A busy holiday weekend

There is plenty to do, but remember to enjoy it

- Ruth Hayes

THE final bank holiday before the festive break is upon us and the long weekend is the perfect time to catch up on outside jobs that have been delayed by holidays, gatherings and rain.

At the time of writing, the weather is warm and damp so I am hoping that the bank holiday jobs list won’t include removing tomatoes that have been struck by blight – but at this point I’m not holding my breath.

This bank holiday weekend I will be bringing order to the chaos the warm, damp weather has already brought – removing swiftly encroaching weeds, getting rid of plants affected by moulds and rots, and keeping a keen eye out for slugs and snails.

It has been an excellent year in our fruit and veg patch so I’ll keep picking and freezing the beans (runners and French) that have been prolific since early July, collecting ripe figs before the birds get to them, thinning the ripening grapes and watching our autumn raspberries come online.

If the tomatoes have been spared the curse of blight, I’ll be harvesting them too – I have already been cutting away excess foliage from the plants to allow more sunlight and air in to keep them healthy and hasten their ripening.

Keep deadheading shrub and climbing roses and you may still get more late blooms. The exception is ramblers which only give us one flush of flowers per summer, but leave some of their flowerheads to turn into hips.

Cut back flowered perennials too, removing floppy stems that have fallen only to the soil, tidying things up and making room to plant autumn bedding and late-flowering perennials such as sedum, dahlias and echinacea.