Things to do in the garden this month by Ian Clemens

• Continue to feed and dead-head your hanging baskets and container plants, they will often keep going until the first frosts.
• Start to divide herbaceous perennials as the weather cools.
• Plant spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils, crocus and hyacinths now.
• Keep dead-heading your Penstemons, Dahlias and Roses to prolong flowering.
• Cut off the foliage of maincrop potatoes at ground level 3 weeks before lifting them to prevent blight spores infecting the tubers as you lift them. This will also help to firm the skins of the potatoes improving their storage qualities.
• Keep feeding and watering French and runner beans to make the most of them. When beans and peas finish cropping simply cut the plant away at ground level, leaving the roots in the soil. These crops fix nitrogen which is slowly released into the soil as the roots break down.
• Start planting overwinter onions and garlic, including elephant garlic, for early crops the following year.
• Cover your brassicas with netting to prevent birds making a meal out of them.
• Pot up strawberry runners to make extra plants for next year. Plant out any rooted runners of strawberries for a good crop next year.
• Mow long grass under fruit trees to make it easier to spot windfall fruits.
• Look out for rotting fruits on your pear, apple and plum trees. Pick them off as they will spread disease if left on the tree.
• Take hardwood cuttings to increase your stock of currants, gooseberries & figs.

PLEASE NOTE: the above Gardener’s Calendar is the last to be submitted by Ian Clemens.

As some of you will be aware, Ian was a long-standing member of the WG Horticultural Society but moved to Cornwall in 2019 to pursue his dream of owning a smallholding. Ian very kindly agreed to continue providing these Gardening Calendars until a successor could be found but has now decided that he needs to concentrate on his new life.

Ad Vincula is very grateful for his continued support over the last 4 years since he moved away from Wisborough Green.

If there are any keen gardeners out there that would like to produce a similar “Things to do in the Garden” type monthly article for Ad Vincula, please let me know.  Alternatively, if there is general interest in such an article, I could continue to publish Ian’s contributions from previous editions.  Again, let me know what you think.

Roland Zilz, Editor