September really is a beautiful month to spend time in the garden. All the hard work and effort has reaped a plentiful harvest of fruit and vegetables for the kitchen. Our customers have picked pretty posies from the pick-your-own flower patch to take home to adorn their tables, wedding guests have oohed and ahhed over the banquet tables and our shop shelves are stocked full to the brim with condiments, preserves, liqueurs and vinegars to match every palate. Flowers still bloom and autumn colours are starting to show, with the rosa rugosa now heavy and decorated with fat, scarlet baubles that bring exclamations of “ what on earth do you do with all these rosehips!?”
I’ve been busy pruning the blackcurrant bushes, mulching and edging the beds, taking down the old mangetout husks and digging them into the soil as they provide a good amount of nitrogen to add to the fertility of the beds. I’ve planted another 150 leeks and these seem to be growing well, providing the moles stay away from the beds! I’ve harvested kilos upon kilos of beans this year, bringing exasperated sighs from the chefs whenever I take another crate into the kitchen. Staff have been grateful to be able to get stuck in and help with the picking and are later gifted with their own containers to take home too. This morning I noticed that the carrots are ready to be dug up, and another bed of beetroot and the first of the cabbages will be taken up to Head Chef Darren Broom to turn into one of his mouth-watering dishes.
Apple picking has begun, which becomes a continuous task for the next few weeks as the earlies start to drop. Our several varieties of apple trees make us a complex apple juice that will soon be sipped and savoured, as well as used in Head Barman Ollie Jones creative cocktail concoctions. The picking of mulberries, plums, damsons, and greengages have become a part of our green-fingered Friday chores, which is such a relief for me to hand over to the front-of-house and kitchen staff. They really are enjoying the time spent outside, getting stuck in and being more involved in the garden-to-table ethos. The pears are swelling and ripening up nicely but are still a little way off from releasing themselves of their firm holds on the stalk. It's been a good crop this year and I need to spend some time tying in some branches to the wall, to prevent any breaking with the weight of the fruit.
Even though the days are still warm and some even hot, the evenings are most definitely getting cooler. I’m closing the greenhouses before I leave for the day, have started watering them less and am also starting to clear out the summer produce that has matured in them. The sowing season is still not quite over yet though - winter radishes, and lettuces can be sown for some welcome winter salads. Today I sowed spinach, which doesn’t mind the cooler temperatures, and onion. I need to keep an eye on these and will perhaps have to net them until the roots get properly established as the blackbirds, as well as other garden birds, can sometimes pull out the young seedlings.
There is still much to do in the garden in September. I have a good month of hard work in the pick-your-own flower garden, and tidying up borders, continuing to weed, mulching, harvesting the remaining squashes and last few courgettes, maintaining the herbaceous borders..the list is endless, but the work is satisfying, the air pleasing, the quiet welcoming, the customers friendly and ever so grateful, and Mother Nature is at her best as always.
Here's to September in all its gloriousness! Here’s to you all, who have come to share Pythouse Kitchen Garden’s abundance with loved ones and little ones and four-legged ones. I wish you all a beautiful month.
Annie