Most plants are coming to the end of their growing season (From Warrington Guardian)

Most plants are coming to the end of their growing season

11:35am Thursday 22nd September 2011 in Your Say

Over the last few weeks, two of the new tenants on the allotments have cleared their plots ready for planting.

They look a lot bigger now that the weeds and rubble have been removed. Everyone is now working hard to clear their allotments ready for the winter months ahead.

Some people like to cover the ground with tarpaulin to suppress the weeds and to stop any fertilisers left in the soil from being washed away.

I find this practice encourages the slugs, bugs etc to use this as a place to lay eggs for next year's onslaught of pests.

I prefer to leave the ground uncovered leaving the snow and ice to kill any unwanted guests in the soil. We all have different ideas of gardening and no one really knows what’s best.

Most of the plants on our allotments are now coming to the end of their growing season.

So now like most gardeners we like to think to the future and start planning the crops to grow next year. We’ve already bought our seeds at a much reduced price saving a small fortune.

At home we decided that if we made apple wine instead of cider we could forget about making a cider press so we were able to use our fruit juicer.

Making half a gallon a time doesn’t put too much pressure on the machine. And this should make a much nicer brew that can be enjoyed at leisure not drunk by the pint.

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