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October on the allotment is a month of endings that feel like preparations. The runner beans are finished, their leaves gone papery and spotted. The squash have been cut and are curing on the shed shelf, where they will sit, smug and orange, until Christmas.
This week's jobs
- Lifted the last of the beetroot and stored it in sand.
- Cut back the raspberry canes that fruited this year; tied in the new ones.
- Sowed broad beans for an early start in spring. Optimistic, but they usually make it.
- Spread a thick layer of leaf mould on the empty beds and covered two of them for winter.
Neighbours
The plot next door belongs to a retired engineer who grows prize leeks and keeps a rain gauge with a precision I find both admirable and alarming. He tells me the first frost is due next week. He is usually right.
A garden put to bed well is half planted already.
There is real pleasure in tidying a garden for winter: the paths clear, the beds dark and covered, the tools oiled and hung up. It looks like an ending. It is the start of next year, done early.
