September jobs on the allotment

• Legend says, if it's fair on September 1, it will be fair for the entire month.
• This month as autumn approaches it is time to give some thought to getting the garden and allotment ready for the colder months ahead.
• It is a ideal time to begin getting plants ready for the winter and to plant spring bulbs, harvest fruit and vegetables.

Herbs

• Dig up your frost tender herbs such as rosemary, basil, tarragon, oregano, marjoram, thyme, parsley, and chives to grow them inside as houseplants. Keep them in a cool, sunny spot, and allow the soil to dry out before watering. Snip off the leaves as needed in the kitchen, but do not strip them completely.

Vegetables

• Harvest maincrop potatoes if there are signs of slugs or wireworm, otherwise wait until the foliage dies down.
• Dry onions, garlic and shallots ready for storage.
• Keep picking sweetcorn, courgettes, beans, cucumbers and tomatoes, and quick crops such as carrots.
• Put pumpkins and winter squashes in a sunny place to ripen.
• Sow winter salads.
• Lift and store root vegetables before they loose their quality.
• Leave the roots of pea and bean plants in the soil to increase fertility.
• Sow main crop or Japanese onions.
• Trim parsley to encourage fresh shoots.
• Earth up celery and winter greens.
• Break up new soil for next years crops.
• Cover bare ground by sowing green manures.
• Plant out spring greens sown last month.
• Stake Brussels sprouts, and sprouting broccoli.
• Pick beans for drying.
• Net the cabbage family (brassicas) to keep pigeons off during the winter months.

Fruit

• Pick autumn raspberries which should be cropping now. Keep harvesting regularly and freeze any excess fruit.
• Tidy up the strawberries and plant new strawberry plants.
• Cut out old fruited raspberry wood. Leave the autumn fruiting canes alone, they will be pruned early next year.
• Prune peaches after harvesting the fruit.
• Blackcurrants can also be pruned and cuttings taken.
• Prune off and burn mildewed tips of gooseberries.
• When the fruit is ripe, apple pips are black.
• Clean and tidy the fruit store.
• Order new trees and bushes.

General

• Turn/moisten compost heap/bin.