Very Nearly Autumn

Well, with the equinox fast approaching, there is a definite change in the weather, and it's been much colder this past week or so.
Started the day today by finishing pricking out the best of the rest of the Canterbury Bells  (Campanula medium) in the greenhouse - if the all survive we should have 284 to fill gaps next year.

 

I then cut away some more strawberry runners and potted them up into 3" pots - we now have 44 growing away.

 

Then, given the imminent arrival of the frosts sometime in the not too distant future, and given the fact that the cordon grown sweet peas were at the top of their 8ft canes again, I cut what blooms were there ( yet another florists bucket full) and then dropped the whole lot onto the ground. They will continue to give a few more blooms until the frosts do arrive but it isn't worth the time and effort of layering them properly and retraining them up new canes again this year.

 

Then it was back to weeding and tidying up - this week was the turn of the fruit border. After weeding I cut down the spent canes of the raspberries and made sure that the new canes, which will bear next years fruit were, as far as possible, within the confines of the training wires. Ther are plenty of new canes so hopefully we should start to really reap the rewards next summer.

 

After weeding the bed, I put down some old black plasric sheeting on the bottom end of the bed to try and minimmise weed growth before bext Spring - anything to help !

 

 

I then pruned the currant bushes, taking half a dozen cuttings from the healthiest and most productive bush and these were placed between the strawberries and the wall.

 

 

As you can see the ground cover that was put down for the strawberies is in tatters - I think it was a material that required to be covered with a mulch of some description - not to worry, will sirt it all out when I plant the new runners out in early Spring.

And that about concludes the day - I also lifted some more potatoes carrots and parsnips, picked a pot of runner beans and cleared away the peas (finished) and beetroot (eaten by mice & voles) and started moving some of the old cut tree lengths from the area to be turned over to veg - little and often  and I'll get it done without noticing - these will be left outside the garden gate for ease of access for cuting and blocking for the fire.

No pic of the border this week - not a lot worth seeing and it was raining heavily at the time so I gave it a miss.