"There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments"

Janet Kilburn Phillips

Bye bye Summer!

Hi Everyone.

There is a definite autumnal chill in the air with the days getting shorter and it's sad for us all to see our spent summer crops being cut down and composted. But now is a good time to take stock and ask yourself, what have I learnt and what would I do differently next year.

I can already feel the call to start planning what I'm going to grow next season and look forward to perusing the new seed catalogues that are beginning to tumble through my letterbox.

So what have we got in store for you this month?

What to sow and grow in October.

Gorgeous Garlic 🧄

Seed saving beginners guide.

Autumn pruning.

And lastly, Lottie news.

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What to sow and grow in October

There are still things you can sow direct in the ground or if you prefer plant them in pots or root trainers under cover to be planted out in a few weeks. The first one is Garlic. Soft Neck, Hard Neck and Elephant Garlic, the really big one. See the video below.

Hardy Broad Beans are another, either for the beans themselves or as a cover crop so as to fix a bit of Nitrogen in your soil. If you want to sow them now I would suggest the Aquadulce Claudia variety.

Again like last month you can get some Onion sets in or over wintering Onion seeds like Japanese 'Senshyu Yellow'. Spring onions are also good now.

Winter Lettuce, Cauliflower, Radish, Spring Cabbage, Land Cress and Parsley all like the cooler months, but may need a bit of protection later on under a cloche or fleece.

And lastly, I don't usually include flowers, but now is the time to sow your Sweet Peas in pots under cover.

Gorgeous Garlic

Garlic is such an easy crop to grow and now is the best time to get it sown. I have a sneaking suspicion I've shown this video before, but it is such a good one I had to add it again.

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5 Facts about Garlic

I suspect we all know that Garlic is good for us and that it contains many nutrients and health giving properties, but did you know the following?

🧄 Garlic is a flower

For centuries, people have been confused about what garlic actually is. Is it an herb? Or maybe a spice? In actuality, it is a member of the Lily family.

🧄 2/3 Of All Garlic is Grown in China

Garlic is cultivated and grown in nearly every country, but as of 2012, 2/3 of the Garlic grown in the world, nearly 46 billion pounds per year, comes from China. While all Garlic is healthy for you, not every head of Garlic packs the same punch. Polysulphide Allicin is the component that provides most of the medicinal benefits. The amount of this compound is dependent on the soil it grows in. Chinese Garlic has the most Allicin.

🧄 Garlic Can Make Glue

If you’ve ever cut Garlic, you’ve probably noticed the sticky residue the juice leaves on your hands. This actually works quite well as a bonding agent for small and delicate projects, like glass.

🧄 Russian Penicillin

Garlic used to be called Russian penicillin & given to soldiers in WW2 as medicine.

🧄 Many Kinds

There are many different kinds of Garlic. Some are white, some are purple, and some are huge. However, there are actually more than 450 types of garlic in the world, and not all of them are used in food.

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Seed saving

You might like the idea of seed saving so as to possibly save yourself a bit of money on shop bought seed packets for next year. But you also, like myself, might be a little confused by all the terminology surrounding saving seeds. Terms like Open Pollination, Heritage Varieties, Hybrids and F1's.

For the beginner the best vegetables to start with are self pollinators and as the name implies, they pollinate themselves, which makes things a little easier. These self pollinating vegetables are Dwarf French Beans, Tomatoes, Lettuce, Peppers and Peas. Below is a short video on how to save Tomato seeds, which is a great place to start.

If you'd like a more comprehensive guide on saving seeds, the second video, again Hew Richards, is very good. And don't forget about saving some of your companion flower seeds like Nasturtiums, French Marigold and Calendula to name but a few.

Autumn pruning.

Apart from doing a general tidy up of your plot, garden or veg patch now, it's a good time to do a bit of pruning. I personally love pruning, but I know for a lot of you it can be a bit daunting. Fear not, as it's quite rare that you will kill anything by pruning unless of course you prune it down to the ground.

Things that need a good prune at the moment are Lavender and Rosemary bushes. They will withstand a good short back and sides so to speak and will spring back nicely in a few weeks. If you don't prune them enough they will just get woody and a bit unruly.

Blackcurrant, Gooseberry and Redcurrant bushes will need a trim and any dead wood cut out as well. I don't grow Raspberries, but if you have summer fruiting canes, now is the time to prune them and these you can cut right back to the ground.xt Link

Lottie News!

The fine netting came out at the beginning of September so as to cover the late Leeks to protect them from the Allium Leaf Miner. For some reason the foxes like to play on this, so I decided to gently lay it over the Leeks and then cover them with black butterfly netting over the frame. Up until last week it had worked and it had kept them off, but unfortunately a few days ago a fox or two had jumped on the top and squashed both some of the Leeks and a few of the Beetroot that hadn't been dug up by them previously.

My new trolly came in handy again to transport the last of the Onions, several Tomatoes, Runner Beans and Carrots. I also used it to bring back a couple of bags of potting compost from the Hertford Avenue Allotment shop. I do however think I should have L plates on the back as I'm not good at going round corners with it or up and down curbs.

It was sad to see the Sweetcorn cut down after a very successful crop, but pleased the Sweet Potato vines were romping away.

It's been another funny old season with a few near disasters. The first one being that I didn't have any female flowers on my Butternut vines until only a couple of weeks ago. I finally got one Butternut out of four plants and I have no idea why this has happened. My experiment with doing the Borlotti Beans and the Black Beans in the tubs instead of the ground was a bit of a disaster as I think I overcrowded the pots with plants and they never really took off. They are definitely going in the ground next year.

My outside Aubergines did much better than the two plants I had in the poly tunnel. I have a suspicion that it got too hot for them in there or there wasn't enough pollinators, again another mystery.

I had a very close encounter with a fox who had sauntered onto my plot one afternoon and looked at me as if to say, 'What are you doing on my patch!' It was actually amazing to see him or her up so close and I could almost forgive them for the damage that they do...well almost.

If you have a food gardening question you'd like to ask just pop me an email and I'll see how I can help. I don't proclaim to be an expert, but I will do my best to answer any of your questions.

In the meantime, if you know of anyone who might like to become a FG4A member do feel free to forward them this email and get them to visit the website and sign up, it's free!

Or you can always catch up with what I've been up to on Facebook or instagram.

Keep safe.

Christine x

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