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!

this morning I asked a neighbour-but-one if I could have her apples to preserve, as she's in her nineties and not likely to do it herself. yesterday I asked the same of neighbour-across-road, about pears , which incidentally you're meant to pick under-ripe and then ripen in a bowl. if they touch each other they rot eventually.

found a source of elderberries on my route between home and work, and later I'm going to check out the possible greengage tree in the woods out back.

oh and crab apples out the back gate of work.

beginning to wish I hadn't offered around at work the two Huggies mega boxes of jars that I've hoarded all year...

I LOVE this time of year. Autumn is my favourite season. The smell of bonfires on the crisp air has me absolutely transported with joy. In a strangely wistful manner. For this reason I am determined to have a colourful autumnal garden, starting with the crap apple walk.

DH is out there placing slabs in order to see what path layout we want.

:o at 'crap apple walk'

Completely agree with autumn-love. Poppy heads, honesty seed heads, squashes, mist, mellow fruitfulness etc. Sigh.

Have spent the afternoon in the kitchen. Have jammed MILs plums, have the makings of blackberry & apple jelly straining over a bowl and have some blackberry & apple fruit leather drying in the oven overnight (new experiment). Had to get rid of the last of last year's frozen blackberries and apples so that we can start picking this year's at the weekend. The blackberries are huge this year!

I've found a recipe for Chard Pesto but it says it only keeps for 3 days in the fridge. If I sterilise jars in the oven properly and vacuum seal home made pesto do you think it would keep for longer?

I am going to Lakeland tomorrow morning to get a jam thermometer and Tesco for jam sugar then will make Marrowmalade and then we're off to a wedding in London at 3 so I'd better get my head down for an early night.

I make a spinach pesto but eat it straight away. I don't know that the temp for the chard pesto recipe would get high enough for long enough to store properly as it's a short cooking time. Not an expert though so feel free to ignore me as I'm just guessing!

I've just got out my jam thermometer as my plum jam didn't set very well so needed more trusted method for the blackberry and apple jelly tonight (just finished - it's a fantastic colour). I can also recommend the fruit leather - only fruit & a bit of honey and the kids loved it. Will definitely be making more of that. Turned my teeth and tongue blue though which was a bit freaky.

Pkam I have just made a few jars of blackberry and apple jam (strained through a sieve not a net). I live in hope that it will eventually set.

On a separate thought I am looking at keeping pigs. I belong to an allotment and smallholding association which makes a difference to what we can do (eg we can sell surplus produce and keep livestock). I quite fancy the idea of home grown pork.

Keeping pigs is brilliant. They are so much less trouble than children. We are raising two pigs for ourselves and two for other people.

The blackberries round here are barely ripe. I am jealous. Ate the first french beans today, really good.

Did a load of geranium cuttings and tidied up a bit today.

ooooh Hump I am so jealous!

I can bore for Wales on the subject of pig keeping. This is only the second year we have done it, so I am not exactly an experienced swine herd but I really enjoyed all the butchery/cooking part of it. We even made black pudding. That was an experience.

Can I join please? I am enthusiastic but struggling at the moment. We, well it's me who does the work, have a half size allotment at local NT property . It's lovely but they have built the tractor play area 14 feet from it and it's turned my allotment into a tourist attraction with people hanging over the fence trying to talk to me as I'm dealing with a huge tangle of tomatoes that should have been pinched out months ago. I know some people wouldn't mind but I go up for peace and quiet and to escape my children, don't want to have to deal with others ! That makes me sound really grumpy doesn't it ?! Anyway, as a result of me throwing my dummy out of the pram, I am moving allotments in the autumn so am trying to sort that in my mind.

Been on holiday whilst house had rewire and cat unexpectedly had kittens who are 4 weeks today plus Electrician coming to sign off electrics tomorrow. Haven't had a freezer for a couple of weeks and have come back to huge quantities of purple and yellow bean, cucumbers and courgettes .

Harvested onions and shallots yesterday and saved some broad bean seeds. I have vast quantities of rainbow chard so will try the pesto. Have been thinking about which seeds I can save this year. The section of allotments mine is currently on is very fertile as the pigs were on it so everything has gone bananas which is great.

My own garden is now sadly neglected and I just couldn't keep up with watering the greenhouse before we went and everything died. My perennial sweet peas are just about alive and need to be planted urgently . Roses need deadheading , I have bulbs to plant and have cuttings of a lovely hibiscous called Blue Bird on the windowsill that I took from Germany whilst we were on holiday, hopefully they will route.

Apologies, have garbled on. I think I'd better get out and actually do something about it all instead of going on about it !

Welcome Wynken! Weren't you on the original thread though? I thought you were

Today so far, I have dug my front garden and laid down some of our leftover slabs in a diagonal line across the "grass" because I wanted it to look more interesting and be able to walk across without getting muddy. It's a bit of a cat magnet too because we don't mow it very often. I'm going to plant green manures there, and possibly later in the autumn put down black polythene under the slabs to kill off the perennial weeds. I could have a lovely little cottagey front garden there in a year or two.

Currently buying a Wolf-Garten fruit picker and telescopic pole off Amazon... neighbours' fruit, here I come!

Ah yes, I probably was, the last few months have been a bit of a blur, sorry !

Front garden sounds like a good plan. My friend has green manure at allotment and it's just flowered, very pretty blue flowers which are a bee magnet. I've a bit of a weekness for the Wolf Garten stuff, had to try hard to not look whilst in Germany. I'd be lost without my push pull weeder, it's the thing I use the most.

Haven't managed to achieve anything outside but have a huge pot of veg curry in slowcooker, boiled new potatoes for potato salad and am having roasted courgette, beetroot, onion, new pots with a bit of chicken, roasted with some of my friend's honey, lovely.

I wish I was round at your house for lunch Wynken, sounds delicious.

I have an aubergine on each of my plants! Each is only about the size of a small tomato but I'm very happy they are fruiting at all. I love eating stuff I've grown, I most like just grazing on beans and tomatoes and radishes without even getting them indoors...

Mmmmm. Am going out to check whether aubergine flowers have set fruit....

I also love the Wolf Garten kit. There's something very satisfying about clicking a new tool on to the handles. Feels like I'm arming some kind of gardening weapon. Obviously all the interchangeable bits are lined up neatly on their nails in my shed.

Blackberries only just ripening here properly. Am going to wait a couple of weeks as want to make blackberry and apple jam which is one of my favourites.

Hadn't thought about taking geranium cuttings so might do some this week. I need to get the hang of doing things like this so I can fill the garden with plants for less money.

I have suddenly realised that cuttings are the way forward too EssieW. We have a wooden frame with bubble wrap stapled over it that we used to bring on the catmint and box cuttings last year, today I put in lots of sage and marjoram (god knows if this will work), salvia and philadelphus. I wish I had a large greenhouse to put everything in.

Someone mentioned cucumbers, can I ask what length you let them grow to before you cut them. I have two that are about 4 inches long. Also do you pick off the fruit if there are too many. I also had to pick off two from another plant because they had burst open. This is the first time I have grown them and I am learning as I go along.

Hello, please can I join?

This year was our first year growing our own. We've got runner and broad beans, more as a windbreak really, our second load of spuds are coming along nicely, millions of tomatoes, our marrows WERE doing beautifully until the slugs hollowed them out. Am wary of using pellets as we have several hedgehogs who drop in and out.

Our carrots were beautiful - dh made soup. Next year will grow them in containers though, and won't bother with cauliflowers, as they were destroyed in one night by slugs.

Yesterday we harvested our spring onions, raised from seed, trimmed off all the mouldy marrow leaves (must Google) and took off millions of green tomatoes.

Will do carrots from seed next time - and can't wait till our sweetcorn is ready!

What is the best gardening website?

My aubergines were a casualty of the non watering greenhouse post kittens. Shame, I've hard them the last two years.

Humphrey what about a couple of those blowaway ones, the 4 tier ones in Wilkos etc? I got a couple somewhere for a tenner each, tied them securely and they weren't bad. Now using as staging in my EBay greenhouse.

Pkam come and sort me out please, my shed leaves something to be desired

Deste what type are they ? Indoor ones are a bit faffy but grow to the size in the shops. They tend to drop small fruit if they couldn't cope with the number on the plant. Outdoor ones are usually a bit shorter. I pick Marketmore at about 8 or 9 inches and Burpless longer, more like shop size. Burpless have been fab for me this year and a definite for next year. I'm not doing indoor ones again as currently have glut from 4 outdoor plants for pretty much zero effort.

I'm going to do more cuttings. My neighbour has a fantastic garden and does loads of geranium and fuchsia each year so I'm going to watch her carefully. I was looking at allotment working out which seed to save which will hopefully cut down my seed bill next year. I have Yakon and Oca which I won't need to buy again if things go well, am hoping I can use some shallots for next years crop, am saving crimson flowered and Bunyards Broad brand, purple French beans, Cherokee trail of tears I think they are, Orinocco yellow dwarf, bush Yin Yang beans, Borlotti , Golden Sweet Mange Tout if they ever crop, Purple Chilli, Gardeners Delight if I get any before blight hits and I need to sort my strawberry runners. Thing is I just know I'll find other things to buy instead.

Hi I am not sure of the name of the cucumbers but I am growing them in the greenhouse.

I just cut cucumbers before they get too big, if I want one and I only have small ones there I get those. I am a bit jealous of a cucumber GLUT, I had one plant last year and got loads, I have two plants this year and have had one only so far.

Am cutting beautiful gladioli for all my friends who visit, the green ones are coming out now. Lovely.