Winter is often thought of as being a time for “jobs” such as digging, tidying up perennials, cleaning greenhouses – so far so mundane and fairly uninspiring. This approach tends to push gardening into the category of things we should do rather than things we want to do. A recent piece on “Gardeners’ Question Time” railed against the gardening obsession with jobs, suggesting that a cookery programme that highlighted “a good time to clean the oven” might not expect a particularly long run.

Let’s be positive and look to make the most of bright and dry days in December and January with more creative tasks.

Top of the list for us is pruning fruit trees such as apples and pears and other smaller garden trees like Amelanchier. After doing this your lovely open tree looks great as a winter silhouette and will have healthier growth and better flowering and fruiting in a few months. In the picture below you can see the profusion of fat flowering buds promising a lovely display in the spring and (fingers crossed) a healthy crop to follow.

Pruned Pear and Winter Sky

Take it slowly; treat it as a work of art rather than a task to done as quickly as possible. Once you’ve cleared out dead, diseased and damaged wood concentrate on what you are leaving, create the shape you want to see, stepping back frequently to assess the overall picture. A useful rule of thumb is spend as much time looking as you spend cutting.  It can be very helpful to have two people working together, one cutting and the other standing back to keep am eye on the emerging shape and to identify what should be removed (or left).  Only take a maximum of one third of the wood in one go, if more is required re-visit it next year.

Planning and researching are good ways to get the creative juices going.  Look at your garden, are there areas that would benefit from more winter interest and colour? If so, you can use miserable days to do on-line research and take advantage of better days and winter holidays to visit gardens and look for winter planting ideas.  Don’t be intimidated by the scale of gardens that you might visit, while we don’t all have the acreage of Cliveden we do all have a patch that might benefit from a small carpet (or maybe a rug) of bluebells or some striking stems of Cornus or Salix.  Winter-scented plants such as Sarcococca and Daphne can live in relative obscurity for much of the year, but bring the whole garden to life on those glorious sunny days in winter when they fill it with perfume.  Even something as simple as a dormant grass can be spectacular in winter sunshine.

Grass on Fire

For instant creativity and colour, plant up winter containers, especially around doorways and entrances.  Remember that the plants in winter containers won’t grow that much, so you can really pack them in to make a big impact.

To follow on from last month’s suggestion on bulb planting, let’s keep the optimism and forward thinking going.  November is a great month for looking forwards. The days may be getting shorter and colder, but you can still be planting and harvesting.

November is tulip planting time. It’s important that tulip bulbs go in the ground after a cold snap as this helps to kill off tulip fire spores in the soil which could infect your new bulbs. You can also keep on planting all the other spring flowering bulbs.  The widest choice of bulbs will be available earlier in the year, but you can always pick up bargains at the end of the season, when retailers are looking to clear stock. Just make sure that the bulbs you buy are still nice and firm and all should be OK.

While thinking about planting, bare root plants, including roses become available in November and unless the soil is waterlogged or frozen getting bare root plants into the ground as soon as possible will give more time for root development and better displays next year.

Bare root roses soaking prior to planting

In the kitchen garden you can plant onion sets and garlic and divide or plant rhubarb crowns

The first frost hit Cookham at the end of October and after one night the dahlias are essentially finished.  The blooms drooped and the foliage has blackened.  They can now be cut back and the tubers either dug up for storage or left in situ.

Blackened Dahlias

As we get more prolonged spells of colder weather as the month wears on many herbaceous perennials will start to die back and the dead foliage can be cleared.  However, there will also be plants that have spectacular seed heads that are both ornamental and provide food for wildlife.  Examples include teasels, ornamental grasses and sunflowers.

The summer showstoppers in the vegetable garden like tomatoes and beans have given up by now, but with carrots, parsnips, cabbages, cauliflowers and the first Brussels sprouts, there is still plenty of fresh produce that you can be harvesting right now.

If you’re lucky enough to have a pond, then try to clear fallen leaves from the water.

Well done to everyone who entered the village show last month, the hall looked splendid. Hopefully, everyone (especially first-timers) enjoyed themselves and got a certificate or two to reward their efforts. We certainly met some people who were having a first go and had surprised themselves with how well they’d done.

Now it is back to general garden care. October marks the change from late summer to early autumn. While there may be glorious days, we will start to get much colder nights and could see the first frosts.

Until the frosts arrive, flowers like Dahlias, Echinacea, Rudbeckia and Gaillardia will all continue flowering. Keep dead-heading to prolong the welcome colour they provide. Similarly, roses might still be flowering, but reduce the height by about a third so that they won’t rock in the autumn winds and disturb the roots. If you have had any blackspot, make sure that you clear away all the foliage and dispose of it (not to compost) so that spores cannot over-winter.

A Cookham flower border in mid-October

Our Dahlias October 2019

Once we’ve had the first frost, then the foliage of Dahlias will die back almost immediately and you can then cut back the top growth and either lift or leave the tubers as you prefer.  Classically, Dahlia tubers were lifted and stored over the winter, but in our area they have a pretty good survival rate if left in the ground.  The tubers won’t tolerate prolonged wet and cold, so if your garden is likely to have these conditions, then best to lift.

Grass growth slows down as the temperature drops. Even if you don’t want to treat your lawns with a fertiliser/weed killer, it’s a good time to scarify and aerate. This will allow both air and light to reach the base of the plants.  For small areas a lawn rake and a bit of effort will give good results, but for larger lawns it is worth trying a machine.  Scarifiers can be hired for about £40 per day.

Finally, start looking forward to next year by planting spring flowering bulbs. The earlier you get them in the ground, the more their roots will develop this year, leading to better displays come the spring. Hold off planting tulips until November to reduce the risk of tulip fire.

Snowdrops in January – a sign that the next spring is on its way.

Now is the time to get your entries ready, so first and foremost don’t forget to actually enter. Entry Forms are in the Cookham Dean Fete programme.  This delivered to some parts of Cookham, but is also available online here. Entries need to be with Janet Shanks by 6pm Thursday 12th September at 144, Whyteladyes Lane Cookham Rise SL6 9LA with entry fees (50p per class).  Further information and hard copies of the Fete programme are available from Janet (01628 525576 or penfoldshanks@btinternet.com).

In the week or so before the deadline look at your produce to see which classes you can enter, taking careful note of the schedule and the numbers required for each class. A bit like politics, the first requirement of showing is the ability to count.  Three carrots means three, not “the two best ones I’ve got” or “four because I’ve got loads of lovely ones”. If you have got spares then take them with you for set up on the morning of Saturday 14th in case of damage in transit. Flowers in particular are fragile.

As well as counting your exhibits, don’t forget to read the rules (also in the Fete programme).  For example in the “Top Tray” collection class, the rules state that “The vegetables must be displayed within an area measuring 18″ by 24″ without bending any part of them“.  Other rules state that “Carrots and parsnips should have foliage trimmed back to 3“, “Peas and beans should be displayed with some stalk attached” and  “Tomatoes must be displayed with calyxes (the green flower bud case)“.

The show is judged by RHS rules, so the true nerd could get a copy of the Society’s Horticultural Show Handbook.

RHS Horticultural Show Handbook

This very helpful little book gives advice on preparing fruit, vegetables and flowers for show and also explains the judging criteria.  For example for dessert apples, the merits are described as “Optimum-sized shapely fruits with eyes and stalks intact and clear unblemished skins of the natural colour characteristics of the cultivar“.  Defects are described as “Fruits that are too small or too large, mis-shapen, over-ripe or soft or that have damaged eyes or lack stalks or are not well coloured, or have any blemish, including evidence of any physiological disorder such as bitter-pit or glassiness“.  Then the available points for an exhibit are set out as follows:

• Condition 6 Points
• Uniformity 6 Points
• Suitability of size 4
• Colour 4 Points
• Giving a total of 20 points.

There are similar scoring systems for all classes, so to get good scores you are looking for pest and disease free and matching sets. Better to have six identical runner beans than your biggest six, which happen to be different shapes and sizes.  The picture below shows the squashes from the 2017 Cookham show, first prize went to the ones at the back left, which are certainly not the largest, but are in good condition and are easily the best matched pair.

Squashes at the 2017 show

Clean, but don’t polish fruit and veg. If you are entering alliums, tie up the necks of onions and garlic with raffia, similarly with root vegetables leave three inches of the leaves and tie them up. For the giant classes weight is all that matters; so don’t bother prettifying these.

For most entries freshness matters, for example one of the runner beans will often be snapped by the judge to check freshness.  This means that if you can, it is a good idea to put aside some time on Friday 13th for harvesting and preparing. Wrap beans and carrots in damp tea towels and pop them in the fridge overnight to keep them crisp.

There is a two hour slot for staging exhibits between 9am and 11am on Saturday the 14th, when there will be people from the Cookham Horticultural Society around to help if you need it.  The hall will be cleared at 11 for judging, so it is probably best to arrive early if you can.

Most importantly, if you are having a bash at the show this year, have fun and good luck to all of you.

With only weeks to go until the Cookham Show, everything is now on the way. “All” that is left to do is to make sure that your flowers, fruit and vegetables are in the best possible shape for the 14th of September.

It is more important that exhibits are as healthy as possible than simply growing whoppers. It is therefore crucial to keep going with weeding, watering and feeding and checking for pests and diseases. Pest and disease free is a major consideration for judges.

Even if it seems dry, don’t water root crops as this may cause forking and splitting, instead you can rely on the tap roots of carrots and parsnips to keep driving down searching for water.  On the other hand, members of the cucurbit family (squashes etc.) and beans are extremely thirsty and may need additional watering to keep them healthy.

You can start harvesting some exhibits now. Hard skinned squashes such as butternut and Uchiki Kuri will be ripening in August, so start looking for matching pairs.

Is there a matching pair here?

You may well be lifting main crop potatoes. While cleaning them up ready for storage, look for matching sets of three that you can put aside for the show (about 200g is the perfect size).

It is surprising how hard it is to find three that match in a bucket of spuds

Onions, shallots and garlic should all be drying for storage (and showing) so your entry list is growing already. You may also be picking early maturing apples.

Onions from an RHS show

However, for many entries, freshness is vital so select root crops, beans, tomatoes and soft fruit in the days before the show. For sweet and chilli peppers ripeness is a factor, so leave them on the plants as long as possible to get full colour change.

All things being equal the prizes will go to the ripe ones

Next month – final preparations!

By the end of this month the Cookham show is only six weeks away, so July should see your prize winning (we hope) plants really progressing.

Onions, shallots and garlic are all likely to finish growing this month. As the foliage dies back, carefully lift the bulbs and dry them out, both for storage and showing. Undamaged skins, firm flesh and a matching set are important, so take care to remove damaged outer skins so that a clean one can ripen for the show. Don’t bother tidying up the foliage for the heaviest onion class, as this is all about weight – looks don’t matter!

Some winners here perhaps?

Early in July you ought to have a large enough pumpkin plant to support the growth of a giant. Once your winner is selected, keep pinching off side shoots, tendrils, other flowers and embryonic pumpkins. All you need is the solar cells (leaves) and the main stem to keep feeding the growing fruit. It will want plenty of water and regular feeding.

Growing on strongly 6 July

You are likely to be getting your first tomatoes and peppers in July, so keep feeding with a high potassium feed to encourage more flowers and hence fruit.  Don’t forget to keep on pinching out side shoots on tomatoes to keep the plant’s energy focused on the main stem.  The fruit setting at the end of July may well be the ones that are ripening in time for the show.

With crops like beans and courgettes as they start to produce, keep picking (and eating) as this will make sure that the plant continues to set new flowers, which will produce crops at show time. Once the seeds inside the fruits start to mature, the plant slows down the production of new flowers on the grounds that reproduction has happened so its main job is done.  By the end of the month you might want to start keeping an eye out for the runner bean that will be your contender for the longest bean class.

Dahlias will start to come into flower in July, so as with beans and courgettes keep picking the flowers for the house or if you’re enjoying them outside then dead-head as the flowers go over so that you keep getting new buds.

First flowers showing (but a bit damaged)

Early fruit such as blackcurrants, strawberries and loganberries will be finished by show time, so why not try making some jam or jelly for the craft classes. This will also give you  a taste of high summer in the gloomy days of next winter.

Keep weeding, watering and feeding and most importantly don’t forget to enjoy your flowers, fruit and vegetables at this productive time of year.