich year, it just thrives in my soil and is no doubt my most prolific crop. Every time I visit the plot lately, I have peas to harvest too, it’s just a shame I never get them home as I have a tendency to eat them while on the plot, they’re just too irresistible.

With growing season all but winding to a close, I’m beginning to clean up the plot (and believe me, it needs it) and plan for next year. It won’t be long before I’m covering up the raised beds for winter. I do plan on planting some over wintering crops like purple sprouting broccoli (a personal favourite), winter cabbages and garlic. It’s also the time of year to begin planting spring bulbs, this year I hope to plant a full array of spring flowers to begin next year with a splash of colour. For now, I’ll just have to be content with the beautiful Autumn blues of my herb garden.

I’ll also be beginning to collect fallen leaves to make a leaf mold to use on the plot next year. A gardeners work is never done, in fact, I dont think I’ve ever had such a long to do list for the garden. In part this is due to a busy summer during which, I didn’t exactly neglect the plot but I didn’t get to put in as much time as I would have liked.

The past few weeks I’ve put in more work on the plot than all year and it is beginning to pay off, though there is still a huge amount of work to do. The messy corner is still a disaster and the whole section outside my polytunnel lies empty.

We had a harvest day on site a few weeks ago so I’ll be writing about that tomorrow. Until then, happy growing and happy harvesting.