Here’s hoping you’ve had a productive summer and can now turn your thoughts to harvesting the fruits (and vegetables!) of your labours.
It’s not been a bad summer, and hopefully we’ll have many warm, dry days to come so everyone can spend some time pottering around their plot, patio or allotment before the autumnal days become too chilly and short for spending much time outdoors.
It’s a good time for taking a step back to enjoy what you’ve accomplished, but also to have a bit of a tidy-up and look ahead to next year’s growing adventures!
Kitchen Garden editor Steve Ott (pictured below) says: “You may well have been harvesting for some months now but October is the time when all those longer-term lovelies, including the winter squashes, are ripening and ready for stashing away for the colder months.
“Of course, you’ll find lots on harvesting and preparing your autumn produce on our jobs pages starting on page 6, including some useful suggestions for dealing with any gluts, but you’ll also find some timely reminders to sow more late salad leaves and top tips to ensure you have fresh herbs at your fingertips come the winter.
“Fruit planting season will soon be with us – an exciting time when we get to browse the catalogues for that new apple tree or soft fruit that we’ve been promising ourselves. Our resident fruit expert David Patch brings a timely and insightful look at tree fruit varieties for the kitchen and offers some tasty alternatives to the ubiquitous ‘Bramley’.
“Rob Smith reveals his favourite heritage peas and how to grow them on page 37 while no-dig expert Stephanie Hafferty offers advice on perennial autumn topics such as planting garlic, growing green manures to protect the soil and getting the best from your compost bin.
“We meet some keen veg-growing readers in this issue, too – such as novice gardener Kim Turner, who’s the latest of our Plotter of the Month winners, and blogger Milly Fyfe, who by contrast is part of a family that have been farming and growing veg for generations.
“You can also join us to visit a grand Scottish castle and harvest some great top tips from its head gardener and on page 94 we chat to gardening guru and long-time contributor to Gardeners’ Question Time, Pippa Greenwood.”
