Tidying up for Winter

I had a day off work on Monday, and the weather was nice, so I knuckled down to a bit of tidying-up. This is not something I particularly enjoy, since it always seems to be unproductive. Nowhere near as satisfying as harvesting of course! Still, it has to be done...

The biggest and least attractive job was to empty out the soggy compost from the big pots in which I grew the tomatoes. I was glad that I have the big Woodblocx raised bed now, because that's where most of the compost ended up. Of course, having been used once already it will not contain many nutrients now, and I will have to rectify that in the Spring, but for the time being I just needed somewhere convenient to put the stuff!

I expect the local foxes will have a good dig around in it now, to see if there are any worms, but I don't mind that now, when there are no plants to be damaged, just as long as they leave it alone when it really matters.

After emptying the tomato pots I gave them a good cleaning with my garden hose, and then stacked them away in the garage ready for next year, alongside their bamboo canes. If you take care of items like these, they last for quite a while, but if you neglect them you will need to replace them much more frequently.

With the departure of those pots the patio area was looking a bit bare, so I re-arranged the remaining pots to make the most of their colours before the leaves all fall or die down. I'm quite pleased with this:-



That's mostly Blueberries and various herbs, like Sage and Rosemary, with a couple of ferns in the background. Talking of ferns, the Asparagus fern is beginning to turn yellow at last. Cutting that down will be one of my next jobs!

Did you see the Brussels Sprouts in the background? They are doing quite well this year - much better than my two previous attempts - and only today I picked a few more sprouts for our dinner.

It's probably about time I started sweeping up leaves too. I haven't done much of this yet. I usually wait till all the leaves have fallen, otherwise I find myself doing the same job twice or three times. In certain areas of the garden though the "little and often" approach is more appropriate. These potted herbs will soon be submerged if I don't come to their rescue!



Now that most of my chilli crop has finished, I also cut down and composted the plants. Only a few of the late-developers are still out in the garden. "Christmas Bell", for instance looks like living up to its name. I mean if I'm lucky I might get a ripe fruit by Christmas! I think one of the few fruits left after its fall during a storm some weeks ago is now looking faintly red, but in the meantime I have tied the plant to a tree for support - or was it to show that it can just jolly well stay there until it DOES produce some ripe fruit...?



Next weekend, I'll probably get the coldframe out of the garage. Then it really will seem like Winter.