It’s tidy up time on my allotment
We haven’t had much rain so I’ve been able to carry on clearing finished crops on the allotment, putting them on the compost and forking over the vacant ground. I still have several decent cabbages, sprouts, turnips and a few beetroot, but all the rest have finished.
The dahlias have all been cut down and put on the compost and I’ve begun digging up the tubers for storing. I don’t wash the tubers, I just scrape off the loose soil and cut the stems down to about 10 cm (4in).
I knock a screwdriver down the hollow stems, and out at the bottom, to free any trapped water. I tie on the labels with waterproof string right round the tubers and not just round the stems, because the stems shrink as they’re drying and the labels might come off. I then stand them upside down in boxes to dry and put them underneath the greenhouse staging.
I still had some decent early chrysanths up to the beginning of November. I’ve had more now than I had for the Whitefield’s Early Show in September, so I cut some to put in a vase in the house. The plants have all been cut down now and labels tied on the stools so they’re ready for boxing up. They’re kept on the greenhouse shelf over winter. Most of the bedding plants in the garden have finished and been cleared. My wife Rosemary helps me with this task and I take them to the allotment and put them on the compost. I’ve picked all the tomatoes in the greenhouse and in the polytunnel at our local primary school where I help run the garden club, cut down the plants and emptied the pots. The green tomatoes have been put in drawers with banana skins to help them to ripen. I’ve still not replanted the hanging baskets and tubs but I’m hoping to get the job done in the next few days. I pot up some plants from the baskets that I want to keep to take cuttings from in spring, such as surfinias, bacopas and diascias. All the seeds I ordered have arrived, including a bulk order for allotmenteers and members of our horticultural society.