Stepping into the new season

   Here we are in the middle of September and it is time to start to plan and get set for the new garden season. 
   My compost experiment laid down in the spring and encouraged by my good friend Keith who has had good results by it, I have declared a success. Layers of leaves and grass cuttings have turned into a very useful mulch for my new apple trees. I am sure the chickens will not be able to resist scratching in it though.
   In the poly tunnel brassicas are being seriously attacked by slugs, caterpillars and white fly. I need to resolve this issue or maybe I will not bother with brassicas next year. The tunnel plastic is in need of a wash and I really need to do it before winter kicks in. Tomatoes continue to ripen, lettuce, cauliflower, beetroot, kohl rabi, purple sprouting are growing away. The toms in hanging baskets are all but done now and I have removed one. The other still have viable toms on it and I will leave them to ripen. Thinking now of creating the poly tunnel fleece clouche.
  Outside Chou Milan and the brussels sprouts planted the other week are going great guns. Celeriac and celery still look good. I have picked ripe (red) peppers and got two "quart" freezer bags worth. Still some to pick. Carrots looking good and I am currently pulling from one row. Harricot Vert/Buerre are in flower and as long as the weather holds I should get something from them. Runner beans are in their second flush of flowers and there are even some beans forming. Better than the first flush. Courgettes are all but finished as is the sweet corn. Leeks look good and I am pulling some and others are growing well. I still have some onions in the ground and according to the label they are shallots but they do not look like shallots to me although I have learnt that you can have shallots that do not divide! Weeding and forking continues getting ground ready for the winter.
   Work to do includes clearing the strawberry beds and dealing with the raspberries. I have cleared, weeded and forked one strawberry bed. There were still some plants left! Not so good on the second bed. Having cleared the weeds I found very few strawberry plants. I have removed those that did survive to plug the gaps in the first bed. I have started to dig strawberry bed 2 but it is proving to be hard work! The bed has had little work done on it since I started in this garden.
  Ok, enough for now. The warm sunny spell continues and I am having to water every evening but that is paying off in that plants are growing well still. About a month to go before the possibility of a frost...ha!