There is something satisfying about tidying up the plot for winter but the closed season here has been put on hold. It has been an outrageously fine autumn and we are still awash with colour - carnations, snapdragons, coreopsis, verbena, even some sunflowers, all in full bloom. And see my artichokes. It has been a long year for my best friends in the veg garden, delivering a crop in June and again in October. I've even mastered the heart surgery required to extricate the edible centre from the prickly shell. But it's now time to pamper them for the winter. Having survived at -12degC last winter, they don't seem too fussed about a bit of frost but damp and frost will likely do them in. So stems and leaves are cut back almost to ground level, their roots protected with a thick mulch of manure and their crowns covered with bracken fronds to let them breathe. Talking of fronds, take a look at that asparagus. I'll be cutting my fist crop in the spring. Can't wait.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
And so to bed...
There is something satisfying about tidying up the plot for winter but the closed season here has been put on hold. It has been an outrageously fine autumn and we are still awash with colour - carnations, snapdragons, coreopsis, verbena, even some sunflowers, all in full bloom. And see my artichokes. It has been a long year for my best friends in the veg garden, delivering a crop in June and again in October. I've even mastered the heart surgery required to extricate the edible centre from the prickly shell. But it's now time to pamper them for the winter. Having survived at -12degC last winter, they don't seem too fussed about a bit of frost but damp and frost will likely do them in. So stems and leaves are cut back almost to ground level, their roots protected with a thick mulch of manure and their crowns covered with bracken fronds to let them breathe. Talking of fronds, take a look at that asparagus. I'll be cutting my fist crop in the spring. Can't wait.
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Ah nice to see a new post and glad you are enjoying the season - its extended my bike riding by a month as well which is nice and i have flowers on strawberries and blackberrys is that weird or what ?
ReplyDeletePS dont go bunking off early today according to the shallow oniosn widgets you are in for a heavy shower or two this pm. 16 deg tomorrow though!