Essential Autumn Jobs for Allotment Growers

Clear Spent Crops and Tidy the Plot

By the time October arrives, most allotments look a little weary. Runner beans have finished, courgette plants are mildewed, and the last tomatoes are clinging on in the greenhouse. Clearing this debris now is the single most useful thing you can do, because pests and diseases overwinter happily in old foliage. Pull up spent annuals, dig out brassica stalks and gather fallen fruit rather than letting it rot on the ground.

Sort as you go. Anything diseased — blighted tomato haulm, mildewed courgette leaves, clubroot-infected brassica roots — should go to the council green waste or the bin, not on your compost heap. Healthy material can be chopped and added to the pile, layered with cardboard or spent bedding. Slugs love a damp heap, so keep the lid on and give it a turn before the weather turns.

Feed the Soil Before Winter

Autumn is the best time to improve soil, because worms and frost do the work for you over the coming months. Spread a generous layer of well-rotted manure or garden compost over empty beds — roughly a barrowload per square metre — and let the weather break it down. On heavy clay, spreading now and leaving the surface rough is far better than digging it in; winter frosts will break up the lumps beautifully.

• Spread compost on beds you have just cleared; never leave soil bare.
• Use leaf mould on lighter soils and around fruit bushes.
• Add a handful of blood, fish and bone to beds destined for hungry crops next year.
• Keep off wet soil — stand on a plank or board to avoid compacting it.

Repair Raised Beds and Structures

A quiet autumn day is ideal for maintenance, and it saves a scramble in spring. Check raised bed timber for rot, replacing boards where they have gone soft and treating new timber with a plant-safe preservative. Tighten corner brackets, re-level beds that have settled, and top them up with a mix of compost and topsoil.

Walk the plot with a notebook and jot down what needs fixing: sagging netting, broken cane frames, wobbly fruit cages, a gate that sticks. Clean and oil your tools before storing them, sharpen the spade and hoe, and drain the hosepipe. Wash greenhouse glass inside and out to let in maximum winter light, and check that vents and louvres still close properly. If you have a water butt, empty and clean it now so it is ready for the winter rain.

Sow Green Manures on Bare Ground

Every patch of bare soil loses nutrients to winter rain. Green manures are the answer: cheap, easy and brilliant for soil structure. Sow them as soon as a bed is cleared.

• Field beans — hardy and deep-rooted; sow 20cm apart in rows 30cm apart. Excellent on heavy soil.
• Winter tares — fixes nitrogen and dies back in a hard frost; ideal before potatoes.
• Grazing rye — superb for holding nutrients on light soil; dig in during March.
• Phacelia — killed by frost but wonderful for bees if sown early; leave the frosted stems as a mulch.

Cut or dig green manures in before they set seed, usually in early spring, and let the tops wilt on the surface for a few days before turning them under.

Protect Tender Plants and Prepare for Frost

Keep an eye on the forecast from late October. Tender herbs in pots — basil, lemongrass, bay — should be moved under cover, and citrus or olive trees brought into a cool, bright greenhouse. Wrap terracotta pots in bubble wrap or hessian to stop roots freezing, and raise them onto pot feet so they drain freely.

Use horticultural fleece or cloches over late salads, chard and parsley; a double layer on a cold night makes a real difference. Globe artichokes and cardoons benefit from a straw mulch over the crown, and rhubarb can be given a bucket of well-rotted manure. Check tree ties and stakes on young fruit trees, net brassicas against pigeons, and make sure nothing loose can blow about in gales.

Plant Now for a Flying Start in Spring

Autumn planting gives earlier crops and less work later. Garlic planted in October or November — 15cm apart, with the tip about 2.5cm below the surface — roots well before the cold and bulks up faster than spring-planted cloves. Autumn onion sets and overwintering broad beans such as ‘Aquadulce Claudia’ can go in now, provided the soil drains reasonably well.

Sow winter salads — land cress, mizuna, winter purslane — under cover for cut-and-come-again leaves. Once that is done, put your feet up with a seed catalogue and a mug of tea. The plot is tucked up, the soil is quietly working, and spring will thank you for it.