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!

It could be rats. I am not discounting this possibility but I definitely have not seen anything out and about in the daytime and I thought rats were less exclusively nocturnal than hedgehogs.

please please please let it not be rats please please

My cleaner says it's rats. She knows [narrowed eyes, nose tap] about these things. Bugger.

I'll stop putting out bird food for a while and see if they go away. The robins are enjoying the pyracantha berries anyway.

I'm not convinced they are a pest really (the rats), as long as they're not in my house. (Have done a lot of reading on this in the last few days!!!). I definitely don't want to put poison down and I'd probably not want to deal with traps.

I've read that they avoid catmint (but then wouldn't I just have stoned cats in my garden instead...)

I feel like a gardening pariah. Have you all started a new thread somewhere else that doesn't have an infestation?

I think the thread is just slowing down because there's less horticultural action at the moment, except for those people who are busy lashing together bits of ivy and holly to make their own wreathes.

If it is rats, you might find the local authority will come and deal with them (although dealing with = putting poison down, in my parents' experience). I don't mind mice but having met someone once who gave me a graphic description of Weill's Disease, I am very about rats.

PS I think you only become a gardening pariah if you confess to having a plastic meerkat ornament in the garden, and even then you can probably get away with it if it's ironic and post-modern.

We have a mouse problem - traps stay down all the time now in the house although I probably need to put some fresh chocolate in them as we haven't caught any in a while. When we first set the traps we caught over 20 in a two week time period! No rats though - well, inside anyway.

I lashed my home-made wreath together last week Maud. I'm very impressed with it this time as the holly berries are abundant this year so it's very colourful. There is a tree laden with mistletoe at head height just outside our rental property so tonight I used the 'just dropping off a Christmas card to the tenants' excuse so I could swing by and pick some. Just need to find a good mistletoe hanging spot in the house.

Hmm. I have a alot of rose hips I could use if I didn't put out the same plastic wreath every year, for fear the sarf London ne'er-do-wells would steal anything fancier.

Oh, you see I turn into Kirstie Allsopp at Christmas and get this overwhelming urge to make everything. Cue wreath, gingerbread house, massive christmas cake that takes months to eat, strictly dance outfit type glitzy things for the DDs knocked up on the sewing machine, and, my personal favourite, chocolate dipped candied orange and grapefruit peel. I've no idea why I do it to myself and others who receive my naff home-made gifts really...

I am all in favour of craft and getting a bit Kirstie at Christmas and I love a bit of poncery. Did I mention on this thread that I went to a Christmas floristry show in a real West End thee-aay-ter? Trouble is, by the end of term I'm completely pooped (I run a Brownie pack which takes up rather more of my spare time than I bargained for). Now I just want to lie on the sofa, moaning quietly to myself.

I want to do more sewing, though. That and sculpture were my chief hobbies until I became addicted to discovered gardening. Tell me more about the dds' Strictly outfits.

Strictly outfits are skirts in various layers of flouncy netting over pink satin underskirts with sequin (pink obviously) elasticated bits at the waist and beading that flares out (hopefully) when they spin madly around the living room. Did aim to make some extra accompanying bits but haven't quite got round to it.

That sounds very, ahem, understated and elegant. I've made similar for The Girl in the past. Explain the beading - are these trailing strings of beads?

They are yes, strings of beads attached to a ribbon thing that you then sew in. My DDs don't do understated and elegant so they'll be in their element! Forgot to add that I found some children's feather boas to complete the outfits. Also in pink obviously. I'm just hoping they don't insist on leaving the house in this garish combination of pink fluff and glitz.

Anyone want me to knock up an outfit to do the gardening in?

That's a very kind offer but my latest fashion statement is an organic cotton gardening apron from France. It is les genoux de l'abeille. Mind you, it might be better accessorised with a feather boa.

When I made my dd a mermaid skirt (complete with trailing fishtail) I found some sea shells on a string which I sewed all the way round the waist. It was truly a thing of beauty.

My DD would be delighted with both of you - sadly she is stuck with me and my sewing skills are of a minus quantity.

Humphrey - the joy of making fancy dress skirts and the like is that nobody expects haute couture! Have you got a sewing machine? Just give it a go!

I just planted 25 more onions/shallots/garlic.

Once I've planted up some bulbs in hanging baskets and finished digging/glyphosate-ing out the front, that's it for 2011.

Tomorrow I will mostly be hanging up a planted basket.

I am incurably cack handed I am afraid. You should see the presents I have just wrapped . Luckily I have a sister who can sew . Luckily for my DD anyway.

I feel good about the state of my garden. For the first year I have a clear idea of what to plant and where, we have lovely new borders coming up in which we have rectified some of our beginner mistakes (making them too narrow being the main fault, also over planting horribly). I am really looking forward to next year.

I MUST do some garlic.

I feel quite good about the state of my garden, but I think it is in the nature of gardening never to be entirely satisfied - there is always an improvement to be made or something new to try. I was thinking in the bath this morning about my verbena bonariensis/tithonia combo idea, for example, and determining to try it next summer.

Been wrapping presents tonight...this necessitates wine so apologies for spelling (I do not enjoy wrapping but am very thankful of autocorrect!). I would like to report perhaps my final spinach harvest tonight for spinach pesto - the remaining tatty plants will now need to come up as all they are doing is providing fodder for the slugs.

Humphrey - I visited a client for work this week who was on the Open Garden thingmebob - 700 visitors in one day! Thought about you, I'm going to be first in the queue.

I'll be there in the queue with you, Bertha. We could take camping stools and thermoses full of gin tea.

There are some aspirational gardens in the scheme round here, I would be truly intimidated! I talked to one woman who lived in a kind of manor house, her garden had been in production for twenty years and she still felt v nervous as her open date approached. It was amazing too, although I am sure she had some help she obviously did most of it herself.

Don't bother to bring the gin, I will provide and get you so drunk you won't notice the weeds

The chap I was with had a full time gardener Humph. He did have a very large garden though and a few fields of sheep.

Could I request something other than gin? As due to an unfortunate incident in my youth I don't find gin very palatable...

The thing is, I like the idea of gin - and it appears to be the MN virtual drink of choice - but I never actually drink it.

It's reassuring in a way that most of our local NGS gardens are about the same size as mine. The downside, though, is that you then have to ensure that every inch of your garden pulls its weight, as you can't rely on the overall effect of rolling green vistas.

I have sort of planted my garlic already, in that as usual I missed a few bulbs at harvest time due to my haphazard planting scheme which have sprouted. I need to dig them up and space them out a bit though.
I've got monster parsnips to dig for christmas if the early ones I dug are any indication, and the sprouts (in the front garden) are looking great
My leeks are the thickness of pencils though, and a creature (probably a fox) keeps crapping in my raised beds. I have put chicken wire and random shards of slate or pot all over the beds, which looks awful, but will hopefully encourage it to go elsewhere.

Interesting programme about gin on R4 this lunchtime. It slightly turned my stomach because I outrageously overindulged last night and am very much slightly the worse for wear today.

Did the baskets and hung them back up yesterday. Also chopped my v.b. down to the ground and stuffed all the hollow stalks into a bottle for ladybirds.