A thing of shreds and patches

No, not W S Gilbert’s Wandering Minstrel, but my gardening trousers.  Or, to be precise, my ex-gardening trousers.

Having been brought up to make do and mend, I’ve always gardened in clothing that has reached the point of being no longer fit for other purposes.  Scruffy clothes that will no longer do for polite company but are ‘fine for the garden’.  So it goes against the grain actually to spend money on something to wear in the garden, to put on just to get wet and muddy.  But last year I had to ditch my gardening jacket, an old grey puffer jacket that did a good enough job at keeping the cold at bay even after it parted company from its lining; finally the outer fabric ripped, and the padding started to fall out, making it really no longer practicable as gardening kit.  I had no other comparable garment ready to be downgraded to replace it, and a local outdoor-wear shop was doing a deal on cheap padded jackets, so I spent a whole £30 on a new outer layer – and I have to say that it does the job really well.  I’m trying to remember to put it in the washing machine from time to time to stop the fabric from deteriorating; too easy just to hang it up again after every spell in the garden!

I dallied for a while with the idea of using the old jacket to create an old-clothes scarecrow, perhaps one that could have planting pockets inserted in it (I’ve seen it done), but decided that it was going to be too complicated and would probably fall apart.  Instead, the old jacket was washed and sent to recycling, where I hope it was shredded and turned into something practical.

End of the road

My trousers have also now reached the end of the road.  Originally a very respectable pair of soft denim jeans, eventually their zip started to split and, needing something to take over from my previous gardening trousers (a black cotton pair from Gap), I demoted them to garden use.  They were roomy enough to allow me to wear a pair of black cotton leggings underneath when I needed extra insulation; the elastic waistband of the leggings is sagging but the jeans held them up, and the leggings provided suitable modesty when the jeans’ zip finally gave up completely.  However, the fabric of the jeans has now started to split across the leg and, while ripped jeans may be a valid fashion statement in some quarters, in a damp and dirty garden they’re just not a good idea.  So I’ve gone (online) shopping.

The new trousers, specially designed for gardening, cost considerably more than the £30 jacket, but they’re warmer and more practical than the jeans, they come highly recommended and first impressions are good – I just need to remember to keep them washed so that they last longer than my jeans!

Pushing the envelope

November continues with a mix of rain, wind and occasional sunny days; the wet keeps it feeling damp and cool, but we’ve only had two light frosts so far this autumn, and when the sun is out it still has traces of warmth in it.  Enough to encourage me to push the envelope a bit.

More seeds

The tray of mustard leaves sown last week is starting to show signs of germination, which is encouraging; it’s a crop that will grow, albeit slowly, over winter if kept under cover.  I was browsing through some old gardening magazines the other day and came across an article about autumn sowing of hardy annuals; it said that this could be done, in a greenhouse or cold frame, as late as mid-November, which prompted me to take a look through my seed box for suitable candidates.  I’ve now sown a few more ornamentals: nigella (home-saved seed), calendula (from a rather old seed packet) and cornflower (a more recent packet).  These are all good-natured plants that germinate readily (unless the seed is too old!), so I’m waiting to see what happens.  The plan is to prick them out into cells and put them in the cold frame for the winter, for planting out in spring.  If they don’t come up, I have more seed of all of them to sow when the weather is a bit warmer next year; and it's all part of learning about gardening.

I've also been getting on with the November jobs.  I'm pushing the envelope here too; it's a little late in the year to be finishing clipping the hedge, but I'm hoping that the relatively mild weather will let me get away with it.  The ivy poking out of the top has finished flowering, and cutting it now will deprive the birds of the berries, but it's getting in the way of maintaining the hedge and there are more berrying ivy plants elsewhere in the garden.  I've also started clearing the weeds round and next to the rhubarb to allow me to divide it - a very satisfying job!

It's not just the seed-sowing and hedge-trimming that is pushing the envelope.  While I was in the greenhouse, I noticed a small cluster of raspberries ripening on one of the canes in the fruit patch.  Not the sweetest berries I’ve ever tasted, but hey, it’s November, so let’s not complain!

November raspberries!

There’s no real cold in the forecast yet.  I wonder if we’re in for a mild month – or will winter come and surprise us? 

Ere the winter storms begin

Although the worst of the autumn weather has passed us by so far – we had another storm, Storm Ciaran, which caused some havoc along the south coast and more widely around Europe – November is shaping up to be just unsettled, with a few sunny days but, more often than not, rainy.  An opportunity to sit by the fire and make a few plans.

A vase of nerines

Not that the garden is completely devoid of interest; the nerines, with their wonderfully unseasonably pink frilly blooms, are providing good cut flower material, and the yellow antirrhinum in the greenhouse, which has flowered profusely and continuously even when the tomatoes were pushing it up to the glass, has also given me a vaseful today.  Here and there are splashes of colour, like the normally dark corner of the house by the electricity meter box, where the firethorn berries, red berberis leaves and winter jasmine flowers have been joined unexpectedly by a show of blue campanula blooms, and the Mahonia ‘Winter Sun’ is gearing up to brighten the even darker days to come.

Yellow antirrhinums

Leaves, berries, flowers - a colourful corner

Mahonia 'Winter Sun' - gearing up for the season ahead

Meanwhile, indoors, the seed catalogue beckons.  I’ve rifled through the old seed packets to see what might continue to germinate next year, and am taking a slightly new approach this time.  Normally I order all my seeds in one go, around this time of year, usually ordering duplicates of the older seed packets in case these turn out to be too old to germinate; this year, however, I took the advice of Charles Dowding the No-Dig expert and held off sowing my brassica seeds (and some others) until midsummer, to prevent the plants from running to seed.  So my new plan is to top up on the spring-sown seeds now, then to test the summer seeds for viability next year and put in a second order as necessary.  I hope this will mean that I won’t end up with so many unused (and ageing) seed packets!

I’ve just sown a few salad seeds in the greenhouse, in the covered trays (protection against the mice); these are mostly rather old seeds, but if they don’t germinate, I won’t have lost out.  They are Lettuce ‘All Year Round’, which didn’t germinate at all earlier in the year despite the packet being ‘within date’, so I’ve sown it thickly and can use it as a cut-and-come-again crop if it produces anything; some mixed winter salad seeds, from an old packet; and Mustard ‘Red Frills’, which is fairly fresh seed and is usually a good do-er, so might liven up some winter salads.  I’ve also sown all my old Ammi majus seeds in a tray; it’s a plant I haven’t had any success with in the past, the seeds are very old and it’s not an ideal time of year to sow them, but in theory they could germinate in the greenhouse and be pricked out, and again, if they don’t come up, nothing lost (and I can ditch the packet).

I’m also drawing up a mental list of jobs to be done before the winter kicks in.  In no particular order these are:

-          Finish cutting the hedge (this ought to have been done by now, but …);

-          Finish weeding the veg patch, or at least the main bits;

-          Mulch the veg beds;

-          Clear some ground near the rhubarb plants, and dig up, divide and replant the maincrop plant, which hasn’t done well this year and is honestly too big and sprawly and needs a refresh ('Timperley Early' can wait until next year);

-          After the first frosts, dig up the dahlia plants and dry them off, and in their place plant out the perennials sitting around in pots;

-          Plant the tulip bulbs.  There’s no big hurry for this, it can be done in December if necessary, although I’ve salvaged a few ‘World Friendship’ and ‘Angelique’ bulbs from this year’s pots and plan to tuck them in among the perennials, if I can stop them from drying out in the meantime.

All of which should keep me busy ….