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 is Bloke who is the jam maker in our house, but he does as Lexi suggests with small stone fruit such as Reine Claudes (what are those in English? greengages?) and mirabelles. It works well as the fruit are less damaged than they would be by destoning them before cooking.

Oh and I just glanced at the end of the last thread. Humphrey's spending on bulbs makes mine seem positively stingy. ::wink::

Can I start a 'biggest slug' competition? Just lifted one out of the veg plot that was the biggest I have ever seen in the UK. It was big enough to warrant inspection by the entire family and I got out the tape measure - 6 inches!!!! Made DH despatch it - he was last seen heading down the garden with the slug in a bucket and a spade being wielded as a weapon in case it got out....

Sitting in kitchen at the moment with plum chutney bubbling nicely on the cooker.

Welcome back Maud - hope holiday was good.

I was reading up on nematodes and slugs recently. If you put slugs in a lidded bucket with some food (ie clippings), at least one or two of those slugs will be carrying nematode parasites that are naturally occurring in the soil (and which we pay, what, £10 or so to have delivered to apply by watering can?). Normally these slugs would just burrow away and die, but if they're in an enclosed space, the other slugs will become new hosts for the nematodes, which can then multiply in yoru bucket. Keep 'feeding' the bucket with the slugs you find and weeds you pull up (this can be combined with creating your own compost tea, of course, which means you can use perennial weeds that you wouldn't otherwise put on the compost heap) and hey presto you have your own concentrated nematode solution to pour on your beds!

Did my damsons today, but I think I didn't boil them enough and they haven't set. Ah well, compote for an ice cream sauce it is. Looking now for a spicy plum chutney recipe to do with the yellow plums from the wood.

I have just been dispatching snails in the garden. Gruesome but necessary. Oddly, I can do that but was too squeamish to attempt the slug soup when I read that recent article.

Holiday was great but I did start to pine for my garden. And my supposedly red dahlias have turned out to be pale yellow.

::gnashes teeth::

Plum chutney now in jars. I used a river cottage chutney recipe Lex but added a few extra spices. Tastes good.

I've kept a copy of the slug soup article just in case I build up the courage to attempt it at some point. Definitely wasn't using today's slug though!

Ate our first sweetcorn cobs yesterday - just delicious. Need to start harvesting apples too; picked a few for the chutney but didn't fancy a full scale pick in the rain today. Hopefully tomorrow.

Half the apple crop from one of the trees is already turning to mush on the lawn. I never thin the crop in spring, so it does it itself now. Once I've got my shed and apple storage, I'm going to be much more systematic in managing the crop.

::hollow laugh::

Just made lovely broad bean and sage soup.

Maud, you need pigs like Monty has... (I SQUEEEEE'd at that bit on last Friday's show.)

they were very sweet. Is he intending to eat them? I did think that they would bugger up his orchard though.

Alas, I don't have room for pigs. Plus (I hardly dare say this to Humphrey who clearly is made of sterner stuff) I don't have the mettle for dealing with all the muck, let alone their eventual demise.

Started the apple harvest today. Had a great idea of putting the apples into blue Ikea bags - until I realised that I couldn't lift the things! But do now have two Ikea bags full of apples in the utility room. I usually keep them there for a couple of months gradually reducing the pile until I give in and freeze the rest. Maybe we need another shed...

Today's apple picking tip: it's a good idea to get all the apple tree gubbins out of your clothes as soon as you can after picking as finding a woodlouse in your bra two hours later is a bit yuk!

Is this the new thread? Can I still join in even though I am not doing any growing other than flowers?

I don't deal with the muck, it just stays there. They keep their house clean. If only my dc were as tidy. Last year we had it harrowed into what is now the wild flower meadow and new veg patch. As for the butchery muck I make DH deal with that. He found an eyeball in the drain.

We are looking to see which apples to send off for juicing. This is obviously not free, it cost us about a pound per bottle, but it is organic apple juice and therefore relatively cheap. Great fun is had by all when collecting as you don't have to take care with the apples and can just knock them from the tree. Our neighbour who we bought the house from used to hit the perry pear tree with the bucket of his tractor to get the pears off

CdP... of course! you'll be mulching, leafmoulding, and rubbing your thighs in glee when the catalogues come in surely? And didn't I see you over on the grandma yuk blackberries thread?

Hello CristinedePizan - welcome back. I bet your garden is a riot of colour and splendour unlike mine

Ooh Humph, how did you find the apple juicing place? I was going to get my parents a fruit press until I realised quite how many apple trees they have, and now I wonder about just buying them some credit with a company that will do it for them. Any tips?

the blackberry one was hilarious, i couldn't muster any righteous indignation for laughing

I would contact local cider/juice makers and ask if they will press your apples for you - we just asked the most local one to us. Easy enough if you live round here, it is prime apple country. There should be someone near you, and if they can't do it they will know who can.

Lex - try this one The Garden Cider Company. They are a Surrey one - you give them your apples they make cider and you get a portion of what they make back for nothing. Going to look in to it for ours too possibly.

Humph are the blackberries planted or hedgerow? Having spent the last few days up to my earlobes in brambles (with scars to prove it) I can see that there is huge variation. There are some plants which have gone over, some just comoing on and some still flowering!

I have just ordered autumn raspberries, shallots, garlic and tulips for the plot. I have re-thought the plot for coming years. I started my plot with 10 individual 12 foot by 4 foot beds plus a strawberry bed plus permanent fruit. After 3 seasons I am now getting rid of the individual beds. They were too restricting.

Having kept on top of things this season (redundancy does have some benefits) I feel happier heading into the autumn season.

Decisions, decisions, do I apply for the vacant treasurers post in the association?

Ewww and how fab at the slug soup, am a bit torn on that one and a definite yuck at woodland down your top but it's not a clean business is it gardening !

Gnome, think you should go for it on the Treasurer front as I have been stitched up into being the PTA treasurer, you can share my pain. I want to do a plant sale in May as a different way of raising a bit of cash from people other than the school parents who are very stretched already.

Went to the allotment last night and was a bit hacked off to find the offer of you can have this plot, we'll get some volunteers to dig it over and help you move the paths has translated into telling one poor woman to see who can sort to dig it for me and people coming up to say they would help as they think it is awful what they have done sticking what is in effect a viewing gallery right next to me. Combined with the fact tourists can now come in 5 days a week, I'm feeling this isn't what I signed up for and if our local parish council do get some going maybe I should jump ship. It's lovely up there but I did not sign up to be a tourist attraction and now there's meetings about fundraising we're supposed to be attending and I feel under pressure having it from school and the allotment.

On the plus side one of the pigs has piglets which are gorgeous and escaped yesterday so we were pig herding as the sun was setting which was quite funny. I still have cucumber glut am now letting one lot of beans go to seed as just can't keep up. Tomatoes on brink of having blight I think just as first about to ripen.

piglets! I want piglets. Sorry you have been put in such a dodgy situation Wynken.

The bulb order arrived today. Nearly a 1000 bulbs. Most of which are going in beds which are still lawn atm.

Wynken have you thought of roping tourists into helping on your allotment as part of the NT experience? You could also open a shed gift shop and sell them genuine local produce. You could theme your allotment in with whichever property you are on: the wartime kitchen garden, the Victorian kitchen garden. Obviously an Elizabethan kitchen garden might make potatoes a problem but you could always just express surprise every time 'Lawks a lovely! What be one of these then?'.

Plant sales are an excellent idea for fundraising for school. Another good fundraiser was linking the school fair to the school talent contest. It meant that there were more parents in the school so the fair trebled its takings compared to previous years.

The problem with taking a position (if it were offered) in the allotment association is that I used to be a school governor so dread the idea of committee meetings.

1000 bulbs ? Flipping heck, I haven't got round to planting the 3 packs of 5 I planted. You'll have great muscles in your arse after all that bending. Maybe I'll buy some more then.

Gnome you are not filling me with confidence about this committee thing. Actually I think maybe being on that could take the shine on going to the plot, a whole other side of politics that is easier to ignore if just a plain plot holder comes into play.

Fab idea on the tourist labour, that I would like to see ! Maybe the children from school could grow plants and sell them up at the allotments, donate g a profit. Then I've killed two birds with one stone so to speak . It's all getting in the way of gardening. I want to be thinking garlic buying not fundraising .

Only gardening today was bagging up fennel seeds I collected yesterday.