Allotment Close-Down: Putting the Garden to Bed

The first proper frost arrived last week and that was the signal. Everything that was still alive in the kitchen garden beds got harvested, the tomato plants got pulled, and I spent a Saturday afternoon doing the end-of-season clear-up. The garden is going to sleep.

The Final Harvest

I pulled about two kilos of green tomatoes — the ones that didn't make it to red before the cold. Green tomatoes can ripen on the windowsill if they're mature enough (check that the inside is fully formed when you cut one open), or they can go straight into green tomato chutney. I'm doing both.

The borlotti beans had mostly dried on the vine by this point, which is actually what you want if you're saving them as dry beans for winter cooking. The fully dried pods rattle when you shake them. I shelled them out over an hour in front of the TV and ended up with a very satisfying pile of dried beans in red and cream swirls.

Soil Work

I added compost to all the cleared beds and left it on the surface rather than digging it in. Over winter, the worms will do that work for me. A no-dig approach is something I've been moving towards gradually — less digging is good for the soil structure, and it's also significantly less work for me, which I appreciate.

The perennials — rhubarb, currants, cherry trees — get left alone completely. They know what to do.

Until Next Year

There's always a slightly melancholy feeling when the allotment season ends. But there's also the knowledge that next spring is already being set up right now — in the compost breaking down, in the bulbs I planted under the currant bushes last weekend, in the seed catalog that arrived in the post yesterday. The planning has already begun.