Saturday 16 October 2010

A Task List for Autumn

Garden Dad and I sat down on Thursday night and made a list of everything we want to get done in the garden over the next few weeks so here it is:

  1. Harvest all our root crops. For us this means pulling up carrots and leeks (if they have actually grown bigger than Garden Lass's toes), main crop potatoes, swede, turnip, beetroot and Jerusalem artichoke. This is a brilliant task for our Little Garden Helpers to get involved with and is something I can easily do with them during the week.
  2. Once things have been harvested they will need sorting to make sure any damaged crops are not stored with healthy ones. Garden Girl in particular loves this task, so I imagine I can put her in charge of this while I find some space to put all the vegetables we will be storing.
  3. Any damaged ones that can be salvaged by cutting out the bad bits will need to be cooked, but hopefully there won't be too many of these and I won't spend the following days in the kitchen!
  4. As bare soil is left behind we will need to give it a quick dig over and this year we have been thinking about spreading some green manure which we can then just dig into the soils in spring. Hopefully this will not only be good for the soil but it will also keep those weeds at bay. I can dream at least!
  5. Autumn is also the right time of year to take root cuttings of mint and hardwood cuttings of lavender and rosemary. We will be taking cuttings of all three of these this year and I will write a post on this when we have some cuttings sitting happily in their pots. These herbs should also be cut back in autumn.
  6. We were also thinking about taking cuttings from our gooseberry and currant bushes, although as they are in their first year we are happy to leave these if we run out of time, but we will definitely cut them back before the end of autumn.
  7. Garden Girl and Garden Boy will not be happy if we do not plant some things and with our successful harvest earlier in the year we will definitely be planting garlic bulbs again. We will also plant some broad beans and if we have time some spring cabbage. I would also like to try a pot of mixed herbs in the greenhouse to keep us going over the winter. They may have to come inside the house if the weather gets too cold but its worth a try I think.
  8. And then there is lots of general tidying up; cleaning up empty pots, raking up leaves and pulling up weeds.
  9. We also want to dig out the pathways between the raised beds while the soil is soft. Once the frosts arrive the ground will be too be hard so the earlier we can get going with this the better. Ideally by next spring we will have proper pathways laid so there won't be quite so much mud!
There is more to do a little later in the season but if I keep going I might panic so for the moment that feels like a manageable list. 

    4 comments:

    1. That list sounds much like mine... phew, I get slightly overwhelmed by it. But I should relax cos it will just sort itself out in the end. x

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    2. This year is the first year I have grown Jerusalem artichokes but my gardening 'bible' says not ready for harvesting until foliage dies back. Then dig only as required as apparently they don't keep once out of the ground. Mine are flowering which is quite exciting - though as the flowers are about 7 or 8 feet above ground they are not terribly impressive. The flowers are like half sized sunflowers btw.

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    3. I look forward to reading about your mint, rosemary, and lavender cuttings. I never managed to get any of mine to take off and develop roots this year.

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    4. A really useful list, thanks so much.

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