Another Summer Draws to a Close

Well, another summer draws to a close and the signs of autumn are beginning to appear around the garden. September is really a month of transition on the plot, finishing off the last tasks of the growing season we've just had this summer whilst starting preparations for the new season ahead in 2010.

This is certainly the case in the early part of the month when in many areas of the UK, Jack Frost still may not have the early mornings under his icy grip. This is the time to gather in the last of the harvest from frost-tender annuals such as the squashes and beans. Getting them inside into a dry, frost-free store will help ensure that you'll be able to dip into the harvest throughout the winter months. There's nothing quite like a hot roast squash and potato pasty or a piping hot bowl of bean casserole when you've just finished tinkering the garden in mid-January!

When harvesting the squashes for storage, remember to cut them off the plant at least a couple of inches down on the stem. This helps prolong their storage, as cutting them close to the top can let moulds sneak into them. Preferably harvest them after a couple of days of dry weather - if it is wet before you can get them in ensure that they are not resting directly on the soil so that they are less likely to rot. A little bed of straw or a flowerpot underneath the fruit can help with this.

Letting any beans or late peas that you want to harvest dry on the plant is also a good idea. The beans and peas can be collected for two uses: as seed for next year and/or for use as dried beans or peas in cooking. My girlfriend and I are not terribly keen on runner beans as green beans so we usually leave most of ours to swell in the pods and then save them for winter stews. They last a long time and it also means that a potential summer glut (when there's lots of other gluts on the go) is turned into a store cupboard staple for the winter.

As well as saving beans for seed, it's often worthwhile trying to save seed from a number of other plants, both vegetable and ornamental. There's a number of plus sides to this. It obviously saves money and, whilst a single packet of seeds isn't usually massively expensive, a selection of seed packets for an allotment or large back-garden vegetable plot can soon add up (although a top tip is to check out garden centres and DIY stores in early autumn as they often sell off the remains of this year's seed stock at bargain prices to make room for next year's packets). It also means that you can ensure a supply of your favourite varieties. Keeping a variety commercially available costs the seed merchants money and they frequently drop older varieties, either due to falling demand or to make way for newer varieties.

Saving seed is something that you could write a book on (and people have!) but in general the process is simple and similar for many common plants. You just let the plant ripen its seeds and then capture them when they are mature, just before the plant disperses them. There are a variety of signs that the seeds are ready: the seedheads turn dry and brown, pods rattle when you shake them, fluffy wind-blown heads appear or the seedheads spring open and fire seed all over the place. If you've got a number of plants you can often watch for the first seedheads to disperse their seeds naturally as a sign that other seeds are likely to be soon ripe.

This also means that the plant has a chance to ‘self-seed' - in other words spread itself around naturally. In the flower border this might be desired (plants like Love-in-the-Mist, although annuals, will come up year after year as they freely sow their seeds around themselves). However in the vegetable bed, where you probably practise crop rotation to minimise the chances of pest or disease build up or nutrient deficiencies, it's probably best to try to capture the seeds you want before they are spread out to become ‘volunteers' in all the wrong places!

One trick for capturing seeds is to take an old paper bag and place it upside down over the nearly ripe seedhead. Scrunch the bag opening up around the stalk and secure it with a bit of twine. If the weather is wet you can put a plastic bag over this to help keep the rain off, but don't tie it shut as well as you want the air to circulate - the paper bag allows this whereas the plastic won't. Give the paper bag a shake every day or so and when you hear seeds rattling inside, cut the stalk off and bring the bag inside.

Once you've collected your seeds, you need to make sure that they are really dry and then, usually, store them in a cool, dark, dry place. Making little folded up seed packs out of old scrap A4 paper or envelopes is a good way of storing them, but remember to label the resulting packs with the name and date so that you know what they are and when you saved them. Also make sure that the packs are well sealed - it's really annoying to return to your seeds next spring to find several packs split open and all the seeds spilled together. We store the seed packs in either old metal biscuit tins (which are pretty mouse proof - handy in sheds and garages) or in a file box separated by future sowing dates. Throwing in a couple of silica gel packs (the sort that often appear in electronic product packaging) helps ensure that the moisture is kept to a minimum as well.

There is some debate about removing the ‘chaff' from saved seeds - the material surrounding the seeds attached to the stalk. Sometimes this is easy, as is the case with the pods around beans and peas. In other plants separating it can be more tricky. Some folk say not to bother and just sow the seeds and chaff together in the spring. Other people prefer ‘clean' seed and spend time winnowing or separating the seed from the waste. To some extent this is a personal preference - clean seeds are likely to store better and less likely to have pests or diseases harboured in the waste material. On the other hand lots of plants are perfectly happy having their seeds mixed up with old bits of flower head and stalk - after all in nature the seeds have to survive some pretty tough conditions. If you are undecided you can tread the middle ground and save a little bit of clean seed and the rest separately ‘as it comes'.

As well as saving seeds and harvesting squashes, you should also make sure that you lift any main crop potatoes that are still in the ground before the frosts kick in. Again a dry windy day is the best conditions for harvesting but if you have to do it in the wet, spread them out to dry inside for a couple of hours before bagging them up. Store the tubers in a dark, cool but frost free location and discard  any diseased ones. It is a good idea to put any with fork damage (which is almost inevitable when digging them up) to one side and use those up first - the ones put into storage should be your best quality spuds.

You'll probably want to lift any carrots that you have in the ground, as digging them out of frozen soil isn't a good idea. Those that you don't freeze or use immediately can be stored in boxes of damp sand in a shed or in outdoor ‘clamps'. A clamp is a carefully constructed mound that allows such root vegetables to be stored outside but still be available when the ground is frozen solid. Start a clamp by putting a circular layer of straw on the ground and then put a layer of carrots on top of this with their roots pointing towards the centre. Cover them with some sand and another layer of straw. Repeat this until you've used up all your carrots and then cover the whole mound in some more straw and then a couple of inches of soil. Try to shape the soil so that the clamp is a rough dome shape - this helps to shed rainwater. To recover the carrots to use simply clear away a little of the soil and pull out as many carrots as you need, working from the top down.

With the end of the harvest comes the start of the autumn cleaning and tidying. It's as well to get this done before the harsh winter weather sets in. Clearing away dead and finished plants helps prevent pests and fungi overwintering in them - they can usually just go straight into your compost bin. Also try to collect up any fallen apples, pears and other fruits - they can also be composted if you're not making cider! Talking of fruits you need to get some grease bands on your trees if you've not already done so - these are available from garden centres and are sticky bands that are tied around the tree trunk about a foot above the ground. Many pest insects climb rather than fly up into the trees and these bands help stop them.

If you've now got beds that are empty you've got a couple of choices with what to do with them. The lazy approach is to cover the bed with old cardboard weighed down with a bit of compost or manure. This will help suppress weeds, stop the worst of the winter weather from damaging the soil surface and, if you so wish, can provide a ‘no-dig' medium to plant into next year (the cardboard will slowly rot and the worms will pull it and the compost or muck down into the soil without you lifting a spade).

Alternatively you might still be able to get something useful growing in the bed. One option is another soil improver: a winter green manure. This is a crop like winter rye or buckwheat that you allow to grow up to the point just before it flowers and sets seed and then just chop it down into the soil. Like the cardboard it can help suppress some of the weed growth (by out-competing them for space and light) and the chopped up plants can be lightly dug into the top of the bed and left to rot for a few weeks. They then provide an excellent source of nutrients and organic material for the next crop.

Lastly, if you want a ‘real' crop you might just be able to get away with a late sowing of a hardy leafy green. Some lettuces and oriental leaves are relatively happy growing in the colder, wetter months of the year, especially if you give them a bit of protection from the worst of the elements with cloches or miniature polytunnels. With a bit of luck you'll be able to harvest salad leaves right into the winter. They'll make a nice side dish to go along with your roasted squash and bean soup!

Jim'll

Beans photo (c) Salena Walker 2009

Potato photo (c) Jilly Graham 2009 

Crab apples (c) Gary Barlow 2009