Kitchen Garden Magazine

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Jobs for October

As crops come to an end the ground can slowly be cleared in preparation for next season or for sowing some hardy green manure to protect the soil and help retain nutrients for 2009's spring sowings

KG top tips

• When clearing the ground, make sure that all old leaves and stems and any little 'volunteer' potato tubers are lifted to prevent diseases from overwintering
• Pull any weeds to prevent them from establishing over winter and from harbouring pests and other problems for next season's crops
• If the weather is kind and we get an Indian summer, a few crops such as courgettes, tomatoes and summer squashes may manage to limp on for a few weeks yet. Keep them watered and fed, but be sure to harvest them before the first frosts
• Bamboo canes should be lifted and the ends dipped in a garden disinfectant before storing away for the winter

Fruit in brief

• Remove any figs from the fruiting branches that are larger than your thumbnail as these will not ripen and will simply fall by next spring
• Harvest the last of the autumn raspberries, leaving the fruited canes in place over winter. Left in this way, some may produce a small early crop from the same growth next year if fed and watered
• Continue to prepare ground for planting new fruit bushes, canes and trees in the winter or spring. Dig in plenty of well-rotted manure or garden compost and on poorly drained sites add some grit, too.
• Remove weeds from around fruit trees and bushes to prevent them from competing and from harbouring diseases through the winter months. Fruit trees growing in a lawn benefit from having the turf removed in a circle

IN DEPTH: Collect ripe hazelnuts

If you do not harvest ripe nuts as soon as they are ready the squirrels are sure to beat you to it!
These nuts can be picked a little under-ripe and this will help reduce losses to birds and squirrels, if you can however, it is best to net the bushes and to collect the nuts as they fall naturally.
Once picked dry the nuts slowly in a cool, dry shed or similar in ventilated trays and then move to nets once thoroughly cured.
In the winter the trees can be pruned if required, simply removing any branches growing in the centre of the tree to allow air and light to enter. Every four or five years hazels can be coppiced (cut back hard to a point close to the base of each stem) to encourage strong new shoots to form and to provide canes and stakes for use in the garden. If you have several trees it is a good idea to coppice one or two each year, leaving the rest to fruit.
Good varieties of cob include 'Kentish Cob' or 'Nottingham Cob'.
Hazels make great windbreaks for the allotment and are much-loved by birds as part of a mixed hedge with other natives such as blackthorn, field maple and hawthorn.

For lots more advice, see this month's issue, available to buy online!

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