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 ….