Ins and outs

A lovely autumn day, a little mist over the fields in the morning, then sunny and warm enough for lunch outside on the bench.  Not for very long, though, because there's too much to do; it's time for old plants, and leafmould and compost, to come out and new ones to go in.

It started yesterday, with the first big sweep-up of fallen leaves.  This meant that last year's leafmould had to come out of the wire containers so that the new stuff could go in - which is always very satisfying.  Some of the old leafmould went down as mulch around the leeks, and over the garlic that was planted a couple of days ago in the patch where the runner beans had been taken out.  In theory the beans should have fixed some nitrogen in the soil, but I think I read somewhere that actually not much nitrogen remains available to the next crop, so plenty of old compost went in around the garlic, especially the elephant garlic (I'm still in competition with a neighbour on that).  That particular bed has a patch of poor soil in it; it's one of the old 'L' shaped beds that I'd been meaning to square off, and I finally managed this, but the newly created corner has a lot of grit from the old path in it.  I've tried to compensate with some of the soil originally dug out when creating the Hill, and I'm hoping that the added compost and leafmould mulch will do the trick.

Today's job was digging out the compost bins.  The bin that had been cooking over the summer had done really well; usually there's a lot of twiggy stuff, leathery avocado skins, egg shells and other things that take longer to break down in there, but the summer heat had obviously kept the temperature high and there wasn't anything like as much as usual to transfer to the new pile.  That meant that I was able to use some of the new compost to prepare the broad bean bed.  The broad bean crop has been erratic over the past couple of years, with both poor germination (despite using fresh seed) and poor growth, so I've gone back to my old practice of sowing the overwintering beans in the cold frame (in toilet roll half-tubes) in readiness for planting out once they've germinated.  About half have done so already, and they will go into the ground in a couple of days once the soil has settled after my digging.

So there's plenty of space in the compost bins for the other plants that have been taken out: the courgettes (which still had a few tiny fruits on them but mildew was taking over and the plants wouldn't have lasted much longer - anyway I have as many courgettes as I can use!), aubergines and tomatoes.  I've picked all the remaining green tomatoes and am hoping that some will ripen indoors.

A visit to the garden centre last week had me rummaging in the end-of-season 50p seed packet box; treasures found there included a packet of phacelia seed, which I've sown in this summer's garlic bed as a winter green manure.  Pleased to see the first signs of germination today; I hope the sunshine will encourage it!

All the dahlia flowers were picked for the Harvest Supper tables, but a few more are coming through, especially those of the Bishop's Children (they've been slow to do much, but they're starting to produce bright, cheerful flowers).  The nerines, which I've tried to give more light to this year (keeping the wisteria leaves off them), have produced a few flowers which are just starting to open, and Penstemon 'Garnet' (syn 'Andenken an Friedrich Hahn') is making a good showing.  Elsewhere the Sedum 'Autumn Joy' (which isn't called Sedum any more, but I can't remember its new name) is doing well, if floppily, and the Choisya ternata is also in flower.  With the first autumn tints and the bright red apples, the garden is looking a little brighter than it does most autumns!

First nerines

Penstemon 'Garnet'

Borage and dahlias 'Bishop's Children' series