September

In a good year we can have an Indian summer, although temperatures usually cool down this month and we could even get a touch of early frost, just wonderful !!!

GENERAL MAINTENANCE

Looking at the plot after the August rains I cannot believe the number of weed seeds that have germinated on the recently cleared ground, these will have to go at the earliest opportunity and if September is not dry enough to hoe them out then I'll spray them with roundup. Whilst autumn is the traditional time for digging over the plot, I'll wait until most of my crops have finished.

MANURE

As usual I'll be ordering a load of manure this month for delivery early October, to my mind there is nothing like manure for adding humus to the over worked soil, (if you want the farmers telephone number make contact with me) once received I'll just pile it up into mini heaps of 4/5 barrow loads for spreading later.

PLANTING

The cabbage plants sown at home last month will be ready to go out, they will be planted very closely (9 inch apart) to produce spring greens hopefully during late February-April next year. I'm also trying to decide whether to put in any autumn onion sets, last years grew to a huge size over winter and cropped much earlier than spring planted sets, the downside was that they didn't keep very well.

LAST CHANCE

Any tender crops will need to be harvested before the frosts. Main crop potatoes will be lifted & stored as will the last of the onions. It's also the last chance to plant new strawberries for next year and at the very least I'll be re-positioning the rooted runners and destroying any tired or diseased plants.

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