‘Organic September’ Gardening Tips

‘Organic September’ Gardening Tips: Organic September is just around the corner, this is the time of year when all things organic are celebrated and brought into the spotlight. The founder of Barnsdale Gardens, Geoff Hamilton, was a firm believer and pioneer in organic gardening and Barnsdale was his ‘great experiment’ in peat free and chemical free growing. These techniques and principles have been used at Barnsdale, which is based in the East Midlands, for over forty years now and the gardens remain an outstanding example of these organic principles. 

The Barnsdale team offer these tips for September below…

Look out for Tomato Blight

If you are unlucky enough to have found blight on your tomatoes, remove any infected leaves as soon as you see them, which might stop the spread. However, if it has spread to the stems then strip the fruits, put them in a tray to ripen, and dispose of the infected plant.

Sow Green Manure

If you are considering covering an area of bare ground in your productive area with a winter green manure, now is the time to get sowing. These are great as they not only give you green foliage to look at during the winter they all fix nitrogen and will ultimately add organic bulk to your soil. Types you can get sowing are – winter tare, red clover, agricultural lupin and field beans.

Wildflower Areas

If you have a perennial wildflower area it will have finished flowering and on a day when the seed heads and grasses are dry it needs to be cut down and the tops raked off. At Barnsdale, a strimmer is used for the job as the border is relatively long, but shears would do the job on a smaller area. It is important to carry out this task when the area is dry as you want any seed that hasn’t dispersed to fall out of its seed case and onto the ground. It won’t do this if the seed case is wet. If you have an area at the back of a border where these tops can be piled they make an excellent home for lots of beneficial wildlife throughout the winter.

AND DON’T FORGET …There is plenty to do in September at Barnsdale!

Free Nursery Walk, ‘Cool Plants for Tranquil Gardens’.

– 20th September, 11:30am
– Barnsdale Gardens are running a programme of 20 minute free talks
covering a range of topics.
– These informative sessions will be given by Emma who runs the nursery.
– There is no need to book, just turn up.
– In the event of rain, the sessions will go ahead in Emma’s big poly-tunnel.

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