A Helping Hand Protect fruit crops: It’s been a terrible year for wasps in our garden, attacking the plums and pears. Hanging traps suspended from fruit trees and filled with a sticky honey solution are a good idea. You can get some lovely ones that look like hanging glass lanterns, although I am keen to try the new ‘Waspinator’ (right) to deter them from even thinking about our orchard. Keep an eye open also for a regular flight path – to their nest, probably in a garden shed or roof. Use a wasp-nest destroyer if the nest is accessible, or call in your local council’s ‘pest control man’.
Soft fruit (late raspberries and blackberries) will still need protection. September is blackberry month, though legend says that they are inedible after Michaelmas (September 29th) as the devil spits on them on that date! Netted fruit frames will deter birds; as for the devil…. well make the most of it until 29th.
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Sow new lawns – or bare patches in existing ones, particularly those damaged by pets. Grass grows like the clappers again in September. Proper preparation is of course sensible if you want your lawn to survive once the seed has germinated. Before sowing, remove all stones and weed, rake the soil to a fine tilth and add sand if you have a heavy clay soil; sow thinly, raking the seed into the surface. Caution: before buying seed, decide what your ‘lawn’ will be used for as seed mixes are available for every use from a bowling green to a children’s play area and even one that will survive shade under trees. Cover the surface with netting raised slightly above soil-level (to deter sparrows from dust-bathing or eating the seed), and wait for germination. Have a look at a specialist website for more technical details. Plant Spring Flowers: what could be more lovely than the scent of wallflowers intermingled with tulips and polyanthus or pastel primrose, the blue of forget-me-nots mixed with Bellis perennis (pom-pom winter-flowering daisies in shades of white, pink and red), or the ubiquitous overwintering pansy in almost every shade of the rainbow. Set them out formally in rows as seen in parks or city council displays, or in mixed groupings, or dotted here and there in plantings of three, five, seven and so on (always an odd number) between shrubs or herbaceous perennials that will be cut back later in the year. Or plant up your pots; single species or mixed groups. You can even position your pots within borders to add a little height to an otherwise ‘flat’ area. School Gardens: with the start of not only the new school term but also the new academic year, it’s a marvelous time to introduce children to the joys of gardening: they are after all the next generation destined to care for our precious planet. How can they possibly do so if they do not know where to begin? There’s vegetables and salads to sow and harvest (even in Autumn) so they can eat their five-a-day, and decorative plants to delight the senses with colour and scent. See (left) a wonderful demonstration school garden taken at the Royal Welsh Botanic Garden near Carmarthen in Wales.
Why not become involved? Approach your local school to see whether they need experienced volunteers to help maintain – or even create – a school garden. You will probably have all kinds of security checks to establish your credentials, but this should be less of a problem if you have children at the school. Or offer them surplus tools or seeds, plants or cuttings. Offer to water or weed or keep an eye on the garden during school holidays. Or raise funds for a nominated school by selling your spare produce or cut flowers (gate sales). Donate your own spare produce to their Harvest Festival (they often send produce to local care homes). WI market in your area? Offer them spare produce for stalls. With determination and imagination, anything is achievable.
Until next month, happy gardening!
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