GINA PARKINSON finds that a delicate-looking geranium is good value second time around this year.

THE hardy geraniums that were cut back after flowering in July have clumped up again with fresh foliage and, as hoped, a flush of new flowers.

The best of the bunch has been Geranium clarkei ‘Kashmir White’, a delicate-looking plant with deeply cut leaves on thin stems and lovely pale lilac-veined white flowers.

The first flowers appear in June and have usually finished in late July or early August. After that, the foliage tends to flop, so at this point it is cut hard back in our garden.

At the crown of the plant, just coming through there will be tiny new leaves which, once given light and a good watering if the weather is dry, will soon fill the space.

This year we have also had a really good second flowering which unusually has been as good as the first, especially in a well-drained partially shaded raised bed.

• In the vegetable garden

IT IS time to start clearing the vegetable garden after the great summer. Sweetcorn and outdoor cucumber have come to their end in our garden and need to be pulled up and put on to the compost heap.

The courgettes are still managing to flower and fruit, and although they have slowed down they will be left for a little longer for the last of the crop to ripen. The potatoes were dug up a couple of weeks ago and are now stored in a paper sack in a dry shed. We will have enough to keep us going this winter.

I am leaving the runner beans to go to seed. As usual, far too many were planted; a dozen went in and really we need at the most half of these.

The first pickings from these plants are lovely, sweet and crunchy and can be eaten straight from the plant, but they soon get stringy. Once the freezer is full and the pickle made, the only thing to do is leave them on the plant to go to seed.

The pods will eventually turn dry and brown and rattle with seed. They can then be picked and some of the beans kept for next year’s harvest.

The rest can be used for eating by soaking for a few hours, then cooking in fresh water until soft. To make sure they are thoroughly cooked, bring them to the boil and cook for ten minutes before reducing the heat to a simmer for the rest of the time. The beans can added to winter stews and soups or to a garlicky tomato pasta sauce.

• Weekend catch-up

Now is the time to finish planting daffodil bulbs. It’s not yet too late but that moment is fast approaching, so I will be making it a priority this weekend.

My parents have given me a mixed bag of lovely fat daff bulbs brought back from a holiday in the Scilly Isles earlier this year. It is a pot-luck selection so all will be revealed next spring when they flower.

Daffodils are hardy plants that will cope with most sites in the garden, from full sun to light shade.

If the soil is heavy, it is a good idea to put a bit of grit in the bottom of the planting hole for the bulb to sit on. If it is very light, dig in a load of well-rotted garden compost or leaf mould to give it some body. Otherwise it is simply a case of choosing the spot and getting the bulbs in.

The planting hole should be three times the height of the bulb, so that when it is in the ground it is covered by twice its depth in earth.

Daffodils look best planted in loose clumps in gaps in the beds or under deciduous shrubs, where they will lend welcome colour to the spring garden.

As they fade, the shrubs and emerging perennials will hide the floppy foliage which needs to stay intact until it dies back. This can take a number of weeks but during that time will be feeding bulb for the following year’s flowers.

• Gardening TV and radio

Tomorrow
7.25am, BBC2, Gardeners’ World. Carol Klein looks at wild and cultivated heather.

8am, BBC Radio Humberside, The Great Outdoors. With Blair Jacobs and Doug Stewart.

7.55am, The Beechgrove Garden. The team visits the Scottish Chilli Festival.

9am, BBC Radio York, Julia Lewis.

9am, BBC Radio Leeds, Tim Crowther and Joe Maiden.

2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Chris Beardshaw, Pippa Greenwood and Bunny Guinness join chairman Eric Robson in this special edition of the programme on board the Settle-Carlisle railway.

Friday 
3pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. The programme focuses on autumn colour this with Bob Flowerdew, Bunny Guinness and Matthew Wilson advising the audience at RHS Garden Rosemoor in Devon. Peter Gibbs chairs the discussion.