MID-NOVEMBER.

Following my blog on the 9th November here are more free gardening suggestions for the aspiring gardener young or not so young, experienced or not so. Do you feel there is not much you can do in a garden at this time of the year?    Well; I’ve got to admit it is getting a bit cold out there!

But: With leaves falling off just about everything it is a constant battle to clear them away.  Garden pests will happily over winter under a nice pile of leaves ready to eat your succulent seedlings and fresh growing tips when they appear next spring. If you have no room for more compost collect the leaves and whatever in black bags and leave them to break down.  Might take quite awhile but it will be a rich compost in time and full off nutrients.

If you have fruit trees make sure the grease bands are secure, with no room underneath for those dreaded wingless Tortrix  Moths to crawl up them and laying eggs which hatch just as your trees fruits begin forming and spoiling your crop.  Whilst your there remove any crossing branches  on both apple and pear trees also cut out any unhealthy or dead wood.

If you had a good crop last season check any stored fruits and throw away any showing signs of rot, insect or mice attack.  The mice should be hibernating but if they know where there’s a good  food supply they’ll keep coming back and it will be warmer inside than out.

Now would be a good time to do a soil test. For this you will need a soil pH testing kit or gauge.  Any good gardening center will have them in stock, I bought one this year for less than a fiver.  Follow the instructions carefully and don’t worry I am not talking rocket science. Most plants have reasonably wide soil tolerance but some grow better in acid soils others prefer alkaline.  Most kits come with a pH preference list and instructions on any action needed to raise or lower you gardens pH levels. You need to look at your soil because if it is worn out with little or nutrient content then your plants will have little or very little growth compared to a soil rich in nutriants. Ask yourself have you been actively growing your soil by regularly digging in a rich compost and it can take years.  Rain levels have been high for a few months due to climatic changes and if the conditions are adverse under your garden it could have been washing nutrients away. Quick action is need to get ready for the spring I recommend looking at the following e-book.  You will find it reasonable easy to create a rich compost with this how to information.

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It will take some effort on your part to get everything together and you will need some on ground space but the lush results are definitively worth working for.  Once you have done this you will find it gets easier.

English: A picture of compost soil (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t have a large garden but I created the bare ground required and got everything together and it looks good. The compost you create should look something like the picture above but you can go one better and make a rich humus. That would be an almost pure plant food which you can grab a handful of; squeeze it into a ball and it will retain the shape.