I continue the Autumn tidy up and the chickens get a shoe fetish

Cruella (my wife) has been away visiting our idiot son which means I have been able to get on with all the autumnal jobs I need to do in the garden. But it hasn’t been easy, the chickens follow me everywhere and just stand there staring at me. To make matters worse they have developed a shoe fetish and I think they need counselling. Anyway more of this later, on with the gardening:

24th October 2023. Things I have been doing lately.

• repairing the lawn
• dealing with the end of the soft fruit season
• repotting plants
• tying up Canna and relentlessly deadheading
• dealing with the chicken shoe fetish

Repairing the lawn. I know that most of you do not have lawns, as only an idiot would have a lawn in Spain – I have to hide from Cruella every time the water bill arrives. Anyway if you have a lawn now is the time to repair it. The heat of the summer has gone, but it is still warm and there is the odd chance of rain to encourage your new seeds.

Begin by getting everything together that you will need to successfully complete your lawn repairs. The photo below shows everything you will need all loaded into my wheelbarrow. This includes:

• sifted compost mixed with soil
• good quality grass seed
• garden protective fleece and ground staples
• antpowder

Once you have assembled everything, then you need to cut the lawn quite short and rake over the patches you are going to repair. Once you are happy that you have raked sufficiently to bring the soil to the surface, spread your new mixture of soil and compost in heaps over the repair area. Next you will need to evenly rake your soil over the proposed repair area and roll it to ensure it engages with the surface of the lawn. Once you have rollered you should gently rake the new patch with a garden tined rake. Next sow your new seed by sprinkling left to right and then up and down to give you a nice even spread. Finish the sowing stage by rollering once more to ensure the seed has good contact with the soil and is slightly embedded.

That is it, you are finished; just make sure you never let the seed dry out. And if you left it there, then tomorrow when you come out to inspect your work there would be absolutely no grass seed left – not even a tiny bit. And that is because the birds and the ants are both stocking up for winter and your lovely expensive grass seed is very nutritious. So you have to protect your work. First by covering the seeded area in a garden fleece that will stop the birds, and then by sprinkling ant powder in a continuous line all around the fleece edge – leave one little gap and the ants will be in. The photos below show the whole process in action.

Dealing with the end of the soft fruit season. We are nearly at the end of the soft fruit season and we are about to enter the citrus season. And there are a few final things you need to be doing. Firstly keep picking fruit on a daily basis. Where fruiting has finished then it is time to remove your nets. My advice is not to try and save your nets for next year, you will cause more damage to your plants. Instead just get a pair of scissors and cut your old nets off. Finally, if you have espalier plants then you need to tie them in to ensure the correct growth. The first two photos below show my daily fruit pick. The next photos show my net removal technique and espalier tying in.

Repotting plants. Most of your pot plants should be almost dormant by now, so if necessary, this is the best time to repot those of them that have outgrown their pot. The first thing to do is to select a pot that is just one size up from the existing pot. If you go for a much bigger pot then there is a danger of a virus infecting the empty soil that has yet to be filled by roots. Place your plant into the new pot whilst it is still in its existing pot. Then fill around the old pot, ensuring you tamp the new compost firmly around the old pot. Wiggle the old pot around and then remove, leaving a pot shaped space in the compost for the plant to be replanted into. The photos below show this first stage.

You now need to remove your plant from the old pot. If it is a plastic pot, then you can normally remove the plant safely without damage. However, if it is a terracotta or clay pot, then it is better to give up on the pot and just smash it as this will cause less damage to the roots. The photos below show the journey from old smashed pot to nice new home.

Tying up Canna and relentlessly deadheading. Most flowering plants will have finished by now, though I have to say my Marigolds have been flowering unstoppably since March and are still going strong. The secret to my long flowering Marigolds is daily deadheading, ruthless removal of spent plants and propping up those left. The photos below show the valiant veterans gallantly flowering on into November.

Most bulb based plants can have all their top growth cutback now. However, the big exception is Cannas. Do not cut Cannas back yet, instead tie them up and leave their top growth to die back ungracefully. it doesn’t matter if your plants end up looking like a gang of drunks on a night out. By leaving the top growth to die back all of the goodness will be passed back down into their rhizomes, thereby ensuring powerful growth next Spring. The photo below shows my Cannas dying disgracefully.

Dealing with the chicken shoe fetish. It all started the very day Cruella flew off. I remember it well because she hit the top of the Mulberry tree on take off. No sooner had she vanished over the roof tops than the chickens started following me around. They didn’t actually do anything, they just followed me staring all the time, it was quite intimidating.

I phoned Cruella that night and told her about the problems with the chickens, she instantly said “what did you do to them” she then asked me to put them on the phone. I gave the phone to Big Bertha -their leader – and she squawked away in Chickenese to Cruella. When Cruella came back on the phone she said that her girls were suffering from separation anxiety and needed to be kept calm. She went on to say that she would arrange counselling when she got back!

Anyway when it came to putting them in their coop at night I found them all crowded around the shoes that Cruella wears when she goes out to their coop. I tried to shoo – no pun attended- them into their coop but they refused to move. In the end I had to carry one of Cruella’s shoes and place it in their coop. They all followed me clucking and eventually went up. Things are a lot better now as Cruella has sent me recordings of her singing all their favourite songs in Chickenese. I play these at night and during feeding times. So far it’s working; their favourites are “the ugly duckling” and “the chicken dance”; you should see them dance around to the chicken dance. The photo below shows the start of the shoe fetish.