Saturday 4 September 2010

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. 

3 comments:

  1. Roll on September, nothing to do!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry, it's starting to look busy for September :o)

    ReplyDelete
  3. What are you doing to me? It is getting worse each day!

    I'll not have time to do it all, can you please remove some items to make it achievable?

    ReplyDelete