There is never a quiet time in gardening, there are just less busy times – and this is one. Summer is over, everything has gone into a slow growth stage or completely dormant and it is not yet time for the big winter cutback.
However, and it is a big however, there are still things you need to be getting on with. I have so much on, but right in the middle of everything just when I was planning my seedlings and bulb strategy I was approached by a hysterical Cruella (my wife) telling me we have a housing crisis involving the little white dove.
But, more of that later let’s get on with the gardening…crisis what crisis!
26th November 2025. Things I have been doing lately:
- Preparing my flower beds for next year
- Potting up seedlings
- Preparing the soil
- Planting bulbs
- Dealing with a housing crisis
Preparing my flower beds for next year. It is time to show your flower beds a little loving care. The soil has worked hard all year, produced lovely flowers, fought off weeds and chickens, and now it is exhausted. If you don’t replenish and reward it now then it will not be so abundant next year.
The first thing you need to do is thoroughly weed your beds. You can use a hoe for the first stage, but really you need to get down and hand weed for the final stage. The benefits of hand weeding is that it stops you hoeing out emerging bulbs. By hand weeding you can tell that rounded stems mean bulbs whilst blades mean grass, everything else should be self evident.
The photos below show my hoeing and hand weeding strategy in progress, it doesn’t take too long and it’s very therapeutic.
Potting up seedlings. An important part of hand weeding is to keep your eye out for self seeded seedlings. Osteospermums (type of daisy) are an important part of my summer garden , they flower more or less all year and self seed like crazy. What I tend to do is leave some mature plants for a bit of winter cover, but the seedlings I pot up to provide me with fresh plants for the spring. Once I have all I need then I ruthlessly hoe out the rest.
The photos below show the abundance of seedlings and the process of potting them up for next year.
Preparing the soil. Once the beds are weeded and I have recovered all the seedlings I require, then it is time to replenish the soil with a good top dressing of compost. Now, you can buy compost from a Garden Centre. But is cheaper, more efficacious and rewarding to have a compost bin. I won’t go on about it, but see my recent post on composting.
With two compost bins I can ensure that I always have one ready for winter top dressing and the other for summer mulching. I simply empty the relevant bin and sift the compost to get rid of stones and other rubbish. I then top dress all of my flower beds with about 2 inches of fresh compost. This is full of nutrients and will replenish the soil for next year.
The photos below show the bin being emptied of its black gold and then sifted in my own design riddler (patent applied for) over the wheel barrow. Each compost bin gives me about 20 wheel barrows of compost. Assuming that each wheel barrow holds about 80kg that’s a lot of compost, but never enough.
Planting bulbs. The other important task at this time of year is to plant bulbs. Over the year I have planted many bulbs and I love to see them come back year after year. Even if you have a holiday home in Spain and are an itinerant visitor bulbs are an ideal addition to your garden.
With very little work you can have lovely flowers year after year. This year I am giving daffodils another go as they have let me down in the past. In addition I am planting a few big Aliums to give me some hight at the back of a bed of osteospermum and daffodils.
The key to success with bulbs is two things. Firstly, plant them at the correct depth. One depth does not suit all, just follow the instructions. Secondly, and I know it sounds simple, but plant them pointy side up. Bulbs planted with their root side up will either fail or not thrive.
The first photo below shows my bulbs ready to be planted. A useful tip is to lay your bulbs out where you are going to plant so that you can imagine how they will display. I use a planting tool that makes it easier to get your bulbs to the correct depth. Finally, after I have planted bulbs I place a white stone adjacent to the planting area as this alerts me to new shoots and stops me hoeing them off as weeds.
Dealing with a housing crisis. Those of you who follow this blog will know that a little white dove arrived at our house about a year ago and ever since then has been treated by Cruella (my wife) as an honorary chicken. She eats chicken food, she roams around with the chickens and takes part in Cruella’s general chicken meetings. She is even being taught Chickenese by Cruella and Helga the cleverest chicken.
Everything was fine until it started getting cold. The problem is that the little white dove cannot go into the chicken coop and instead spends her nights perched on one of our security cameras. Cruella’s first solution was to knit her a little cardigan, but when she wore it she couldn’t fly and kept tripping over. She next suggested a heater fitted over the top of the security camera to keep her cosy. I pointed out this could end up with flambé dove. The photo below shows the problem.
Eventually Cruella insisted that the little white dove should have a little house. I was forced to buy and fit a suitable dove cote for one. Cruella was so excited that she insisted on a grand opening with speeches and a buffet and she cut a little cord and pronounced the dove cote “open”. The photos below show the big day.
Unfortunately the little white dove refused to go into the dove cote and still spent her nights on the security cameras. Cruella blamed me accusing me of providing inadequate housing and threatening to denounce me to the local housing authority. In the end I had to fit a shelf like runway for her to land on (the dove not Cruella). The photos below show her gradual acceptance of her new home, it took two weeks.
Spanish Garden 
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