The last of these posts for this year, I think, although in spite of the darker evenings and far colder temperatures, it’s been a fairly productive garden month.
We started with a surprising amount of colour still present - the nasturtiums, slow to get going this year, finally started producing flowers with abandon, the Rose Campion was still producing flowers, and the ever enthusiastic Campanula was also still predictably throwing in the occasional burst of blue, too! Regardless, it was time to begin a bit of clearing back - first the runner beans, the obelisk and frames needed dismantling so the pants were chopping back to a foot or so above the ground and chopped up for composting - which left the bin VERY full!
Two bags of compost were dug out of the base of the bin to make room for for at least a bit more in the top - the great news is that what we dug out was glorious stuff - black and crumbly, and with few worms present which suggests they’ve done their job and moved up to fresher layers above. Those we found were relocated straight to the top!
Growbags have been split open and upended straight into the main veggie bed as a mulch layer - the winter frosts will help them break down into the soil and the roots will rot down, with any remaining nutrients absorbed into the soil. Tomato pots have been emptied and the contents used in the same way - but only onto areas where we know we won’t want to grow either toms or potatoes in future years, although we haven’t seen any signs of blight we’d sooner not take the risk!
The remaining tomatoes on the plants had been picked and set on the windowsill to ripen as I mentioned last month - we’ve found in previous years that the living room windowsill is a good spot for this, bright and relatively cool. I got a further batch of pasta sauce from those too - more home grown delight to see us into the winter months. We also stripped the chilli plants, eventually giving up on the hope that any more would ripen to red - the hours of sunshine had just got too short to allow it. I clearly remember taking a photo of those but there is no sign of it now, annoyingly. We got a great harvest though - all the more pleasing as these were the “Bishop’s Crown” seeds - free from the gardening magazine we subscribe to. No real heat to speak of but a beautiful flavour.
We have plans to reorganise things a little in the garden come the spring - with the compost bin being relocated to allow for more room for sun loving tomatoes, peppers and chillies. We’ve also started planning the things we want to grow, and noting any seeds we will need to purchase. I have to track down more of the little bush tomatoes I like, and there are a few other things recommended by various gardening pals I want to try as well.
See you for the next “in the garden” post in the spring!
Robyn
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