The weather can be lovely in September, allowing us to carry on harvesting summer crops, which can make it difficult to pull them up and make room for winter ones! We may be able to put off thinking about winter, but one fact we can’t escape is the shortening days. They will soon be too short for most plants to put on any significant growth, which is why winter crops need to be in the ground as quickly as possible.
The number of frost-free nights is also decreasing, and it’s time to think about bringing in the crops that will be damaged by frost, storing and preserving them. And also about saving seeds for future seasons, which may require plants to be brought undercover so that seeds can mature and dry properly.
If you’re buying seeds or garden supplies then it’s worth noting that T&M is offering a £20 discount on orders over £100 this year. You can access that offer by clicking this link. It should automagically apply the right coupon code to your shopping basket. That’s an affiliate link, and if you click through and make a purchase I’ll earn a few pennies to keep me in seed potatoes.
Vegetables to sow in September
What to harvest in September
September is one of the main months for harvesting apples, which can come in such abundance that juicing is the only solution! Some apples are best eaten fresh, while others can be carefully stored away for winter use, individually wrapped so that they don’t touch, and kept somewhere cool but frost-free. When storing any produce, it’s important to only store fruits and vegetables that show no sign of disease and to check your stores regularly to use any that are past their best and to remove any that are rotting.
Now is also an excellent time to dig out recipes for chutney, and some
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More and more these days, the media is full of stories of superfoods – usually fruits with high concentrations of antioxidants. The blueberry led the superfood charge, but has been left behind by newer and more exotic rivals, such as acai berries, goji berries and the yumberry.
Although August is the height of the summer, and it’s worthwhile taking time to stop and smell the roses, the vegetable gardener also has to be aware that autumn is just around the corner. That doesn’t have to be a depressing thought! It just means you need to harvest any crops that won’t survive the first frosts, and that you may want to preserve some so that you can have a homegrown taste of summer during the winter months. You should have some new crops on the way to look forward to, and be thinking about potting up herbs to bring under cover for the winter.
Gayla Trail over at You Grow Girl has been blogging recently about an illness that has kept her from gardening this year, and how that makes her feel, and as a result she has rebooted her Grow Write Guild series of writing prompts by asking gardeners to write about a time when they were unable to garden, for whatever reason.
A little while ago I was talking about the recent extended period in my life when, for a variety of reasons, I was unable to garden. As it happens, I have been reading The Resilient Gardener, by Carol Deppe, which is subtitled “Food production and self-reliance in uncertain times”.
A seed potato is a potato that has been grown to be replanted to produce a potato crop. It’s the usual way that potatoes are made available to farmers and growers – although it is possible to produce potato seeds (also known as True Potato Seed, TPS), it is unusual to do so.
If October starts warm it can provide a nice breathing space, to catch up late harvesting, saving seeds and generally getting the garden ready for the winter. It’s also the time to cover any bare soil, with mulches if necessary, to protect your soil structure from bad weather, and to ensure any tall plants (mainly brassicas) are staked against ‘wind rock’, which can lift their roots out of the soil. You may also need to net brassicas to stop them being munched by marauding pigeons.
This time last year, we remember the unfinished parts of the garden being mostly bog. It was so wet that it delayed us finishing the garden – it was hard to prepare the ground for the new raised beds. The weather couldn’t be more different this year, as the traditional April showers fail to appear, and I’ve taken to watering plants in containers. I know plenty of gardeners were praying for rain, even over the Bank Holiday weekend (when, as we well know, rain often stops play!).
Ah, April, a month that gives us leaves on the trees, blossom in the hedgerow, and a headache with its changeable weather. We gardeners would love April to be a season of sunshine and soft showers. But, instead, we need to plan for sleet and hail, or even snow. As the effects of climate change are felt more widely, we may even need to forego thinking of April as a rainy month at all, and just an extension of dry winters. It’s also at least a month before we can be relatively sure that there will be no more frosts.
May is a lovely month in the garden, although it’s a busy time for the gardener! It’s a good sowing month, plants will be growing strongly in the higher temperatures and light levels, and there will be some harvests on offer. You’ll also be able to watch the birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife enjoying your organic plot!