Let’s Talk Autumn!

There’s a crispness in the air here at Hen Corner. The mornings are misty, the hens are taking their time to come out of the coop, and then go to bed early, and the garden is starting to go quiet. But don’t be fooled – autumn is one of the most beautiful and rewarding seasons on our little urban smallholding. It’s a time of gathering in and of letting go. We harvest the last of what the summer has given us, tuck the soil up for winter and plant in faith for next year.

Keep reading to win tickets for the The Ideal Christmas Show!

Clearing leaves – and turning them into treasure

Fallen leaves are free gold for the garden, so please don’t put them out with the rubbish! We blow ours off the lawn, sweep them off the patio, and load them into the compost bins.

Alternatively, making a nutrient rich leaf mould couldn’t be simpler:

• Collect damp leaves into a hessian sack with good airflow or reuse an old black bin bag that you can poke holes in later.
• If the leaves are dry, give them a good soaking from the watering can, ideally with saved rainwater.
• If using a plastic sack, piece random holes in it with a garden fork, tie your bag loosely and pop it in a corner or tuck it behind the shed.
• Then forget about it for a year or two to let the air and worms do their thing

What you’ll find is a dark, crumbly, sweet-smelling mulch that the soil absolutely loves. After one year it’s perfect for mulching around beds; after two it’s fine enough to mix into seed compost. At home we have leaves from our apples, beech and Japanese maple whilst at the allotment it’s willow, sycamore, pear and plums.

Turning the compost

Autumn is when I roll up my sleeves and give the compost bins a good turn. It’s hard work, but it’s well worth it and helps with the transformation as all the contents breakdown.

Turning lets air into the heap and gets everything working again. Fork the contents of one bin into the next, mixing the dry outside bits into the warm middle. If it looks soggy and smells sour, add more “browns” – shredded cardboard, straw or a few of those autumn leaves. If it’s dry and nothing much is happening, add “greens” like grass clippings and kitchen peelings, and a bucket of water.

Our hens play a role in helping here; their bedding and droppings make a wonderful activator and it is rich in nitrogen. Any compost that’s ready now can go straight onto any empty beds, so the worms can draw it down over the winter.

Leaving a few unkempt corners

Here’s a job I love, because it means doing less! Not every corner of the garden or allotment needs to be tidy. In fact, a bit of mess is one of the kindest things we can offer our to local wildlife.

A pile of logs, a heap of leaves under the hedge, or a patch of seed heads left standing can become a winter home for hedgehogs, frogs, ladybirds and solitary bees. The birds will thank you for the seed heads, a tasty treat over winter, and a few hollow stems bundled together and tucked into a hedge make a cosy bug hotel.

In a city garden every little patch matters. We were given this bit of ground to care for, and that includes the creatures we share it with. So go easy on the clear-up, and let something wild have a home.

Harvesting pumpkins for soups and stews

There’s something so cheerful about a row of pumpkins and squashes lined up on the windowsill. They spend all summer rambling across the beds, and now it’s time to bring them in.

A pumpkin is ready when the skin is hard and the stalk starts to crack and dry. Cut it with a good length of stalk attached and leave it somewhere warm and sunny for a week or two to “cure”. That hardens the skin so it will keep for months, giving us a store of good food right through the winter.

To help winter squashes taste extra sweet,  I recommend roasting chunks with salt pepper and olive oil. Then it can go into a warming soup with garlic and a little chilli, or into a slow-cooked stew with lentils and whatever else the garden offers.

Don’t throw away the seeds – I rinse and dry them for sowing next year. I might regret it, but I’ve made a pick and mix bag of squash seeds so I won’t know what variety is growing until it starts to fruit next summer, hopefully a nice surprise!

Planting for next year

Autumn isn’t only about endings. It’s also the time to plant in hope, trusting that what goes into the cold ground now will be feeding us next summer.

• Garlic: Break a bulb into cloves and push each one in, pointy end up, about 15cm apart. Garlic needs a spell of cold to form good bulbs, so autumn planting is ideal.
• Onions: Overwintering onion sets go in now, just tips showing above the soil. Keep an eye out for the foxes and squirrels, who love to dig them up!
• Broad beans: A hardy variety such as ‘Aquadulce’ sown now will give you an early crop in late spring, often before the blackfly arrive.
• Green manure: Any bed you won’t use this winter can be sown with green manure such as winter rye or crimson clover. It protects the soil from heavy rain, stops weeds and adds goodness when you dig it in come spring.

There’s nothing like the sight of those first green shoots on a grey January morning to lift the spirits and to reassure us that another harvest is on its way!

Ideal Christmas Show – Competition

I’m really excited to be back at The Ideal Christmas Show at Olympia London next month, 26th-29th November. It’s going to be bigger & better than ever, I’ll be hosting The Christmas Corner with Andrew Dickens and we’ve got a fabulous stage programme lined up for you.

Gorgeous Gift Wrapping , Top Turkey Tips, Crafting Demos, Grazing Boards, Table Dressing and I’ll be making Linen Crackers & Garden Wreaths

Win tickets for the The Ideal Christmas Show!

This competition is exclusively for blog subscribers. The winner will receive a PAIR OF TICKETS, worth £32, valid any day 26th – 29th November.

If you’d like to be entered into this competition to win TICKETS, just check that you’ve subscribed to this blog (bottom of page) and leave a comment telling us your favourite thing about Christmas.

Competition closes Sunday 8th November, we will draw for the free tickets on Monday 9th and notify winners by email, if you don’t win, don’t worry  – book tickets for just £10 each with discount code: HEN26

Coming up at Hen Corner:

November

Making New Cheeses Wednesday 11th

Making Christmas Food Gifts Tuesday 17th

Introduction to Scandinavian Baking Thursday 19th

Making Christmas Puddings – Stir Up Sunday Sunday 22nd

The Ideal Christmas Show 26th -29th

December

Introduction to Making Cheese Wednesday 2nd

Making Christmas Wreaths Thurs 3rd, Sat 5th, Tues 8th

Wreaths at Chiswick Flower Market Sun 6th

Making Christmas Decorations Thurs 10th

Making Linen Christmas Crackers Tues 15th

Introduction to Christmas Baking Wed 16th

January

Introduction to Making Cheese Wednesday 13th

Introduction to Making Marmalade Wednesday 20th

Introduction to Making Bread Tuesday 26th

Other news:

• We had a lovely holiday in Cornwall and visited the ducklings that we had back at Easter – they are now very big ducks! See more on Instagram and Facebook
• A team from Brentford Football Club came for a photo shoot with the beehives – I’ll certainly share those photos once they are published
• Some fabulous bakers came to train with me to start their own microbakery, they worked really hard and I can’t wait to see how they get on!

Jobs for the week:

• Winter proof the chicken coops with fresh woodchip and clear rain-proof covers
• Research festive fabric for our Making Linen Christmas Crackers course
• Label up all the jellies and jams that I’ve made recently, they’ll be available to buy from our shop here

I’d love to hear what you’re up to in your garden this autumn. Do leave a comment below, or come and visit us at Hen Corner – the kettle’s always on.

Sara