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!

Am enjoying the name Bertha! Actually bought some black pudding today for breakfast tomorrow as every time I log in I have a craving. Am blaming you Maud. DH and I also watched Alan and pretty much made the same comment as you have - basically it's about buying stuff in pots.

My tomatoes are finally turning and so far I've managed to avoid the dreaded blight this time - didn't grow potatoes though this year so am wondering if that's helped.

My friend is claiming back her plants that I've been babysitting. Pulled all her pots out of the long bed today (quite tough as they'd rooted through the bottoms) and now there are big gaps. Am trying to resist filling them as need to get the alium bulbs in. Letting selected weeds grow though has proved a good plan - I've got some amazing 'things' and triffids (and one amazing tall grass) growing which are filling spaces and looking great. Just hope nobody asks me what they are!

We've had come good tomatoes this year (sorry for those who haven't...). Grew a heritage variety from seed (variety was Amateur) - it was a bush tomato although quite big. I bought these completely by mistake as one of the children put them in my basket and I didn't realise. I will be growing them again though as they've been easier than cordon and taste great.

Have chosen Tulips - gone for Prinses Irene, some dark ones and pale ones. Seduced by Sarah Raven's catalogue...

Now need to get daffs and get planting!

I am honoured that you have stuck with the name, Bertha - to be frank, I thought it was a for one post only thing. I've had a shrub named after me on another thread, after I suggested that it could be moved rather than binned, so clearly I am a Very Influential Person. ::snort::

I'm just beginning to wonder where my Parkers bulb order has got to. I have gone for lots of Prinses Irene, as they work everywhere. I still haven't pressed the 'buy' button on my huge Crocus order, but feel I must. And then there's the free bulb offer in this month's GW magazine. Bankruptcy beckons.

I too am waiting for my huge modest bulb order to arrive. Just when is 'mid-September' anyway? Meant to get the daffs in this weekend though but it didn't happen for one reason or another....

Our parker order took AGES

Like Diana Ross, I'm still waiting.

Tomatoes have officially got blight . Still, they lasted longer than I expected and about half a dozen went red and actually got eaten. So I've hurriedly picked the rest and will be making green tomato chutney again this year. Problem is I have run out of jam jars and run out of room to store the filled jars as my home production line of pickles, chutneys and jams has been in full swing this year.

My tomatoes don't have blight, but neither do they have even the slightest hint of red. I am looking for green tomato recipes that aren't chutney.

sweetcorn is ripe - I put in thirty five plants so I had better get eating.

The garden is looking very unkempt but still rather colourful and nice. Got lots of beetroot, courgette (finally) french and runner beans, tomatoes and celeriac is nearly ready.

Got someone coming to rotivate the new beds before we put the bulbs in. This feels like cheating but we just don't have the time to dig it over. I am rather anxious about where I plant all these bulbs, don't know yet how I am going to place them.

One of my bulb orders has arrived! Now have my daffs, bluebells & tulips - will try very hard to get them in this weekend. Just waiting for the aliums and a few other bits for the long bed....

hello again, I am returned...

I have been very lax about things and have not yet ordered anything for autumn planting. However, today I am going to bring in all the notebooks, magazines, seed packets and planners that I put in the shed at the end of July when we had my DS's birthday party, and get planning with the help of a glass of wine this evening.

Gaps are opening up where I've dug things up, like potatoes (Stempster - really good) and geraniums (thuggish). So I need to choose overwintering veg for the right hand side of the garden and possibly something for the flower border on the left. I've been buying the odd thing here and there like herbs and a lovely chocolate cosmos. I pinched some low growing sedum and a plant I think is called London Pride from my mum's garden - spreads like crazy.

Today we were inspired to rip down the fence at the bottom of the garden and see what junk appeared behind (our true boundary is a wire fence about a metre behind the wooden fence). The answer was... lots. We are going to put a second shed there for DH's stuff so my shed is easier to do potting and stuff in (two bikes in there atm), and I can have multiple compost heaps too. So it's now a trifle unsafe down there with rubble and rotting old fence panels and something which looks a bit like a broken asbestos roof sheet.

Hi Lex (I have name-changed if you haven't had a chance to read recent posts - blaming Maud)

Today I managed to convince DH to do gymnastics duty with the DDs whilst I did lots of tidying in the veg plot, planted out my baby cabbage plants and sowed some green manure where the beetroot and beans used to be. Then planted out various seedlings into the long bed (some free stuff I got and some teasels grown from seed), transferred some lavender, thyme and hyssops out of the pew planters and into the long bed to fill the holes left by the returned babysat plants. And, got the blanca and bluebell bulbs in the ground. Daffs to do tomorrow...

Bertha... I've read up on the recent posts but can't work out who you used to be!!

Well, your celeriac are nearly ready for harvesting!

Hello all new to this thread, had some success this year with runner beans being particularly good, our cottage garden area is coming along and will get stuck into some weeding soon.

I have question, what size polytunnel would you reccommend. WE have a large field so not restricted but would be helpful as getting a bit overwhelmed.

Hello five - welcome. Can't help with polytunnels but I guess size would depend on what you hoping to grow in it and what you thing you can manage?

Also, being nosy, what do you have in your cottage garden area?

Oh dear - wine hitting home. That should read 'what you're hoping to grow in it and what you think you can manage'....

right, got it. I am sorry to say the little october pumpkin plant was destroyed by mildew and slugs. I think I crowded it a bit which is stupid of me.

This morning the boys of the house have gone swimming and I have been doing my front garden which is very small (other people fill their gardens with 1 or 2 cars) and hopefully a bit cottagey. Alongside the path to the front door I've pulled up the nicotiana and calendula and shaken their seeds where they were. Gave the ground-hugging sedum a haircut. Used about half a bag of bulb fibre in a metre square overall, planting bulbs for the spring/summer (crocosmia, tulips, narcissus and some small ones which I didn't label but are probably bluebells/crocuses/snowdrops) and scattered seedheads of foxgloves amongst the crocs. Mulched with the hummus/leafmould which we dug up from behind the fence yesterday.

I also put down some heavy guage black polythene to try to kill off the grass, dandelions, clover etc. I am dubious whether it will work - it looks crap because I've cut it into sections and it's weighted down with mis matching paving slabs and it's all lumpy and will probably still grow the weeds out of the edges. But short of rotavating the lot (which would just spread tap root sections around) I don't know how else to get control of it. It's too small/awkward a patch to mow properly so it ends up as a feline public toilet.

Still haven't planned what to do in my gaps in the veg part of the back garden. Commissioned boys to get compost while they were out and I can just hear the at the door so at least I will be able to do my spring bulb pots soon.

Just checking in, en route to Ebay to look for more pots. Please don't bid against me!

Pots on Ebay? Mmmmm, considers stalking Maud.....

Got the daffs in today. Put them all around the pitiful, hanging on to life by its very bare branches fledgling magnolia. Hoping to shame it into life, or simply to distract people's attention from its failure to flourish.

My pumpkins didn't come to anything either Lex - the courgettes and patty pans were so successful I think they stole all the goodness and starved the pumpkins. I'm planning on putting a load more manure down in the pumpkin patch next year so that there is enough for everyone's appetite.

Hmm. Lots of pots but most of them are far too small and those that aren't are 200 miles away. Still, tomorrow is another day.

What made me laugh too are the little pots that are Victorian and are certainly very pretty but are being sold at £5 each. We sell them at the garden society for 50p, so I won't be buying those!

Hello Fivegomadindorset. I am rather jealous, I want a polytunnel. I would get the biggest one I could afford, you don't have to use all of it if you don't want too.

I still have planted NO bulbs yet. Am waking in the night panicking about it. The new beds are being rotivated on tuesday, with a good load of well rotten cow manure .

I am already looking forward to next year, I have such a good idea what I am going to plant and where I am going to plant it. I really feel as if I have come a long way...

(if anyone does facebook and fancies being my friend, I could share my photos, send me a pm if you want to)

don't want TO
sorry

I still haven't planted any bulbs (see earlier comments about dearth of pots) but bought more yesterday. As you do.

We think sometimes about a polytunnel on the allotment, but it would be shredded by the wind, I fear.

I am internetting shed porn this evening.

DH pondered the shed situation in the space we will free up by taking down the fence and alighted upon the idea that with a second shed in the other bottom corner of the garden, I should have a greenhouse lean-to. I him, did I ever mention?

So I have been looking for 8x6 pent shed and 6x4 lean-to greenhouse combinations. Of course what I really want is £4k worth of cedar and toughened glass loveliness but in an ex council 1950s terrace, that is just ridiculous. People Would Talk.

So my combos are southwold 6x4 and shed with Door A, or bigger greenhouse and bigger shed, Door A again.

Or, we could go DIY... There's a gap between the existing shed (on my profile pics) and the breeze block wall backing the rockery/pond which is just enough to shuffle into - could create a timber frame there and put horti-poly over it, or use second-hand/replacement greenhouse pieces like a roof vent window and louvre panels.

I have a few good classified ads in my kitchen gardening magazines for poly-tunnels - do you want sources or actual advice fivegomad?