Jobs for September

10 Jobs for September
1. Start to dig main crop potatoes.
2. Dead head bedding plants to extend flowering.
3. Prepare ground ready to sow a new lawn.
4. Prune espalier apples by cutting side shoots back to 2 or 3 buds from the main stem.
5. Prune Wisteria the same way as apples to encourage flowering next spring.
6. Keep watering vegetables and salad crops especially tomatoes to avoid blossom end rot and split skin.
7. Harvest autumn fruiting Raspberries.
8. At the end of the month start planting onion sets and garlic.
9. Keep hoeing weeds that will compete for water, light and nutrients.
10. Visit gardens to get ideas for your own and take pictures of the gardens and plant names. With digital photography it is easy and you don’t waste film.

Start planting spring flowering bulbs this month. The problem is summer bedding is looking very good at the moment and we don’t want to dig up plants that are looking their best. It is a similar situation at the end of the bulb season. Although the bulbs will have finished flowering when we want to plant the summer bedding next year the bulbs will not have died down. After bulbs have finished flowering this is the most important time because you need to keep them growing for as long as possible so that they will flower the following year. One way around this is to plant the bulbs in a net pot, this way you can plunge the whole pot in the ground and when they have finished flowering they can be dug up with little disturbance and re-planted in a spare corner of the garden where they can be watered and fed to dry off naturally and replanted after the summer bedding is over.

You can also plant the bulbs in the net pots prior to plunging them to gain a little growing time. If you want to have Hyacinths in flower for Christmas you should plant prepared Hyacinths by 25th September and placed in the dark until the flower bud is around 25mm (1”) above the bulb. Prepared Paperwhite Daffodils can also be planted at the same time but they will not have to be placed in the dark. You can also have new potatoes with your Christmas dinner by planting seed potatoes in September in containers and grow them outside until the frosts come then bring them inside. They will not need much heat but must not be frosted.

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