There are in fact a number of things you can do. The first is nothing. You can leave it barren and let the weeds grow as they will. This is not a good idea. You are creating work for yourself in that you will have to remove the weeds in the spring. Whats more the weeds will take nutrients from the earth which will need top be replenished.

The second is to cover the plot with black plastic. This will stop weeds growing and in fact will keep the soil that little bit warmer. It also makes an ideal place for slugs and snails to overwinter. It will mean that you will not have to weed in the spring but you will need to feed your soil. This is not difficult to do, just add garden compost to it in the spring.

The third, and at the moment the most favoured thing to do by trendy gardeners is to grow plants which are known as ‘green manure’. This is not a new tecnique, it has been around for a number of years but recently it has developed somewhat of a cult status and there are a number of new varieties available.

What it means is that you grow certain plants during the time you are not using the soil and just before you want to sow your seeds (or Plant), then you cut down the crop and dig it in.

The green manure plants are sown like grass. The roots fix nitrogen in the soil and by digging it in, you are adding bulk vegetable matter to the soil. This will make your soil a great deal more fertile.

If you want to use your vegetable patch early in the year, you can dig in your green manure plants early and cover your soil with plastic (black is best, it absorbs heat and prevents weeds germinating. Then, when the soil is warm you can take it off and sow your seeds earlier than usual. Remember, though, that your soil will then rapidly lose its extra warmth and you should then either cover your seed beds with fleece or erect cold frames over them.

One other thing, when purchasing your green manure seeds, make sure that they are for the correct season in which you are going to be using them. Like all plants, diferent varieties grow at different times.

First there are winter aconites. These actually flower during the winter (so they are not in fact spiring bulbs at all). They are really great flowers. They look very like buttercups when in flower but they do flower all winter, even under snow. I find them really inspiring. If delicate flowers like these can survive in the really bad weather, so can I!. Thompson and Morgan are now offering these bulbs at 24 bulbs for £6.99. If you want larger quantities, they come at discounts. Like most bulbs, these will increase in number year on year – and you can leave these bulbs in the ground from one year to the next.

Now for some real spring flowering bulbs. Alliums have become very fashionable in the last few years – with good reason. They are really showy flowers and the different varieties really are different both in shape and colour. Although Allium are the same family as onions (that shows in some of them in the shape and colour of the flower), most do not in fact smell of onion.  T & M are offering a collection which they call ‘Allium Cotttage Garden Mixed which are 50 bulbs for £9.99. They flower from late sping to early summer and make great dried flowers. If you want named varietries, Thompson and Morgan are also offering 4 other types of Allium including the most popular, Purple Sensation.

For something different, why not try Brodiaea Laxa Royal Blue. This is also known as the Harvest Lily. This is the first time this variety has been offered in the U.K. so you will be sure to be asked what they are. They have sturdy stems which hold up to 25 brilliant lilac-blue flowers which look like miniature roses. Theie foliage is grass-like and it dies back when they flower so that they stand out more. They are relatively expensive (10 bulbs and £9.99) but because they have so many flower heads per plant this is more acceptable. The price also reflects the newness of the variety.

If you are looking for a larger number of bulbs for less expense, why not try one of Thompson and Morgan’s  collections. The first they call ‘Bumper Pack Bulbs’ . These are 125 bulbs for £9.99. They include 30 Allium Ostrowskanum; 30 Anemone De Caen; 30 Oxalis Iron Cross; 25 Crocus and 25 Daffodil Tet a Tete. This will give you flowers over a long period of time in a great many colours, shapes and heights.

The second Pack I am going to talk about is T & M’s ‘Nature Bulb Pack’ Basically this means that all the bulbs are native English flowers which will naturalise easily should you wish but will look equally good in flower beds., although to get the best effect they should be planted under trees (or Deciduous shrubs). This pack include 5 wood Anemones; 25 Snakeshead Fritillaria; 10 Lily of the Valley and 10 English Bluebells. Tis pack costs £9.99 for 50 bulbs.

I like to plant my bulbs ‘en masse’ in random patterns and to do this, I just throw the bulbs at the ground and plant them where they land. Be aware though that Lile of the Valleyt will flower much better (and will increase in number if they are planted and left to do their own thing. They even resent being weeded to much, so plant them in a corner and leave them alone. You will trewarded with a charming, scented display year after year.

Harrod also sell what they call ‘Starter Kits’ which include all you need to make raised beds: the planks, corner posts, long lasting aluminium joining brackets and even zinc plated screws – with full instructions on how to assemble them. These kits come in various width and length sizes from 2 ft square and raising by 2 ft increments (seperately by width and length i.e. you could have 4 ft by 6 ft) to 8 ft square. There is also 4 height options. The capping is not included in the kit but can be bought seperately. On top of the rectangular kits, there is also a triangular kit available.

The wood has been high pressure treated with safe timberpreservative which was selected in consultation with ‘Garden Organic’ to ensure the best possible protection from attack from fungal attack and attack from wood boring insects. It has been planed to give you the best possible look.It is structually guaranteed for 8 years.

There are god reasons for putting capping on the top of your raised bed sides. Apart from loking really attractive, they are excellant for sitting on whilst hand weeding or planting in your beds.

These beds really are stylish and would make a god addition to any garden.

Harrod Horticulture have come up with an answer. They call it their ‘Allotment Timer Design for Raised Beds‘. It is in fact suitable for any raised beds. Made from 6 inch (15cm) thick FSC Scandinavian timber planks and planed all round they are quality wood with 5 year structural guarantee.

The planks are treated with a safe timer preservative to ensure that they have the best possible resistance to fungal decay and wood boring insects. Harrod Horticulture consult withe Garden Organic to select the best possible preservative to do this job so it should work!

The kits come in a variety of square and rectangular designs with 3 height options and for narrow areas there are 2 ft wide mini-beds or triangular corner shapes.

The kits come complete with internal wooden fixing posts and zinc pplated scrrews. Even the planks are pre-drilled and full instructions are included so that minimum time and wood working ability is needed.

If you want a more elegant look, or have a side on which you can sit to work on your beds (really useful when planting), then you can also buy capping which has been desined to fit perfectly.

These raised bed kits are really good value and will last many years with the minimum of maintenance giving you beds which will never move or lose soil. They are excellant for raised beds (partcularly useful if you garden organically) but will be useful whatever your method of gardening.

One of the most important features in my vegetable patch is that it has raised beds. I try to garden organically (in the main I achieve this, although if there is a particularly virulent attack of one insect I have been known to resort to chemicals) and raised beds fit with this like a hand and glove.

Perhaps I should explain the thinking behind raised beds and what they are. Raised beds are exactly what they say. They are beds which have been raised above the level of the rest of the garden. You can do this by just adding soil or compost in a certain area. It works but tends to get untidy and the soil creeps away. It is better to edge your bed with wood (or other materials). One of things you do is make them so that you can reach of them without stepping on them. This means the soil never gets compacted so it does not need digging.If you are going to be able to walk all around them, this means no wider than 4 ft. (a normal persons reach is about 2 ft.)

Once you have built your bed, you double dig it, then add compost or soil enricher and gently fork it in. In the future, all you will need to do is add compost and gently fork it in. Easy!

The benefits of Raised beds have now been recognised by some of the garden supply companies and you can now buy kits to make them.  Check some examples here. This makes life much easier – no measuring and cutting, preserving and sanding. There are even Raised Bed kits which include caps on them. This is actually a good idea, as it makes a comfortable place to sit and rest for a few minutes – or even sit whilst you are planting.

I have talked of Raised beds in the vegetble patch, but there is no reason why you can’t use them in your ornamental garden. Just make sure that the soil is not to lose to hold your plants. (Brussel Sprouts often do not do to well in raised beds as they topple). Why not try making a Thyme seat in one.

The range of plants suitable for hanging baskets for winter is somewhat limited. There are a number of foliage plants of course, the Ivies of various types among them but when it comes to flowers, then you look to Pansies and Violas, with, perhaps the odd Polyanthus and Bellis Perennis thrown into the mix.

Thompson and Morgan have had a cascading Pansy in their catalogue for some time. It is called ‘Pansy Cascading Balconita‘ and is reputed to trail up to 24 inches.

This makes it ideal for hanging baskets. It would also make a good plant in the front of borders, giving much needed colour during the bleak months.

Anyway, back to Cascading Pansy ‘Balconita‘. T & M are now offering these at half price – £4.98 for 8 plants (16 plants for £7.99) instead of £9.99 (£16.99) so if you are thinking of using Pansies in hanging baskets during winter, now is the time to order them. The offer only has a week to run so you need to do it soon. The plants will come as plug plants, so you will not need to plant them in your baskets immediately, however do not encourage them to grow too much, it is much easier to place small plants in baskets then large ones. Remember, the same rule applies as with all planting. Don’t damage the roots by touching them.

I have been evaluating my summer hanging baskets. You will remember that I planted them up with Fuschias and Geraniums as well as the usual hanging basket pplants. Well the Geraniums have done very well. They look like the pictures you see on advertisments of German Villas. However, the Fuschias have not done quite as well. I think both these are due to the exceptional drought and heat we have had this year. Although I have watered my hanging baskets, I obviously have not done so as often as I should. It is worth remembering that Fuschias will take more looking after than normal. (Of course, if we have a very wet or col summer, Geraniums may well not do so well and Fuschias may do better.) You just have either to guess what it will be like (!) or play the odds and plant some of each – or be safe and use the normal pplants such as Loberlia.

Put simply, a wormery is a sealed container holding a special species of worm which will digest your spare food and convert it into usable plant food. However, it isn’t quite as simple as that. Yes, you can use an old dustbin but in very short order it will smell and become water logged.

The advice from professional worm farmers is that a large surface area will help worms process organic waste quicker and leads to even greater worm cast harvests, so when first making or buying your wormery, you should take this into account.

The other thing is that you want your wormery to be close to your kitchen door, so that disposing of your organic waste is easy – even in bad weather.

Harrod Horticulture sell some very nice looking (and very practical) timber wormeries. They are flat pack and come with step by step assembly instructions so that there is a real sense of accomplishment even before you harvest your first plant food. They are made from stout FSC timber which has been pressure treated and is guaranteed for five years. They are also (in my view) really good looking.  The only other thing you need apart from the Wormery is the worms themselves and some bedding culture so that the worms can start to work (and reproduce)  as soon as you introduce them to their new home.

Wormeries do not replace the compost bin but they do make fantastic companions to it. Compost bins produce large amount of general soil improver whilst wormeries produce worm casts which is the highest quality organic fertiliser there is. It is rich in minerals and micro-organisms which are essential to the healthy growth of plants.

Worms also produce liquid which when drained from the wormery which can be poured onto your compost heap to accelerate the rotting down process or it can be diluted to spray onto lawns or plants as a rich feed.

Go carefully round your garden with a notebook and decide whether any plants are too crowded and need dividing. This is a good way of getting more plants for free. When you decide that plants need dividing, label them. Herbaceous plants disappear in the winter and it is easy to forget exactly where ther are. If you can take photographs of them, so much the better.Often herbaceous plants start to die in the centre and only flower round the edges. This is a good sign that it needs lifting and dividing. Don’t do it now though, wait until early spring.

You may also decide that some plants should have been supported. Make a note of that also. It is a good idea to actually buy your supports for next year, so that they are ready when you do need them.

You should put supports in before they are needed so that they are covered by the foliage of the plants. Plants such as peony need multi-supports. You can do this by ringing the whole plant with supports and tying the stems in when needed. This stops the whole plant from ‘flopping over’ and becoming very untidy. Some plants, like Sunflowers just need a single stake. You can use bamboo sticks for that but there are now some really nice looking stakes available which are attractive in their own right and do not stick out like a sore thumb before they are clothed by the plant.

Often, you will decide that a plant is in the wrong place and that it would look better elsewhere. Make a note to do this at the right time of the year.

I said that there are very few jobs to now, however there are two things that it is a goodidea to do.

The first is to cut back Lavender. If you live in the south where the weather is warmer, this can be left until Spetember, but if you live further North, do it now. Cut the flower heads back to where they started growing this year. You should have a neat little ball when you have finished. If you do this, your lavender plant should last about ten years. If you don’t , it will rapidly become very woody and you will need to replace it in three or four years.

The second job is to cut back buddlea when they finish flowering. This will help to stop damage by winds and snow during the winter. You do the main pruning in March but just cut them back slightly when they finish floewering to lessen their profile to the winds.

One of the ways to encourage butterflies into the garden is to grow flowers which are particularly attractive to them. (Buddleia is one of them). Another way is to grow plants which will provide hosts for their eggs and caterpillars. To that aim I have taken a small area in one corner of the garden for a ‘wildlife santuary’. That is a very posh way of saying that I allow weeds to grow there.

These weeds are not allowed to grow rampant. I do try to keep some sort of control so that no species overwhelms the rest, but in the main I leave it alone to do its own thing. Among the weeds is a clump of stinging nettle. A month or so ago, this was looking very porly, black and covered with what looked like spiders webs. In fact it was covered with caterpillers which were pupating. They are now turning into Red Admiral Butterflies and it is these. among others (notably Painted Ladies) which are visiting my Buddleia.

A number of the so called weeds (wild flowers) are very attractive and many have formed the basis for more recognised garden flowers. Whilst you don’t want these growing all over the garden, there is no reason why you shouldn’t leave a small area where they can grow undisturbed. You could even allow a few nasturtiums to grow there in the hopes that black fly will populate them, rather than your broad beans and other prize plants. The trick is to clean as much as you can in autumn and don’t allow their roots to spread further than their designated area. You will be surprised at what pops up if you leave it alone.

You should be harvesting produce from your vegetable patch and from your greenhouse, if you have one. Tomatoes and Cucumbers are at their most abundant and need picking as soon as they are ready so that the plant puts its energy into ripening the rest of the crop. My melons are now growing well but are not yet ripe. You will know when melons are ripe – you will smell them as soon as you enter the greenhouse. Otherwise, feel the top of the melon, it goes slightly softer when it is ready.

One of the jobs you should be doing regularly is dead-heading your flowers. That means cutting off the flower heads which are finished. I find this a gentle and enjoyable job. Out in the sunshine, surrounded by the birds and the insects going about their work pollinating your plants.

When dead-heading, there are a few rules you should be aware of. Don’t just snap off the dead flower head. Particularly with roses, but with all flowers, you should cut the stem back to a sensible leaf. This will make the plant produce another stem hoilding another flower. The point of dead-heading is to make the pplant put on another batch of flowers.

Even flowers such as Lupins, Canterbury Bells and Sweet William will sometimes reward you with a second crop of flowers if you dead-head. The technique here is slightly different as you cut the plant back almost to the ground. Leave a few leaves, they need them to make energy to grow again. Your second flowers will not be as large as the first, but they will be there.

When dead-heading, always use secateurs which are sharp and clean. There are two types of secateur – the Anvil type and the Parrot-bill type. They are both equally good at their job and it is really up to you which type you prefer. Remember that they are meant to cut small branches. If you are using them to prune, never try to cut wood which is too large for them. You will damage the secatears as well as the branch you are cutting.For larger branches, you need long handled pruners or even a pruning saw. The other thing to remember is that if you are cutting back dead or diseased wood , then you should be sure to steralise you secatears before you move on to another bramnch, otherwise you risk spreading deseases around.

Anyway. back to summer jobs, one of the most important things is to sit and enjoy. It will give you a good reason to start the whole process again next spring and will renew you energy levels for the work ahead to prepare your garden for winter. You can also take the time to look at your garden and decide what wants changing or moving and where you need to put in new plants. Most importantly though is to sit back and enjoy.