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!

just extend the plot

DH put all the alliums in today, along with some verbena bonariensis we hope will self seed fat chance. We bunged in a load of wallflowers just so that we would have something early on.

I am really looking forward to next June.

Only got about 400 bulbs to go, most of those are going into an older bed, so not freshly dug over. It is going to be much harder work. Hopefully DH will do it while I am at work.

Hi all, not been doing much recently due to ... no good reason at all. My celeriacs are starting to get eaten by slugs - one's gone, and it was a nice big one too. Buggers they are. And there has been a brazen cat shitting on my lawn, and the voles have gone from my very crap attempt to re-nest them

I have been collecting seeds whenever I can and my mum's given me a whole load of seed trays so I really want to get this shed/greenhouse project on the go. Have any of you run electricity supply to an outbuilding and able to advise how to do it? If I'm going to raise seeds to get ahead of spring I think I'm going to need heating.

I have allium and crocosmia seeds, tomato and aubergine from veg I grew this year, and I've saved some lovely looking seeds from yellow irises which grow at the edge of the big pond on the approach road to my work. Also got many many calendula and marigold seeds from plants grown this year.

Your slugs have eaten the celeraic? Slightly worried that mine will disappear overnight, I'm almost ready to start pulling some up.

MIL has parafin heaters in her greenhouse but you can get fairly easy to lay outdoor electric cables that you bury. These days though you'd probably need an electrician to do it or check it for you to meet the Regs.

Still waiting for my allium bulbs Humph - apparently they have been 'despatched' but it would appear they are travelling here by the slowest means imaginable.

Well to be fair to the arthropod community I haven't actually caught any slugs in the act, but one of the celeriac had a very big chewed out hole from the top down into the root, like some squashes have suffered too. I've pulled them all up this afternoon, eaten one (yummy) and brought the rest in to store. I say "the rest" but having eaten a couple of the tiny ones last week there were only three large ones left - one eaten this evening and that leaves two for the fridge.

I also dug up a totally unsuccessful late potato patch. Dug the five Sweet Potato 'Beauregard' plants which I have been failing to remember to water tending carefully under a polythene tunnel all year. Bloody miniatures they are, but very tasty. Pulled a carrot or two - planted end July, and the 'cosmic purple' ones were a stunning... two inches long. My soil is just far too hard and clayey.

So I've gone and bought some bags of manure this afternoon and will spread it around tomorrow. Going to start off (DS' attention span permitting) broad beans under cut-off drinks bottle cloches, and onions/garlic/shallots straight in the ground (will it be a good idea to have fleece laid over?). May also get round to putting those collected seeds in trays, although I don't know where I'm going to put them. Plastic grow house I suppose.

I am very jealous of people with large gardens. I really have been trying but honestly, my veg harvest is all a bit crap. I spent about £70 on veg plug plants and I don't think I've had anywhere near that much produce back from them. I've had better value from wild growing fruit in the mile radius of my house.

I didn't buy any veg plug plants this year because they do make it expensive. Growing from seed is far more budget friendly. I've also given loads of spare baby plants away to friends which is nice and make me feel happy as I can't abide waste - if I can't give them away I end up trying to sqeeeeeze them in somewhere.

My broad beans & garlic are in the ground but not covered or cloched. Don't like to spoil my plants too much!

Hello ladies! I accidentally fell off the thread.

My best gardening news this week is that I went to Highgrove ::horticultural swoon:: and the late sun has meant that the tomatoes are still ripening so I'll be less dependent on green tomato recipes. I have bought more compost for all the bulbs still to plant and hope to do that this afternoon, after I've been to the last remaining local garden centre to see if they'll accept the vouchers I was given for my birthday (I've been surprised quite how many garden centres aren't signed up to the scheme). And the organiser for the local open garden scheme has been round to take details.

But - fie on Parker's - of the three jasmines in their fragrant jasmine collection, the one I wanted most wasn't available (all the plants had failed, apparently) and was substituted by a honeysuckle, of which I already have plenty. Ho hum.

Lexi - Our veg crop is never that great, but this year it has been pathetic.

so it could be the weird weather this year Maud, not totally my failings? I hope so.

Bertha, I was shy of trying to raise very much from seeds because I had only a shed window to function as a greenhouse - and I've always killed off seedlings by sporadic watering. I thought once I'd got them past the baby weeks, I could be a bit more lax. Trouble is I was still probably too careless...

This autumn we're going to build one or two lean-to greenhouses (probably equivalent of a 6x8 overall, but fully south-facing) and one of them may be paraffin heated, but it'll be the second one to get built so won't be of use to keep anything tender through the winter. By spring, I will gain a little more ground space by moving a compost heap behind a shed, and I have enough grow-sacks and pea/bean planters to fill the hardstanding areas very efficiently.

I planted tulips and daffs in my floral/perennial border yesterday and weeded the rockery where spring bulbs will come up; at some point I'll also put in my lifted crocosmia up on the second highest level of the rockery for some really good height and use of sun. I have a couple of foot square patches at lawn level which may need something introduced to them by spring and will be looking for ideas. These spaces get morning sun between equinoxes, full sun in summer, sheltered against a fence with honeysuckle and perennial sweet peas climbing, neighbours would be monarda, euphorbia, astilbe, heuchera, hellebore, hebe, acanthus, dianthus, alchemilla... Border is only 70-100cm deep though and I want something compact and only up to 50cm high. Perhaps could go taller if it was delicate and wispy - I have few flowers like cosmos, and it would be good if I could keep cutting them and enjoying them indoors. My heucheras are at the front of the bed and it is really nice that they were low growing until they sent up the flower spikes.

Bed time. Ah curses, I pulled up a couple of pond plants that had outgrown the pond, and was going to put them in the brown bin but DH has put it out now and it'll get taken at 6am... no, it's too cold to brave the garden now. Carol Klein would, I bet

I constantly strive to be like Carol Klein. I bought a plant from her once, you know.

::I am not worthy emoticon::

I keep hearing on GQT that it has been a difficult year for veg, so I take some solace from that.

Pulled my first celeriac today - not overly large but I'm hopeful it will be tasty. Also pulled my first couple of mouli (ate one as a snack and it was satisfyingly crunchy). Cut back the stems of my jerusalem artichoke today too so I can start digging them up as required.

Also my alium bulbs finally arrived today. So now I have no excuses to not get planting them all out this weekend.

I love celeriac. The smell of freshly cut celeriac is my favourite smell ever.

I still have 300 tulip bulbs, 50 fritillaries and 75 alliums to go. It was so easy when I just clicked buy.

I would love to go the Highgrove Maud. I bet it was fantastic.

Yes, Highgrove was gorgeous.

This talk of celeriac - which I dislike - is reminding me of the other reason our veg crop is so poor. There are very many veg which I dislike and finding one that all three of us like is quite difficult, so our options are limited!

I realised this year that one can really eat too many runner beans. Although cooking them with enough salt improved them enormously.

Soft fruit is the way forward. Surely everyone likes a strawberry?

We have eaten nearly all the onions. I thought we had planted loads. The best thing we have grown the sweetcorn, it is the one that makes the most difference to the taste when you grow it yourself. No need for butter.

Oh yes, we fare much better with salad and fruit - strawberries (standard and alpine), apples, berries [RIP apricot tree] - but we struggle to find veg acceptable to all 3 of us.

Hello all. Finally managed to get my bulbs in - I think I put in over 200; took a while. Annoyingly though when I got all the packs out I realised I still hadn't had all my aliums from Unwins. Then I noticed the 'to follow' note at the bottom of the last delivery note. Very frustrating. Have sent another moany e-mail to them; in the mean time I had to put out lots of markers in the bed so I know where I should plant them when they finally do arrive.

On a good note SIL found a friendly stables and we went around on Friday and collected masses of fantastically well rotted manure. I am unreasonably excited about quality, free manure...

And I'm unreasonably excited because, in getting all the green waste ready to take to the dump, I discovered that some if it has been hanging around for so long that it's made lovely leaf mould and can go straight back onto the beds. Sloth has some advantages.

Liking the halloween name Maud.

I does me best, Bertha.

well rotted horse shit is something to be very excited about imvho.

Have holes dug for crab apple walk now, all we have to do is wait for them to arrive. Went to apple day at a local museum and had a load more of our apples identified. We have a Miller's seedling, which is quite rare now and a cider apple. This is excellent news We also met someone there who has a heritage orchard and will help us graft some trees to restock the bottom part of the orchard with traditional local varieties.

Which crab apple are you getting, Humphrey? I haven't given up on the idea of a crab apple for a big pot in the front garden. The Golden Hornet at Highgrove was most impressive, I confess.

Harry Baker - the red one.

Golden Hornet sounds fabulous. Will google.

oh yes, lovely.

We swithered between red or yellow for ages.

Ahhhh you all with your well-planned gardens... and indeed, well rotted horse shit was was started us all off together!

I spent some of Saturday and most of Sunday in the garden (was on call at work so couldn't go gadding around anyway). Cleared out the shed a bit, rearranged my 'container veg garden' which is big Marshalls gro-beds in the non-soil bit down the bottom of the garden (ie twelve paces from the back door ) and planted up two recycling boxes with salad and pak choi. Neither seeds are a winter variety so a bit of an experiment, but I gaffer taped polythene to one long side and put hooped bamboo in it, so they're sort of like container-cloches. Also put in my autumn-start garlic, shallots and onions. Have got plenty more to use (or give away) but I might just use one more handful of the onions.

I put flower bulbs in a couple of weeks ago, and my mum planted up big pots for me with daffs and tulips, but they're starting to sprout already! I will put fleece over them so the tips don't freeze in the winter. Haven't re-planted my allium bulbs yet. Crocs are a summer bulb so don't go in the ground till spring, right? I'm putting both up high on the rockery for height and screening. Low down on the rockery are anemones and irises, then in the middle slightly later anemones and fritillaries, and up the top will be crocs. I'll put the alliums in the middle and the top.

Still no shed or greenhouse but my rearrangings have made the space for DH's shed to go - just need to level the plot and take down a fence that's in the way.

Golden Hornet is a shade of orange which I wouldn't usually choose - my first preference would be for red too - but the effect of a whole circle of them (intended to look like a ducal coronet) on a slightly gloomy day was quite arresting.

How does Harry Baker compare with John Dowie, which is the one the magazines always recommend?

How lovely to have salad through the winter Lexilicious. Let us know how it does.

My garden isn't well-planned, Lexi. Much of my time now is spent correcting the usual novice gardener mistakes, all of which I made.