Gardening: Use sunshine and showers to your advantage

In the Garden 

The combination of showers and bright sunshine ensure that the lawn is growing faster than forced rhubarb. Grass will continue to grow as long as temperatures are no lower than 9ºC. At the moment it seems to need cutting once a week. At least this means there is some green stuff for the compost heap to go in with the 50/50 mix of brown materials too. 

If you aren’t composting, then at least use it to mulch around perennial plants to help them develop stronger roots over the winter just in case we have another summer like this one. 

Next to the lawn, extra warmth and humidity has energised the shrub roses, which have usually gone over by now, are still producing flowers and more buds are behind them. They may also be later flowering varieties, so just go with them and enjoy the extra few weeks. By mid-October they will most likely have given up and can then be taken down in height by a third or so to prevent them being vulnerable to wind rock that affects roots and stability. Remove any dead stems and diseased looking leaves. This helps the plant by allowing more air to flow through and creates an atmosphere where disease can’t thrive as well. If you are worried about disease, planting alliums alongside roses can act as a repellant to aphids and even black spot.  Compost the dead stems and bin or burn the affected leaves. I prefer burning them as like most men, I’ll use any excuse to have a small fire. 

By now you should have all your spring bulbs in a row ready for planting as soon as the ground gets a touch softer. Don’t panic as they can go in pretty much any time in autumn, but it’s much easier to push them in the ground after the rain has done all the hard work for you. Working alongside the weather should always be in the back of your mind even if its just to mind your back. 

On the Plot 

Cooler weather offers an opportunity to put in autumn and winter vegetables. Spinach, kale and chard are quickly established alongside pak choi and all the winter salad leaves you can grow. You can effectively grow lettuce all year round where we live so why would nt you? 

There is still a window for a second sowing of beetroot and turnips. Turnip has a much maligned reputation, but if harvested when the same size as a golf ball, they are a different entity altogether. Alternatively, you can leave them to be picked just before spring arrives. 

Salad leaves and greens like spinach are cut and come again crops so will feed you all winter for very little effort. If you get broccoli and cabbage started they can stay in the ground over winter and withstand even the harshest frosts. 

Leave any harvested pumpkins and squashes on top of the soil for a week and they will harden off the outer casing and save for a much longer period. 

As the lawn is growing, so are weeds, particularly wild euphorbia which is invasive with its tiny green bells quaking everywhere. It’s more effective to pull these up by the roots rather than hoe over them as they just spread more seeds around if left on the surface. The hot summer weather has given us some respite from weeding but they are now back with a vengeance coming back faster, bigger and stronger. There is probably another month left before the first frosts start covering the greenhouse windows and then the weed growth will slow down again.  

I haven't folded my deck chair back in the shed just yet and am focussing on soaking up as much sunshine as possible while pottering and watching the wildlife adjust to less light and warmth deeper into autumn.