The big clean up

The warm October weather we've been experiencing is due to break up towards the end of next week, with the possibility of the first frosts also. This means the dahlias will be blackened and I won't be able to show any at Derby in two weeks time. The same thing happened last year meaning no entries in the dahlia classes but that's a chance you take with a late October show. I haven't staged many dahlias this season whilst i've been concentrating on the veg but I've grown this variety this season, Blyton Softer Gleam and it's really flowered its socks off. I shall certainly be growing this one again and trying to save some tubers and hope we don't get a Winter like last year that killed all my stored tubers.

I also took the opportunity to get my 'show' cacti and succulents inside today. They've been outside all summer and have really benefitted from it. I shall now stop watering, and will not resume until the early Spring.

Since I started showing in late August the garden has been left to its own devices and now resembles a bomb site. In the the next few weekends I need to bring things under control again and get everything shipshape in time for lift-off once more in the New Year. I have a couple of large trees to fell as I want to fit in another greenhouse and they'll be seriously cutting out the light to it if I leave them. And I will be grubbing out several large shrubs that I planted 20 years ago towards the bottom of my long garden when I wasn't into vegetable growing as much. How I wish I hadn't planted them now but I intend to use the new land for several raised beds to grow more vegetables and make us more self-sufficient. It's a bit silly to have such a large garden and yet only about 10% of it is laid down to crop production.