This Month in Your Garden - October

‘Everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.’ Elizabeth Lawrence

Spectacular is a word reserved for great sights like the Grand Canyon, Macchu Picchu, the Taj Mahal and surely it also befits nature’s autumnal display of colours. Take a proverbial leaf out of October’s almanac and you can make a date with next year’s display of your own. Planting deciduous trees and shrubs is best done in autumn when they are less stressed, and you can create your canvas and backdrop of turning leaves.

The Lawn Care Guide - October

A lot of hot aerating

With the spells of dry weather, you have by now probably done the scarifying and aerating to clear thatch and moss and give the lawn a new lease of life, with oxygen reaching the roots and plenty of good drainage.

Lawn Care: Questions & Answers

Q. Is it too late to scarify and aerate the lawn?

The Vegetable Plot - October

Jack Frost is nipping at your nose

Vegetable like parsnips and celeriac actually benefit from a little frost so it’s no bad thing to leave them in a while longer. Carrots, beetroot and turnips, however, need lifting now. Potatoes should also come up and be allowed to dry before they are stored, preferably in paper bags or sacks.

The Big Glut Recipe - October

October roasted vegetables with Halloumi 

Makes a nice, simple veggie dish or as a side. Use other veg as you wish.

Ingredients

• 4 small uncooked beetroots
• 3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled
• 3 small red onions, quartered
• 4 carrots, peeled and halved lengthways
• 3 whole heads of garlic
• Olive oil
• 150g (5oz) Halloumi cheese, cut into 2cm (3/4in) cubes
• Coriander seeds, ground
• 1 heaped tsp sumac (see tips)
• 1 x 400g (13oz) tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• Parsley leaves, to serve
• Extra virgin olive oil, to serve

This Month in Your Garden - September

Gardening adds years to your life and life to your years. Anon.

How do you see your garden next year? Do you have a picture in your mind of swathes of colour across bright borders or muted, subtle shades and architectural planting. The act of gardening is good for physical health and the pleasure a garden brings has bearing on mental wellbeing. The garden need not be a complicated affair, often the simplest plan outshines the complex.

The Lawn Care Guide - September

The green, green grass of home

If the lawn suffered from the hot weather now is the time to bring it back and prepare it for the winter. This is the best month to treat for moss, which you can do with lawn sand or an organic treatment such as MO Bacter. Scarifying the lawn will remove dead thatch and moss, while aerating will provide drainage and get air to the roots of the grass.

Lawn Care: Questions & Answers

Q. Can I make my own top dressing? 

The Vegetable Plot - September

"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." Mahatma Gandhi

Crop rotation in the vegetable plot is important to avoid soil nutrients becoming depleted. It also helps reduce the spread of soil-born disease and lessens the need for pest control. You decide what crops you want to grow and plant the same type in one area. Then every year the type of plants grown in that area are changed.

The Big Glut - September

Layered aubergine and lentil bake

Simple, healthy, low calorie vegetarian bake from BBC Good Food

Ingredients

• 2 aubergines, cut into ½ cm slices lengthways
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 140g Puy lentils
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves,finely chopped
• 300g cooked butternut squash
• 400g can chopped tomato
• ½ small pack basil leaves
• 125g ball of mozzarella, torn