The Essential Guide Magazine Culcheth - Sept/Oct 14 | Page 73

LIVE LOCAL? BUY LOCAL! Essential Gardening For September If you don’t have a compost bin or store, now is a very good time of year to start one! It is essential for a healthy garden to put goodness back into your soil and your garden waste recycled can provide you with an endless (and free) supply of organic richness. A top tip for composters is to not add any diseased or pest ridden material to your heap – it will just nurture nasties and mean that they could kill off some of your prize garden specimens in the future. You can add grass clippings, leaves, old vegetable plants and peelings (not potatoes!) It is best to burn anything very woody or chip it (and the ash or chippings can usually be added to your compost heap) If you have a greenhouse now is a good time to give it a thorough clean when you have removed all your crops e.g. tomatoes and cucumber – you will stop pests making a lovely home in there and be ready for a new growing season next Spring! To advertise in Autumn provides ideal planting conditions (warm moist soil) particularly for container grown shrubs, trees and fruit bushes. One of the most important things to ensure success is to water well by soaking the rootball of the plant in a bucket of water until there are no more air bubbles coming to the surface. Dig the hole, ensuring that the plant is planted to the right depth – put water into planting hole and backfill the hole, firming the plant in well to prevent future windrock. September is a good time to select and plant some attractive bulbs to add a splash of colour to pots and borders in late winter/ early Spring. For something a little different from the norm why not try some dwarf bulbs like Allium, Fritillaria meleagris, Anemone, Chionodoxa, Eranthis and Scilla sibirica? Finally, most perennial weeds are susceptible to weedkiller this month and systemic weedkillers (such as Resolva ) will carry on working through the winter months. By Kate Fitch Please call 01925 766742 73