Late sun reaps rewards (From Gazette & Herald)

Late sun reaps rewards

1:00pm Saturday 1st October 2011 in Gardening

GINA PARKINSON is making the most of the sunny spell to get to work on her autumn garden

The lovely weather we had at the end of September has perked up the garden no end and it still looks lush as we arrive at the beginning of October. The grass is emerald green, a colour reflected in numerous shades in the beds. Flowers are not as numerous as they were in mid July but there are still a few late-summer plants giving their all as the days shorten and evenings turn cooler.

Despite the sun tricking us into thinking we are temporarily living in another country, autumn is creeping up behind us and there is a feeling about the garden that this last-minute fling is transitory. Hues are subtly changing to warm reds and golds, herbaceous perennials are beginning to fade and spaces are appearing in beds where only a month or so ago there was no room to be had for even the smallest of plants. Lawns are dew sodden in the early morning and spiders abound inside and outside, hedges draped with dew-encrusted webs.

Although October doesn’t give us the numbers of flowers we have seen in the summer, there are some that will continue to bloom throughout the month unless frost appears.

Late-flowering Michaelmas daisies are always a good choice with blooms in shades of blue, purple and pink according to the variety.

Japanese anemones are also a good choice, usually pink or white with open flowers held on tall, slender stems.

Both these families of plants are easy to grow, the Michaelmas daisies liking more sun, the anemones happy in most positions and soils apart from very dry conditions in the sun.

Even then, an established plant will be quite happy in such a spot as long as the root system has been encouraged by copious watering in the first summer or two after planting.

In the veg patch

A number of things have recently conspired against us getting out into the garden over the past month or so and the vegetable garden has definitely been showing signs of neglect, weeds seizing their chance and on first glance appearing to have taken over the beds.

Nature hates a void and she certainly knows how to fill one given the opportunity.

So, having chosen by luck rather than design to have last week as a holiday, the two of us decided to tackle the area.

Fortunately the hard work that had been done over the past few months meant that the weedy beds looked worse than they were.

Most of the offenders were lightly rooted into the surface of the soil and quickly cleared revealing a few surprises along the way.

The carrots, for instance, have been disappointing. The initial pulling of baby ones gave us false hope with their smooth unblemished flesh and wonderful smell.

This was of course the problem and as soon as the carrot fly got a whiff of that they were in there and further harvests gave us increasingly damaged produce.

So we forgot about them, leaving them in the ground.

The carrots responded to this treatment by continuing to grow and we’ve managed to dig up several pounds.

They have been brushed of the bulk of the dirt but not washed, then stored in a dry shed in a brown paper sack. Who knows what they will be like but hopefully we will be able to get a few winter soups out of them.

The potato bed has also been dug over and harvested. We have a good crop and have not had to buy potatoes for months.

The remainder will see us through another few weeks and, like the carrots, they have been dried a little, brushed of their soil and put into a paper sack for storage.

TV and radio

Tomorrow

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

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

2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Chris Beardshaw, Bunny Guinness and Christine Walkden are in Lancashire where they help gardeners from Colne. Also tips for autumn colour, advice on growing and processing plants for making dyes from Anne Swithinbank and the gardening weather forecast. Peter Gibbs is in the chair. (Repeated from Friday).

Friday

3pm, BB R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. The team are in Berkshire where Bob Flowerdew, Pippa Greenwood, Christine Walkden and chairman Peter Gibbs advise gardeners from Stoke Poges. Matthew Wilson offers advice on looking after a small urban garden and the gardening weather forecast is at 3.40pm. (Repeated on Sunday at 2pm).

8pm, ITV1, Love Your Garden. In the last of the series Alan Titchmarsh, pictured above, finds a perfect cottage garden in Staffordshire, Valentine Warner cooks edible weeds and Charlotte Uhlenbroek looks at hibernating wildlife.

8.30pm, BBC2, Gardeners’ World. Monty Don looks at the best way of storing apples through the winter, Carol Klein divides perennials and the head gardener at Stourhead Alan Power explores the gardens of Mount Stewart in Down.

Saturday October 8

7am, BBC Radio York, Julia Booth. Julia holds her weekly plant surgery with horticultural expert Nigel Harrison.