TIME FOR A TIDY UP

TIME FOR A TIDY UP

The summer fruit, flowers and vegetables have all had a great time, but autumn is not too far away so now is a great time to get the garden totally cleaned up before the leaves start to fall. Some weeds such as groundsel and pennycress keep germinating well into autumn so take the chance of any dry days to remove them. There is still time to tackle any perennial weeds with a glyphosate weedkiller, but it needs plenty of leaves to absorb the chemical so it can translocate it down into the root system. This chemical needs a couple of dry days to work. It is not taken in by the roots as the chemical is deactivated by contact with the soil. Some serious weeds such as mares tail will need a repeat dose after a couple of weeks.

Most summer fruiting strawberries are well past fruiting so the foliage can be cut back and removed together with any straw laid between the rows. This can all be composted, though some of the straw is perfect for placing under pumpkin fruits. As these grow larger it is good to keep them off the bare soil to keep the skins clean.

On the allotment make sure any rows of fruit or vegetables such as cabbage, sprouts, swedes and autumn salads are kept weed free, but other areas where crops are finished can be left as weeds can be dug in during the late autumn digging.

Blackcurrants, redcurrants, saskatoons and gooseberries as well as summer fruiting raspberries have all finished fruiting so pruning can be done at any time. It is not necessary to wait till winter when all the leaves are off though this does make it easier.

If you have access to a shredder the prunings can all be shredded and added to the compost heap.

Gladioli, early flowering chrysanthemums and sweet peas grown for cut flower can be cut as they flower. Sweet peas benefit from flower removal to encourage more to grow.

Other summer flowers such as geraniums, roses, cosmos and poppies will continue to flower as long as you remove any seed heads as soon as the flowers fade.

Grow a green manure crop to increase soil fertility.

Many summer crops such as courgettes, peas, beans, potatoes, onions, brassicas, sweet corn and salads are now finished so there is time to sow a green manure crop to get some growth before winter. These can be dug in during winter or some such as tares can be left till early spring then dug in. Green manure crops have strong root systems that help to break up the soil creating a fine crumb structure to improve drainage and once they break down they add a lot of humous to the soil. Many types such as the clovers have nitrogen fixing nodules on the roots which absorb atmospheric nitrogen and fix it onto their roots. This is released on breakdown as a nitrogenous fertiliser to improve the next crop.

 

Tidy up herbaceous border

Delphiniums, oriental poppies, flag iris and many other plants have now all finished flowering so foliage can be cut back and tidied up. Remove any supports, canes and strings and any weeds previously hidden by the foliage.

Plant of the week

Hydrangeas are an easy popular deciduous shrub flowering in mid summer. They can grow quite large in time but different species can vary and the climbing hydrangeas can be quite rampant. The blue flowered types prefer an acid soil and the pink and red ones prefer soil with a higher pH. To intensify the blue coloured flowers you can use a blue colorant chemical containing aluminium sulphate.
Pruning to remove dead flower heads is normally all that is needed, other than removal of straggly shoots. Propagate by taking cuttings of non flowering shoots in summer and autumn.

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UNDER GLASS

UNDER GLASS

Tomatoes just love my new greenhouse. It was built on the foundations of the previous one blown down in last December gales, but was a lot stronger and also taller. So tall that I couldn’t reach the ventilators so I had to raise the central path and back fill the borders with a mixture of good top soil and Discovery compost. I planted my tomatoes direct into the soil after giving them a decent dressing of fertiliser. They will be a lot happier in fresh soil rather than growbags and the tomatoes should be a lot healthier with access to a soil based growing medium with plenty of nutrients and micronutrients. However I still give them a feed twice a week.

The plants soon grew away fast and furious so I had to stop them after seven trusses when they reached nearly seven feet tall. Normally we remove the lower leaves which begin to die off and this also helps watering, but this year they have all been very healthy so I have been very selective in leaf removal as it is the leaves that feed the bunches of tomatoes.

Alicante has again been brilliant and gardeners delight still a great cherry tomato. I have not been impressed with the new yellow cherry tomato Ildi. It is a very poor cropper and can never compare to Gardeners Delight or Sweet Million which both give lots of sweet but small cherry tomatoes.

It has been great to get back to eating a tasty tomato allowed to fully ripen before being picked.

Grapes are also having a great year with Black Hamburg well ahead of Flame and Perlette for number and size of grapes. Constant training by removal of all sideshoots and now some leaves allows sunlight into the plants and will help the ripening process. Although the old grape vine stems were left outside exposed to the winter from December to March while the old greenhouse was being removed and the new greenhouse was being built it did them no harm whatsoever.

The grapes all got several feeds while swelling up and sideshoot removal meant the plants can direct all their energies into the fruit bunches rather than growth. Flame is now ready for picking.

My white Phalaenopsis orchid never lets you down. It can be relied on to flower every year with a huge spike lasting many weeks. It was kept in a warm bathroom where it would enjoy the moist atmosphere and early morning sunshine through the obscure glass windows. The plant had grown quite far out of its pot so it got repotted in spring with fresh orchid compost after removing a lot of old roots but keeping the crown out of the compost as well as many of the aerial roots.

It soon put on a couple of new leaves then the flower spike.

Other house plants are now quite dormant as my Christmas cactus (Zygocactus) has had its period of summer growth so is now into drying out induced dormancy. It will get a periodic watering no more than every six weeks to keep it alive. The next watering will be when the flower buds appear in early winter. My Amaryllis has also had its summer growth period and is now being dried off to ripen up the bulb to induce good flower spikes for flowering in the winter. The bulbs have divided into several smaller bulbs but these were encouraged to grow so I can get several flowering spikes from one large plant.  

Plant of the week

Peach Peregrine is quite a challenge outdoors in Scotland. It really needs a very sheltered spot on a warm wall facing south. It will grow into a small tree, but growth can be restricted by training into a fan shape against the wall and spur pruning. Spraying against peach leaf curl has not been very effective. Peaches flower very early but still need pollinating. Hand pollination is necessary as there are very few bees around at that time, but then a period of decent warm weather is required for the pollinated flowers to fertilise successfully. Three years ago my outdoor peach gave me a dozen peaches, but last year and this year only one fruit made it to harvest.

I will persevere with them but they really need a bit more global warming.

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LATE SUMMER HARVEST

LATE SUMMER HARVEST

The allotment crops are now being harvested at breakneck speed. Some crops such as salads, potatoes, broad beans, courgettes and turnips are running ahead of last year by a few weeks, but others not affected. In fact my summer cabbage and cauliflower are a week later to harvest. August weather brought a severe halt to our very warm and dry summer, but it was great while it lasted and summer fruit crops have never been better.

It is difficult to find room in our freezers for all the produce, and there is always some more to find a home for every time you visit the allotment plot. We eat as much as possible, but it is difficult for two pensioners to get through a cabbage, two turnips, three cauliflowers and five massive courgettes plus any amount of salads and beetroot each week.

Vegetables

This has been a great year for a succession of salads and beetroot, and turnips would also have been great if my Purple Top Milan had not all run to seed. Red stemmed Swiss chard has been prolific and though some has bolted and been removed, there has been plenty others ready to grow into the vacant space.

Onion Hytech bulbs were all lifted at the beginning of August before the rains came and are now being dried off for storing. The crop from my heat treated sets was decent, but not as great as it normally is when they are grown from seed sown in March.

Potatoes had to be lifted early as black leg disease appeared on a few shaws, then in early August the weather cooled down and the rain returned bringing on the blight which rapidly went through all the foliage. Lifted spuds need drying off for storage in an airy but dark frost free place. Keep an eye on then in case some tubers start to rot from the blight.

 Summer cabbage Kilaton and cauliflower Clapton have been brilliant as they are both clubroot resistant, though it has been difficult picking off caterpillers.

Sweet corn is running later than normal, but looks like a great crop still to come.

Fruit

This has been a great year for strawberries, raspberries, brambles, all the currants and saskatoons. Saskatoon picking ended at the beginning of August, but then the first of my blueberries started to ripen. Wasps have been a real pest on blueberries this year.

Autumn Bliss raspberries have started to crop and should continue till well into autumn.

Our first outdoor figs were picked in early August with a lot more to come, and now the early apples, Arbroath Pippin and Discovery are ready.

Flowers

Summer flowers, especially poppies, have responded to the hot dry sunny weather, but now they are taking a break. Fuchsias that were a mass of flowers have lost most of them and geraniums are well past their best. I hope that once this cool wet period finishes and the summer returns the flowers will all come out again.

Plant of the week

Cottage Pink Odessa has pink scented flowers all summer. It grows up to a foot tall but spreads in time giving good ground cover. They are best in well drained soil in full sun.

They are easy to propagate with cuttings in late summer.

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THE FINAL SOWINGS

THE FINAL SOWINGS

Now that our crops are being harvested the ground can look pretty bare. Many salad crops such as lettuce, radish, rocket and spring onion have a short season, but repeat sowings every couple of months will keep you supplied over a long period. My broad beans were the first vegetable crop to get picked then the old plants were dug up, and then chopped up for the compost heap. This land has already been sown down with a late variety of lettuce for cutting in the autumn. However half of the area was used for transplanting my wallflower seedlings to grow on into sturdy plants ready for planting in my flower beds in October.

Early and maincrop peas were all picked by mid August. These were then cleared off the ground making it ready for the next sowings. A quick maturing early pea is useful not only in spring for an early crop but also in the autumn for a late crop to mature by mid October.

Strawberry variety Mae is an early type which I grew under low polythene tunnels to give me an early crop. Although they finished many weeks ago I am leaving the beds until they give me some runners to start another couple of rows then the old plants will get dug in. Strawberry Symphony and Rhapsody fruited continued my strawberry supplies till the first week of August, then my perpetual variety Flamenco started to fruit and hopefully will continue till late autumn.

Once the old strawberry bed has been dug over the land will get a green manure crop of clover sown down to keep the soil fertility at a high level.

August is the month when a lot of crops get harvested and the land can then be cleared.

Early beetroot has all been lifted over several weeks then the ground cleared for the next crop.

Early and maincrop potatoes have also been lifted and the land cleared.

Onions have had a great summer, but got lifted ahead of the forecast for some serious rainfall.

Sweet corn always ripens all at once, usually in mid August so harvesting gets done in one day. The ground can then be cleared putting the old plants on the compost heap after chopping them up with a spade. This gives us more land for some more vegetables.

Summer cabbage and cauliflower using the clubroot resistant varieties has been very successful and gave us fresh vegetables during August and September, but after cutting and clearing up all the old plants there is plenty of ground for another sowing as the growing season is not finished.

An allotment need not just produce one crop per year, but with some planning can be very productive often getting in at least two crops per year.

If you keep a diary and record sowing dates and harvesting times you build up a picture over time of what is on the ground and how long each crop needs. With this knowledge you can plan crop successions efficiently. A lot of land is cleared of summer crops by mid August, so you can be ready for the next sowings and plantings to keep you supplied in fresh vegetables over a longer time.

Dwarf French beans sown in cellular pots in early July are ready to plant in mid August for a late crop.  Spring cabbage Wheelers Imperial and Cauliflower Aalsmeer were both sown the first week in July in trays and the young plants brought on in cellular pots were planted in early August. These will remain in the ground over winter and be ready to harvest in May next year.

I am trying out two varieties of lettuce, Hilde 11 and Vaila sown mid August for over wintering. Last year I tried Arctic King which was very successful giving me fresh lettuce from late autumn till spring, but then we did get a very mild winter.

Rocket, radish, mixed salad leaves and Mooli radish have all been sown on spare land to keep me supplied with salads till winter. Some of these will be transplanted into old growbags once these are free in late October.

However by early September it will be too late to grow crops but not too late to sow down a green manure crop of clover or tares. These can be left to grow for many weeks before digging in during the winter.

Plant of the week

Border phlox, Phlox paniculata is a must for the herbaceous border coming in a range of colours from bright reds to pinks, mauves and white. Newer varieties are less tall so do not need staking. They prefer a rich moist soil in partial shade and make a great companion to Heucheras.

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