I have a kind of love-hate relationship with this time of year in my veg garden. Part of me feels a huge sigh of disappointment at the general messiness of it all – the weeds, the old plants, the weeds – did I mention the weeds? – and wants to just abandon it all and cosy up indoors with copious amounts of tea. Another part of me really enjoys the clearing and getting things tidied up again and weed-free. And yet another part of me know that even if it soggy weather, I’ll still feel better for spending a couple of hours in the garden, and that next year’s growing season will thank me for it too.
Weeding
After rainy weather (we have had a lot over the past week) even the more established weeds are relatively easy to pull out from the looser soil. I have a medley of different sized weeds – most are as pictured above, but many of them are larger and on the verge of seeding, so it makes a lot of sense to pull them up now and whack them in the compost before they re-seed all over the shop. I find it so easy to procrastinate, but cracking on over this weekend will theoretically mean a much more weed-free plot when it comes to April next year.
For those that are smaller – like these ones pictured – quickly hoeing over the beds a few times over the next two weeks will do the trick and takes hardly any time at all.
Clearing
I find it immensely satisfying to pull up all the old plants at this time of year. It’s the same kind of feeling as a spring-clean, getting things back into order and ready to go.
These squash plants are not coming to much, having not really got going until we had some warmer weather in August, so I’ve given up on hoping that they will ripen. All the foliage will go into the compost anyway, so all is not lost. Not really. My runner beans are still going strong, but I’ll be pulling them up quite soon as well, along with all the battered-looking summer lettuces. Some of the beds will simply get covered for the winter (the ones that don’t get a lot of sunlight at this time of year) and others will get planted up with winter salads, brassicas and pak choi (I love pak choi and don’t think nearly enough people grow it – such a good grower at this time of year, and fun to cook with as well. As long as you can keep the slugs off it, you can’t really go wrong.)
Mulching
Having struggled a bit with my soil this year – partly due to poor compost I believe, and partly due to the weather – I’m planning to mulch with horse manure this autumn. Normally I’d simply add more compost, but instinct tells me that the soil needs a little extra this year, and horse manure is lovely and rich in nitrogen. Living in Cornwall, horse manure is usually quite easy to come by, sold in bags by the side of the road along country lanes. You have to be a bit careful, I find, when spreading it – one season I kept finding bits of rubber in the soil and only later realised that it must have been equestrian rubber scraped up into the bags of horse manure that I collected locally.
Whatever you choose to mulch with – horse manure, cow manure, seaweed, compost, leaf mould – this time of year really is good to get it done as it gives it time to break down and become more usable to the plants that you grow in spring. Think of it as a kind of leave-in soil conditioner.