After the really wet summer it was good this week to welcome the sun back and to enjoy some gardening. At the weekend we had an allotment day and a garden day. We've been spending a lot of time at the allotment this summer and the garden and house jobs have been piling up. So my husband spent Sunday afternoon cleaning out the gutters whilst I caught up with garden jobs.
I had to start with my least favourite of gardening jobs--weeding and sweeping the drive. There are a couple of borders either side of the drive which look fine in the spring with snowdrops, daffodils, muscari, followed by bluebells and aquilegia. Later on when the overhanging trees come into leaf and overshadow the borders, nothing much will grow there. One border is full of ferns which completely take over. I've tried various plants but they don't survive in the dry shade conditions. So for the rest of the year this area is quite dull looking.
There were a lot of leaves on the drive and as I swept them up I thought that this was the start of the autumn leaf clear up. Leaf sweeping is an ongoing job throughout the autumn, not just on the drive but also in the garden as there are lots of trees around We have a big leaf bin next to the drive made out of an old wire compost bin. It provides us with lots of leaf mould. All we do is chuck the leaves in and hey presto months later it turns into wonderful compost. As I tipped the leaf sweepings in I noticed how much compost there was in there which was ready for use. That would be useful for the allotment on the raised beds.
Leaf compost is good for improving the structure of soil, it can be used as a mulch or it can be made up into a potting compost mix. It is really easy to make. Collect fallen leaves from the garden or even from the streets. It's best not to use evergreen leaves as these take a long time to rot down. A wire bin is ideal to use, you can make one out of chicken wire. Or the leaves can just be put into bin bags. Make some holes in the bags with a fork, water the leaves if they are dry, tie up the bag then store in the garden in an out of the way place. The leaf mould is usually ready to use in about a year.
I think some bagging up of compost needs to be put on my jobs list for this week.
