The cloves are off

Edibles

Plant garlic in a sunny spot with well-drained soil. Use the biggest cloves from last season’s crop or ones bought specifically for planting. (Ones sold for consumption are often sprayed with a growth inhibitor to stop them sprouting.) Plant the cloves 10cm apart about 4cm deep with the pointed end up. Water well and mulch with pea straw or the like.

Once the shoots emerge, feed every fortnight with a liquid fertiliser, high in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Beetroot, carrots, lettuce, mesclun, rocket, silver beet and spinach may still be sown. Plant spring cabbages and cauliflower. Encourage strawberry plants’ runners to root by pinning them down with a bent wire. Once the runners are established (look for the new plants’ new leaves), these new plants may be moved to a new spot should the existing bed be getting crowded. Weed soft fruit, such as raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries and mulch with rotted manure or compost. Plant blackberries, boysenberries,

And so it begins: time to rake leaves. Plant garlic cloves 4cm deep in a well-drained, sunny spot.

blueberries, loganberries (a blackberry/ raspberry cross), raspberries and tay berries in full sun with good drainage.

Compost and leaf mould

Gather leaves as they fall and store by the compost heap to add whenever a layer of ‘‘brown’’ matter is needed. (Other brown layers include straw, woodchips, sawdust, newspaper, corn stalks and twigs.)

Or turn fallen leaves into leaf mould by placing in a black plastic rubbish bag pierced many times or a special hessian leaf-mould sack and leaving somewhere out of the way but exposed to the elements, such as under a tree or shrub for a year or so. Or make a leaf mould bin by wrapping wire-netting around four poles placed in a square.

Ornamentals

Sow sweet peas in a sunny spot, with rich, free-draining soil and with something for them to climb up.

Sprinkle lime around campanulas, clematis, delphiniums, lilac (which especially loves it) and salvia. But not around acid-lovers which include azaleas, camellia, daphne, Japanese maples, pieris and rhododendrons.

Collect seed from late-flowering perennials and annuals.

Prune climbing roses by removing dead, diseased or dying branches. Then tie in new shoots and prune any side shoots that have flowered by about two-thirds. Any really old branches may be cut back to base. Cut hedges without delay.

Place a layer of compost around perennials, followed by a layer of peastraw to feed and protect the plants over winter.