The November garden - time to tidy, but not too much !

In between the rain, I've made a bit of a start on tidying both in the garden and at the lotty.  Greenhouse still needs some clearing out, there are some peppers and chillies left ripening, but there's not much scope left for that now, and botrytis and other molds are setting in.  I also must clear room in the garden for broad beans - it was going to be the job for this weekend but the weather had other ideas.

Best not to be too tidy though.  Insects overwinter in leaf litter - see here..  hedgehogs need somewhere cozy too.  That article mentions leaf blowers - what is all that about.  Noisy, polluting things when a decent rake would do !  Love to see them banned.

And what about weeds at this time of year. I still have quite a flush of chickweed etc.  Some might get killed by the frost.  Some of it I just tend to think of as green manure to deal with in spring.  I suppose if I were to put on a thick later of mulch (which I don't have to hand) it might be the best thing to do.   But maybe I'll just deal with what survives over winter in spring.  It can protect the soil a bit until then.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it !

I had agreed with my son that we would do some work on the greenhouse, when we got a good day. Then when we got one, my wife was poorly and I had to look after her. First things first. She is recovering.

There'll be other good days before you need the greenhouse in spring, I imagine. I hope your wife is doing OK Frank.

I haven't gone to my plot for ages. Just hoping it can take care of itself for a bit; been doing other things. I need to clear out the last of the peppers and chillies to avoid a greenhouse full of botrytis spores !

Finally got around to it. Peppers tidied, and citrus into the relative warmth of the greenhouse. There are still a lot of chillies to be picked - prarie file, jalapeno, poblano and a few rocoto.

At the lotty, I picked some kale, red cabbage, the last of the carrots, a couple of decent celeriac, and two perfect fennel. Really proud of them - I've never had fat fennel bulbs before

Broad beans have finally made it into the garden veg plot (which is better drained than the lotty, where they rot in the Bedfordshire clay).

Nothing's been happening here in the garden recently, but we have 4 or 5 dry(ish) days forecast from tomorrow. Hoping to use the time to move a rose bush that's occupying part of what will be my asparagus bed. Need to get the bed covered in compost, ready for a spring planting of crowns.

In the meantime some investigation into why my heated propagator doesn't seem to be working. I'll be needing it in a couple of months.

It's just been too wet here to even contemplate doing anything outside