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September In The Garden
September 02 2007
THE FOOD GARDEN IN SEPTEMBER
Weather Patterns in September
August warmth will continue through September, helping to ripen later fruits
like grapes and Comice pears. The days might be hot but inevitably they are
getting shorter; and cooler, damper, nights enable fungus diseases like
mildew to become rampant.
Gardens in hollows and valley bottoms are liable to get ground frosts this
month. Make sure all your tender vegetables are harvested or covered. A
cool, clear, still evening, often after rain or hail, is a pretty good sign
that a ground frost might be imminent.
Once the soil is wet in mid-September it will stay that way over winter - or
at least it will in a normal year. We have had a few winter droughts in
recent years so be prepared to prolong watering operations if necessary.
In the latter half of the month there may be strong winds, partly due to the
tail-end of the hurricane season feeding into our usual Atlantic
depressions. As many fruit trees will be carrying a heavy crop, harvest
before the gales arrive, or be ready to prop up laden branches.
Broken boughs will not only cost you the crop, but exposed wounds may lead
to dangerous disease spores getting an entry into the wood.
VEGETABLES
Potatoes
Lift all early and second early potatoes this month, especially once the
tops have died down. Potatoes left in the ground will be attacked by a host
of things from fungi to mice.
Maincrop potatoes should be lifted by mid-October.
Any tiny tubers left in the ground will grow next year - this may or may not
fit in with your plans.
As with fruit use the damaged tubers first and store only sound specimens.
Dry off the skins of storing tubers by lying them in the sun for a few
hours.
Store in a dark, cool but frost-free place and use paper or hessian sacks or
wooden boxes to allow the tubers to breathe. Also store out of reach of
rodents if using a space outdoors.
If you've had potato blight burn all parts of the damaged plants to prevent
the spores remaining in the soil.
Plant sets of Garlic and Japanese Onions.
These are small bulbs that will grow over winter and give a July/August
harvest of much larger bulbs. Also amongst the ornamental spring bulbs
planted now are several good ones for eating:
Allium moly or Sweet Garlic is a very pretty onion with a shiny
buttercup-yellow starry flowers - excellent as an edible flower for
brightening up salads or as a garnish. The bulbs are also edible with a
slightly sweeter flavour than garlic - if you can bear to dig them up! It is
summer flowering and will tolerate and spread in poor, sunny dry soils, so a
good edible for the rockery.
'Jeannine' is a variety larger in all its parts than the type. The bulbs are
widely available.
Ramsons or Wild Garlic - Allium ursinum - is a native woodland plant, so
very appropriate for planting in shady spots, under trees or behind north
walls. Given a moderately moist soil it will thrive and make a spring ground
cover. Use the delicious fresh green leaves in spring, later they get
harsher in flavour. Umbels of white flowers in May with a garlicky
fragrance. This bulb hasn't a waterproof skin and is awkward to keep in a
shop display, so is usually only available by mail order.
FRUIT
Its been a very odd year for ripening. Even with all the rain and not much
sun, most fruits have ripened early, and damsons are sweet on the tree.
Plums, Damsons and Gages
Immediately after harvest prune these and remove any withered or dried
fruits, and burn them. These can carry over winter Brown Rot disease spores
Apples
Try to get the harvest in before the end of the month to avoid those
damaging gales that will surely come. Complete the summer pruning.
Pears
Early ripeners are ready to pick and eat this month, Conference will be
ready to pick later in the month, and store for a few weeks till ready to
use. Leave later ripeners like Comice until October. But what about those
gales? I hear you ask. Well, this is good reason for growing late pears as
wall trees where they get physical support and also extra warmth for good
ripening.
Blackberries
Late croppers will be in their main harvest season this month. 'Thornfree'
is a vigorous thornless variety with a good sharp flavour excellent for
freezing, cooking and preserves.
Most varieties of blackberry can be easily propagated by allowing the tips
of shoots to root, either into the ground where they grow or into a large
pot of soil. This can be severed in the spring taking about 20 cms of the
original stem and moved to a permanent new site or a nursery bed.
Phil Corbett, Horticulturalist, Cool Temperate Nursery
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