You know Autumn has properly arrived when John turns up one morning with a hired scarifier and proceeds to spend the day scarifying the Farmhouse lawns to pull out all the dead grass and moss. The idea is that removing all of this vegetation helps carbon dioxide and water get into the soil and makes it healthier and helps the grass grow stronger. John spent a full day scarifying the Farmhouse lawns and moving the thatch down to the wood. He then spent the next day spreading a tonne of topsoil over the lawns, mixing 25kg of grass seed in and using his drag mat to mix it in together. It takes a bit of time to see any results but it really does make a difference, so by November the lawn should be looking much thicker.
The rest of the week and weekend has been spent tidying up doing normal autumnal jobs. With some help on Saturday we cut back the weeds that had taken over the pea and bean frame, and harvested the pumpkins and squashes before cutting back the dead growth. Our pumpkins and squashes caught powdery mildew fairly early on in the season, so while we have a number of them they’re all very small and immature. Next year we’ll try something new!
We’ve continued tidying up the kitchen garden – cutting back the shrubs that border the rhubarb bed; and checking the kalettes and kohlrabi almost every day for caterpillars (spoiler alert there are a lot). And we’ve started cutting back the dahlia plants and drying out the tubers ready for next year. It’s been lovely to have colour in the yard throughout the year.
At least we took a couple of steps towards 2026. We didn’t quite get through our entire job list; however we did plant c.120 onion bulbs which – allowing for mouse theft and given we’ve planted them earlier in the year than normal – should give c.100 decent sized onions next year. And I sorted through all our seeds – categorising them by earliest planting month. We’re trying to be as self-sufficient as possible when it comes to the garden so harvesting seeds is a key element of our Autumn diary. Let’s hope we have enough time to prepare the beds and feed our crops through the growing season next year!
Ley Farm Cottages 