November jobs in the garden with Martin

Hello everyone and hope you are all keeping well?

Autumn is definitely with us now and after a late start, there’s now plenty of wonderful autumn colours to be seen in gardens and the countryside. Because it’s been a late season many flowering plants have also gone on much later than normal to give us a colourful display into autumn.

However, now we’ve started to get some ground frosts, leaves will start falling thick and fast and the annual job of leaf collection starts! I must admit raking leaves is probably my least favourite gardening job. It stems way back to when I was an apprentice gardener when I had to rake huge areas of lawns in a park to get rid of the thick layer of autumn leaves. By the end of the day, it looked great when I’d collected them all up and carted them off to the leaf-mould heap, but the following morning there would be another carpet of leaves and I’d have to start raking again! Nowadays I tend to use a leaf blower which is much faster and more fun!

Collect leaves from paths & patios - web

Over the coming weeks on the run up to Christmas, it’s a busy time for us visiting many of your groups to give talks and demonstrations. For some I’m on my own and others Jill will be with me for our Gardening on the Menu talks which of course includes some tastings and the chance to buy some of Jill’s tasty jams and chutneys – perfect for Christmas stocking fillers!

On that subject I hope you don’t mind me including a cheeky advert!? If you are looking for a Christmas present for a friend or family member that likes to grow fruit & veg and cook, then I can highly recommend our book “Gardening on the Menu”.

Gardening on the Menu front cover web copy

A practical guide to over 25 different fruits & vegetables to grow in the garden, with over 100 tried-and-tested, easy to follow recipes and tasty quick-cook dishes.  Foreword by Carol Klein.

Books are available when we give talks or from our website www.martinfish.com – £12.95 plus P&P (£3.95) and of course we are always happy to sign the book.

If you are one of the groups we’re visiting before Christmas, we look forward to seeing you.

 

 

For now, best wishes and happy gardening.