Notes from my autumn garden in Arrowtown
The autumnal breezes send the golden leaves tumbling down in thick flurries. A gentle reminder that there will be plenty of raking in my days ahead. Swept into mounds, the leaves will be added by the armful to the compost bins. A beautiful process whereby the remains from one season go on to breathe life into the following season in the garden, and on and on it goes.
A wicker basket in hand, the crunch of leaves underfoot. The birds have beat me to it … an abundant season for the fruit trees. I don't mind sharing there is enough to go around for all of us. With my basket full, I hurry back to the warmth of the cottage. Sweet pears bathing in sugars overnight. The sugar allowing the fruit to relax and release more of its delicate flavour. Bubbling away on the stove top, tiny flecks of vanilla suspended in the molten liquid. Truth be told, I don't especially love the sweet spectrum of flavours, I would prefer savoury & salty any day, however it just feels right to tuck a few small jars of this jam into the darkened shelves of the pantry. A squirelling away of deliciousness for darker days.
I love the garden at this time of year. Everything has slowed down, allowing me to quietly work my way through my list of jobs to get done before the garden bursts back into life in Spring.
Autumn Tasks:
After being planted in April the Iceland poppies quickly burst into growth & will begin flowering in June & continue flowering right into mid spring. The buds crack open & then huge crinkled petals unravel themselves to become one of the most beautiful flowers that I grow. It feels like such a treat to have such luxurious flowers in the depths of winter.
Ranunculus & anemone corms have been tucked into the greenhouse to bring masses of flowers in late winter & early spring. I am having trouble with losing more ranunculus than I would like to rot, so I am testing out of few different methods of presprouting them to see what works the best for me in future seasons.
At the beginning of autumn I sow a range of hardy annual seeds which will sit small in the greenhouse all winter. They spend this time developing beautiful strong sets of roots which means they will explode into lush growth as soon as it begins to warm up, which means getting flowers a lot earlier than the spring sown ones. Iceland poppies, valerian, snap dragons, calendula, wild carrot, pansy, nigella, cornflowers, verbena, sweetpeas, scabiosa and cornflowers all love this method.
Sowing plenty of beautiful greens to enjoy over autumn & winter. Cornsalad, radicchio, rocket & coriander all love the cooler temperatures of this time of year. I thickly sow the rocket and coriander seeds into planter bags which I have been finding works really well. When harvesting them I just use scissors to cut a handful & then in just a week or so they will have grown back.
Planting rows of beautiful tulips. Tucking them in close to each other in deep trenches to encourage gorgeous long stems. I am especially excited about growing Ridgedale & Verona varieties this year for a still life photograph series that I have been imagining.
Building new larger compost heaps. We already make a lot of compost but I want to make enough to cover all of our needs so that we are using all the resources that we have on our property & so that I don’t have to buy compost from outside sources. Last spring my entire sweetpea crop had to be pulled out after the all of the beautiful healthy seedlings became stunted & deformed once planted into the compost, the growing points all curled in - unable to unfurl & grow . After doing some research I have come to suspect that my brought in compost or horse manure was contaminated with a commonly used herbicide, which sadly seems to be affecting more and more gardeners around the world.
Planning of the next season. Last summer was fairly disastrous in terms of pest control at our place, so winter is a wonderful time to reflect & come up with a plan on how to deal with this next growing season. Quail, blackbirds, possum, rabbits, thrips & earwigs all caused havoc in the garden. And of course I will be pouring over seed catalogues and dreaming of all of the beautiful harvests to come.
Whether you are moving into the winter months or about to come into summer, I hope you are enjoying all that your season has to offer.
