10th November, 2009

I spent the weekend mostly collecting leaves on yet another fine sunny day. Here they are in the plastic bags.



I cut down the asparagus to ground level and will mulch with some cheapmulti-purpose compost. I would like to use my own compost but it's not ready yet.



I pruned the gooseberries and redcurrants following RHS advice. I cut off the leader back to about 6" of growth and then cut the side shoots back by a half.



One of the redcurrant bushes was composed of 4 shoots rather than the desired single shoot. So I dug it up and indeed it was really 4 separate plants, so I have replanted these in a temporary position until I have prepared a new bed near the apple tree. I'll do this through the winter for planting in spring. This is all possible because now there is sufficient sunlight to grow plants on the south side of the garden following the hedge removal.



The continuing warm weather has helped the onions develop some strong shoots.



The spring onions are doing well in modules in the greenhouse. I'll probably plant these out in spring.



The broad beans have germinated already and I sowed some spinach in modules. There have been some frosts so the Brussels sprouts and parsnips should have improved taste I hope. I need to try some although I don't think the parsnips are very big.