The most exciting news by far since we last wrote is that the tomatoes are ripening one by one every day – the sight of the bright red showing through the green leaves has actually been responsible for quickening my pulse in the last two weeks!
So what work will the waist-height garden need in the month ahead?
HARVESTING
Tomatoes
These will continue to need regular watering – letting them dry out and then soaking them is the perfect recipe for split fruit – and picking, to keep the plant producing more and more.
By the end of September, it will be important to pull up the plant or chop off individual vines where there are still tomatoes growing and hang them up somewhere indoors where they can continue to ripen.
After that, the jury is out on whether to dig the pulled up plants back into the earth to add nutrients. There is a lot of debate about whether tomato stems and leaves are mildly poisonous and therefore shouldn’t be composted. And if any unripened fruits get left on inadvertently, it’s possible that next year could see random tomato plants popping up between the rows of whatever we sow there next.
What will you be doing with yours?
Pak choi
These are ready to eat now.
Salads, minutely steamed with a little soy sauce, or stir-frys with whatever else you are harvesting or buying.
Of course, you have to remember to actually go and pick them. Which I didn’t. I deliberately shopped for a stir fry so I could use the pak choi. Then sat down with hubby to eat it, staring out the window at the in-tact pak choi waving at me from the pot. Duh.
Other veggies to harvest
If you have courgettes, beans, cucumbers or peppers growing, these also demand regular picking to prevent them becoming tough and to make sure the plant produces as much as possible before the season is over.
And if you’re trying potatotes for the first time, September is also the time for digging up the remaining tubers and putting good healthy ones into store.
This advice applies equally to beetroot, carrots and turnips.
Leave parsnips in the ground though. Like leeks, they are tastier AFTER a frost!
Cabbage
Another slug casualty, can you believe?! One of the little blighters somehow managed to slink in under a poorly tucked in fold of gardening cloche and snarfed the LOT. Drat. This year’s efforts are becoming mildly farcical with one thing and another!
Pumpkins / Squashes
If your squash plants made it past the slugs (unlike ours!) then your fruit may be almost ready for harvesting in September. If the stems are cracking, the time is right. Remove from the plant keeping quite a long stalks in tact on the fruit.
Then leave them on a sill / in a greenhouse in the sun for two weeks for the skins to harden and for them to finish ripening. If you want to store some, the next thing to do will be to put them somewhere cool, dark, dry place.
SOWING
There is still time to sow "over wintering" crops.
- lettuce (Winter)
- onion sets (over-wintering)
- spinach
- turnip
PLANTING OUT
- Spring cabbages being started off indoors should be ready to go into the ground in September (cover them to keep the pigeons and slugs off!)
GROUND MAINTENANCE
If you’re new to this like us, and you’re growing in the ground rather than in tubs, maybe you haven’t heard of sowing "green manures".
Basically these are plants that are left to grow in spaces that have been fully harvested that will add some nutrition to the soil if you dig them into the soil once they’ve grown. This process also makes the soil easier to work later on and prevents weeds. Some suggested crops are alfalfa, lupins, mustard, Italian rye grass.
When you buy the seed, check whether it’s a green manure that is suitable for "over wintering" ie chopping down and digging in in Spring, or whether it’s an Autumn one ie it will grow in five or so weeks and can be chopped down and incorporated into the soil before the frost comes.
And either way, before sowing the seeds make sure you weed and dig the ground over roughly, then tread it down a little to make it firmer.
AND FINALLY …
If you’re pursuing the waist-height approach like us, and you’ve saved some of your pennies, then you can also use the internet to buy pre-started plants like Winter cabbage, endive, kale and onions for putting into containers on your table / garden shelves to keep the food growing and accessible over Autumn and Winter months. Try Rocket Gardens for instance.
So how are you all getting on?
Categories: food, seasonal eating
ohhh, this is a really useful summary, v.good for us absolute beginners!
Thanks Martin! Are you growing this year?
also some of my chard looks like Lacework, thanks to caterpillars and slug it keeps going. can I actually sow new one! I live in South Cornwall, just 3 min off the Prom in Penzance. wet and warm!
Had to laugh at the “lacework” description, Christiane. The snails actually climb up my tomato plant and out along the fruit bearing trusses – and this plant is the size of a small tree!