Sowing
You can continue to sow winter crops.
Spring onions – in drills (a ‘scrape’ in fine soil 6 – 8 cm (3 in) deep and as long as you wish) at 3 cm (1 in) apart. Keep the drills at least 40 cm (18 in) apart.
Spring Cabbage – treat them like spring onions, but then you will thin them down gradually until you have plants at something around 40 cm ( 1 ft to 18 in) apart.
Turnips – treat exactly like spring cabbage.
Salad – rocket, mizuna, lettuce and other salads can all be sown. Sow thinly in a drill a little more densely than spring onion. Keep the drills at least 40 cm (18 in) apart.
Growing
Garlic – the general advice says don’t use shop bought garlic, buy from the garden centre or dealer. But have a look at our feature, The Wrong Garlic in this issue. Press a clove at 20cm (8 in) intervals into the soil about 3cm (1in) deep.
Onion sets – Over wintering onion sets (little bulbs not seeds) can be pressed in to the soil at a depth of around 1cm. Use a dibber to make a hole first 1cm deep and firm them in well otherwise they will throw themselves up again. Space at around 30 cm (1 ft)
Maintenance
Of course it is harvest time. Store only those crops that are completely perfect and eat the rest. (This harvest and sale of crops gave rise to the feast of Michelmass on 29th September, when the rent was due!)
Top up or start a new compost heap. Give the heap a turn to aerate it.
Make a rotting trench for broad beans. Dig about 60 cm (2 ft) and half fill it with kitchen (only plant) waste and chopped up vegetables that are not edible – stalks and the like. Refill the trench. This will be a great place to sow broad beans later.
Flowers
Continue to deadhead your flowers and this will extend the life of the plant for a while.
It is a good time to take cuttings, both hardwood cuttings and heel cuttings. The difference is that the heel cutting is pulled away from the stem leaving a heel of plant material on the bottom. This protects the cutting somewhat and works quite well - you certainly get a better success rate.
It is time to organize new strawberries which should be planted by October. It's odd to think - well I think so at least, that strawberries that bear such wonderful soft fruit, can be so tough.
September garden
Pests
There are still a lot of slugs and snails around, so trap them, bash them, salt them, squeeze them, eat them (well the birds do!) and do what you do to get rid.
Over wintering cabbages, and all brassicas, are in danger from caterpillar and hibernating insects. Remove the eggs you might find on leaves and watch out for silken areas where they are hibernating. (Please leave one cabbage for the wildlife – it would be wrong to push them to extinction.)
Over wintering onions and leek get a rust called puccinia. Give them a spray with Bordeaux mixture.