So here we are in November, and we have all had the opportunity to experience bog gardening.

My goodness we have had some rain, there have been a few days when I lost sight of the lawn and as for the inadequacy of the local sewerage network (it can be mentioned but is best not described). In the balance the season was reasonable, but not wonderful.

There certainly was not a glut of any crop, though some of the flowers have been good. Dahlias in particular have been a delight. On that subject and with two good frosts behind us I will be lifting my tubers this week and indeed any delicate items that I want to keep for next year. Just ship tender stuff into a space that is frost free and water proof and cover them if the weather gets particularly bad. In the case of tubers, don’t waste energy on cleaning them off, just allow soil to fall from them as it dries. Too much fussing will damage them.

With the freeing up of space you can push on and complete any autumn bedding and bulb planting. Most things will take quickly,but do get on with it. In the vegetable plot you can still put out onions sets and Broad Bean seeds and if you can find Perpetual Spinach try that too. Perpetual Spinach is very tough and is a useful extra on the winter plate, with a very distinctive bitter flavour, I think it really spices up a dinner.

This month of course, is probably the big tidy up month, the leaves are down and there is plenty of vegetable debris of all sorts to dispose of, so your compost heap should fill up. As part of the clean-up chop down tired perennials and if you have some good compost or some straw, cover the crowns of decapitated plants with a mulch to safeguard them for the spring. Whilst you have the secateurs you can get a bit of modest pruning done, removing damaged, crossing and over grown stems and if you have autumn raspberries, you can prune them hard to be sure of a crop next year.

This is a great month for bigger planting, bare root fruit and hedging will come available and pot fruit and ornamental trees will also transplant and settle easily.

And finally, have a go at lawn aeration, after all the wet it will pay off.

Happy Gardening.

Chris Evans
www.dundrynurseries.co.uk
www.thebutterflygarden.org