September Gardening Tasks

September is often a lovely time to get out in the garden; the light can take on a wonderful quality as the days cool down. For anyone with fruit trees, its time to get ready for the autumn harvest. The BBC is carrying a good feature on harvesting apples. They need to be picked before any frosts come, but not before they will gently ‘twist’ off the branches straight into your hand. Give them a clean, wrap them loosely in newspaper and store on an apple tray. Depending on the variety, they will then keep for weeks or even months.

My Greener Home has the perfect apple trays and drawers made from environmentally responsible sustainable pine. We stock different sizes from a single apple tray right through to a whole ten drawer Dorset-style wooden apple store. The nice thing about this range is whilst they’re properly designed for storage (with good air circulation between your apples), they also add a sublimely rustic touch to your garage or outhouses.

September is also the time to start planting your autumn vegetable garden - think delicious spinach, turnips, lettuce, cabbage and radishes and of course pumpkins. There’s an easy-to-follow guide to growing your own vegetables at My Greener Home, with links to the BBC gardening pages for good quality information about individual varieties of vegetables. And you can still grow your own healthy organic vegetables on a city patio or balcony. A growbag growhouse is an inexpensive way to create the perfect growing space. As a bonus, you also get aesthetic value from the lovely ‘tableau’ created as your veggies begin to grow, and all the ‘untidy bits’ (compost and your small tools) are neatly contained. For those with more garden space but wanting to keep costs down, there’s now the economy vegetable bed. Whilst the term ‘economy’ might conjure up the idea of ‘cheap quality’, these are in fact constructed from FSC certified timber and the entire manufacturing process is designed to extend the product life.

That’s all for now - I’m off to the garden…can’t wait for some home-made apple pie… Bye!