From our Correspondent

Autumn!

It has been a while since I put pen to paper, or should I say ‘fingers to keyboard’ to tell you what has been happening in my garden. Then, suddenly it’s autumn and we are all clearing ground and preparing for winter and perhaps being a bit less busy.

Perhaps a reflection on the recent season would be a good start. Generally, not bad! But of course, gardeners are never completely happy with what they produce, and always want to try and do better next year. To begin with the broad beans planted last autumn produced a good crop, and I had no problem with blackfly which can be a pain. The potatoes grew well on the surface but I was disappointed with my first early crop, a variety called ‘Winston’. They produced a large potato for a first early, but only one or two on a plant – and the flavour was not wonderful. The second earlies, ‘Nicola’ were much better, and tasted like a new potato should, although I have to admit not as good as ‘Charlotte’.

I grew my usual courgettes this year – ‘Green Bush’- and they produced a good ongoing crop, but the yellow ones I planted did nothing at all. I know they are usually a bit slow, but these plants simply did not produce any decent fruit and refused to grow to any size. I must be doing something wrong! A good row of mangetout peas produced a delicious crop, but of course, didn’t last very long, and as far as I know they are not good for freezing. However, the main crop peas – Hurst Green Shaft- really did well and we were able to freeze a good portion of the crop. The runner beans did reasonably well, but we have done better, and they didn’t win any prizes at the Summer Show!! I’m very good with leeks and we now have three long rows which will last us most of the winter.

A fine crop of leeks

Did I mention the strawberries? Delicious and plentiful for a short season and worth all the work! Bring on the cream and sugar.

I could go on about my successes and my failures, but as you know, that’s gardening for you. You win some and you lose some! Now we are doing all those autumn tasks and of course thinking about next year. I was fortunate in the summer in that I got a good take of spring cabbage plants, and planted them out looking really good. However, the local pigeons also though they looked good, and when I was not looking helped themselves. I have now had to surround the plants with a large cage of netting which will hopefully allow the eaten plants time to recover by the time we want to use them next spring.

Pigeon deterrant

There has been a lot of ground clearance and weeding, and the tomato plants have been cleaned out of the greenhouse. We are looking forward to enjoying our winter leeks and parsnips with Sunday lunch, but I think my brussels sprouts have got clubroot – which is not a good thing. They were the most successful sprouts I had grown last year! Now I have to think about winter digging and paying a visit to a friend who keeps some very well-rotted horse manure. More work!

Still, winters coming and the new Suttons Seeds catalogue is already out, and will make good fireside reading over the coming months. If you are a member of the Horticultural Society you can get a 50% reduction on the price of your order, and as gardeners are quite a parsimonious lot, that can only be a good thing.

Maurice Bard