Our gardening columnist advises how to prepare your garden in October

Through the mist-chill fields I went

With a pitch-fork on my shoulder

Less for use than for devilment.

The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,

In Cassidy’s haggard last night,

And we owed them a day at the threshing

Since last year. O it was delight

To be paying bills of laughter

And chaffy gossip in kind

With work thrown in to ballast.

On An Apple-Ripe September Morning by Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) captures the joy of a rural Irish childhood. Its simplicity and nostalgia evoke a bygone era. The speaker’s wanderings through familiar fields and remembrances of past adventures reveal a deep connection to the natural world, which is something we all badly need.

As stated in July, butterflies are going thought a bad patch and September is following the trend with very few seen. We can only hope that next year a better summer brings about and improvement.

It’s as well to be ahead of the game when thinking of spring flowering plants. It’s a good move to plant Wallflowers, Polyanthus and Violas early whilst there is a bit of heat left in the land and warmth in the sun. Plants will get off to a better start than when the soil has grown cold. Keep up the liquid feeding of your hanging baskets and window boxes and continue to dead head to prolong flowering.

I was at the Harrogate Autumn Flower Show held again at Newby Hall. It was a great show with something for everybody. Dahlias have had a good year. In hot years they tend to flower too early (they do with me) and are flowered out by the September shows. The cool summer has given them the advantage of good colures. The cooler temperature has given them time to develop to their full beauty. There were reports of problems with damping (rotting off of blooms) with the recent rains.

Left: Gardener’s Delight by Peter Fawcett. Email peterfawcett0@gmail.com or call (01274) 873026 (Image: Peter Fawcett)

In 1987 the world record onion was 8lb 13.5oz; by 1990 it was 10lb. Back then one weighing 15lb was thought impossible, but then in 2023 Gareth Griffin from Guernsey came up with one tipping the scales at 19lb 7lb! This made national headlines. At Newby this year that record still stands, but the onions were still enormous with the wining onion, grown by Stephen Purvis weighing in at over 16 lbs. Growing conditions in a cool summer keeping weights down.

Chrysanthemums have due to the coolness been of good quality but have, unlike the Dahlias been thin of the ground. The cold has made flowering late. But at Newby there were some excellent one to be seen. They have he advantaged over many other flowering plants of lasting long when cut, lasting three weeks or more.

It was at Newby I met our gardener of the month, Mr Alan Smith who told me hails from Oakworth out from Keighley. Alan had some fine Chrysanthemums on show, winning the class containing five vases with five booms in each vase, 25 blooms in all, a magnificent sight.

But how did his interest begin? Mr Smith told me: “It was the 1960s and I was interested in starting growing for show and a man in Leicester offered me some plants, so I drove down the M1 to collect them, my first show was at Thwaites Brow, Keighley, I then entered at Keighley and I was unsuccessful.”

But this introduced him to people with experience who now influenced him: “I learned from these people, such as Bradford’s Eddie Rayner. I then began win, the first trophy was for the novice class at Bradford show, which was a big show and held at St George’s Hall, the show was then held at the Wool Exchange, after that it moved to Peel Park which had a long heritage of growing Chrysanthemums”.

Alan said there were “outstanding professional gardeners there such as Albert Stanciffe and Eddie Garbut, the Parks Department was famous for decorating the stage with Chrysanthemums and any of those blooms could have won first prize at the show”.

Alan then entered at national shows, winning numerous prizes, including best vase in show on three occasions, and is now vice chair of the Northern group of the National Chrysanthemum society and a well known judge. He said he always has always shared information and plants and if anybody wants some he will supply. Contact me via the T&A - email emma.clayton@nqyne.co.uk - if any one wants to take up his offer.

I asked him what he likes about growing chrysanthemums. He was direct in his reply, “It keeps the brain active and when the flowering season is over I look forward to the next year. I get great satisfaction taking cuttings and it’s a wonderful sight seeing them flowering”.

This is a statement that was echoed by the late great gardener Geoffrey Smith who said “the greatest pleasure a gardener can have is growing a plant from a seed or a cutting and seeing it in full bloom.”