Humph's Happy Horti-cult: harvesting, preserving, mulching, leaf-gathering, bulb-dibbing, seed catalogue-surfing and hunkering down for winter

[Lexilicious]

Following on from the original March to August thread. For all - whether still gardening through the winter or planning to sweep the shed, hibernate, sharpen the tools and get started again in the spring.

Happy gardening again!

Humphrey's garden is indeed worthy of a visit. 'Tis a lot better than many NGS gardens I've been to :)

It certainly sound stupendous, FlopEmOut (lovely, err, name by the way). I am aspiring to NGS membership - some of those I've been to recently are nice enough, but not so much better than my own that I think it's an unachievable aim.

When we moved into our house last year I set myself the goal of having my garden in a fine enough state within 5 years that I would feel happy opening it up in an NGS scheme. I don't know whether I'd be brave or crazy enough to actually do it, but it's certainly keeping me going so far. Only 4 years left!

You are kind to say so FlopemOut.

In the meantime you could just show people round the most impressive woodpile in the world Your garden is amazing. AND you have your own hazel copse

Are you going to do it Maud? You should, and tell me and FlopemOut what it feels like.

I can imagine a lot of weeding going on if I ever opened my garden to the public. I also sometimes think about the fact that I have a lot less time to manage a large garden than I expected to have, due to annoying work necessity. When am I ever going to have time to keep it vaguely tidy?

I'm doing it next year for a local, sub-NGS scheme, so if that goes well I will try to, yes. But I need to sort out some structural stuff, first. Sadly, I don't have extensive grounds or a hazel copse.

::sobs::

You need to present your garden, Humphrey, as relaxed, informal and naturalistic.

Yes, I certainly will

It was ChristinedePizan who recommended the book. I just went back and checked.

It's been suggested that my weedy vine thing could be a wild clematis. Looks possible from googling but still not convinced. Going to be brave and leave it so I can see if it flowers next year. Should be able to cut it back fairly easily if it turns out 'bad' as there's nothing around it.

My garden will never be impressive enough to let people look at it - but it would be fantastic to have one that was.

Woohoo! I have a new plot on the allotment field. Just enough for a little 5 pole orchard:

• 3 cherries
• 2 pears
• 1 gage
• 2 cherry plums (mirabelles)
• 2 apple root stocks (I'm going to have another go at grafting)
• 1 cob nut
• 1 filbert

I am going to be hedging the plot with dwarf lavender and seeding the ground with a mix of wildflower seed and grasses.

I'm so excited!

Congratulations! I love my mirabelle - the fruit is amazingly tasty. Had to google filbert though

Why are mirabelles so little grown here? Every French supermarket has them but I can't remember ever seeing them in UK shops.

I'd never tasted one until we moved to this house. I like to spread the mirabelle joy and share liberally if we have a good crop as most people haven't come across them. Same with the mulberries.

Do you sell your spare produce at the garden gate, Bertha?

::Picks up panier and gets on bike::

Mmmmm. Not much people traffic by our gate apart from some industrial units and most of the guys who work there would prefer a bacon buttie!

Think my courgettes have finally stopped producing. Not sure if I'm happy or sad about that really. A week without courgette meals will be nice. Glut of leeks starts now though. Celeriac also looking good and parsnips nearly ready

This is a question for all.

If you could rent, say 1 acre (4000 square metres or 160 poles) as a smallholding for a year for around £150 would you be interested?

Dont worry, I'm not trying to sell you anything but I am very interested in your thoughts.

It would depend on if I could be certain to rent it for years rather than one year/two years. It takes so long to get things productive.

Thanks Humph. I think that there would be the usual 'maintaining the land' type conditions from year to year however we wouldnt want to create tenancy agreements in perpetuity. It would be something in between.

Gnome - If I lived near the plot, could put a nice big shed on it and reduce my working hours so that I could live spend meaningful time there, then I certainly would.

Thanks Maud - what I am thinking about is whether there would be interest in plots larger than a standard 10 pole but smaller than a full scale smallholding. My thinking is letting the land in small parcels so that people can try the 'good life', try out a horticultural idea, raise a couple of pigs or whatever but without the commitment of having to buy a field.

My feel is that allotment plots are getting let (even if demand has eased off a bit) without any advertising. What would be the demand for different types of allotment gardening if we advertised?

Early days yet.

I think a lot is going to depend on where you are, Gnome. I'm in London where boroughs aren't under the same statutory obligation to provide allotments and they are therefore very scarce - the waiting list on our plot is now 30 years (which says something about the [lack of] common sense with which the management committee adds people to the waiting list, but that's another story). Coupled with that, people's long daily commutes to work mean that their time for allotmenteering may be limited.

If you're in a similar area, it may be easier to market allotment-sized plots (or 20 or 30 pole plots) than something closer to a smallholding. I imagine things would be very different in a rural area.

I am having the most lovely day in the garden. Planted out 400 iris bulbs, moved some poppies, put in hollyhocks and some other bits. Only got about 300 Alliums to go.

It is such fun, especially given the fact that it is all virgin soil that has been thoroughly dug over by someone else

gnome - would it be just for a year? I want to grow loads of fruit so this would put me off a bit. I'd google your local allotment sites and see what their waiting lists are like. you could maybe offer it to them via the association. i personally wouldn't want one that large, but could club together with some others and even if we left half of it unused would cost in round here

Dreaming & Maud - I'm in an allotment association in a fairly rural county. Where we are the demand for allotments is easing though the fields are still full.

I'm thinking about where we go next as an association.

In that case, Gnome, then some sort of super-allotment could well be the way to go, but Dreaming is right. Once you go beyond an allotment to something resembling a smallholding (which does imply chickens, live stock, fruit trees and so on) then a yearly tenancy won't be attractive. I understand you won't want tenants in perpetuity, but people will want some sort of reassurance that they and their chickens won't be homeless at the end of the year.

Thanks Maud and a fair point. We already have some smallholders on essentially annual tenancies. The difficulty is stumbling into agricultural tenancies which are just so much more complicated (to my townie eyes) than urban domestic ones.

The seed catalogues have started to arrive already. Is it too early to plan next year's planting? If I do it now I might get tempted to extend the plot again...