Late September has got to be the best time of year for Veg gardeners! Fresh food still pours into our house daily; potatoes, tomatoes, chilies, courgettes, lettuce, rasberries, etc. all being enjoyed in some form at almost every meal.
However it may seem strange, but my favourite pastime in the veg garden is clearing out last years crops and starting again with a gorgeous new, freshly overturned vegetable bed full of freshly turned crumbly brown earth. I can finally get rid of all those tired looking leaves or those annoying weeds that escaped my much too infrequent attempts to clear them . Yep, no more delicate and careful hoeing, just indiscriminate ground clearance with my biggest fork!
A topping of well rotted manure and some leaf mulch (my other autumn obsession), and this old potato bed (see previous post) will transform nicely into my experimental companion planting next year. Reservations are yet to be confirmed, but I am thinking this full bed will be for what can be known as the three sisters; sweetcorn, beans and squash. Unlike most humanly sisters they get along wonderfully! The thick leaves of the squash (could use courgettes as well) keeps the weeds to minimum, the sweetcorn doesn't cast much of a shadow over them and provides support for the beans, whose roots, in turn provide much needed nitrogen to their companions.
The added benefit of planting three crops in one space ticks all my boxes for efficiency, harmony and balance.
