Autumn in the Garden

After the winds of Saturday, Sunday dawned clear and fairly still. Perfect weather for pottering in the garden.

Morning Run

There was a bit of exercise to do first so I headed off for a run along the River Leri and then back along the beach. Nothing too exciting and not too far or too fast. It was a run though, even if it didn’t compare to the activities in my Strava feed that seemed to be coming from the London Marathon or the Cardiff Half Marathon. It was nice out there and I felt pretty good so that was a good start to Sunday.

Apiary Clear Up

Next, it was time to start some work in the garden. The bees needed some work first. The larger hive still had a couple of extra supers on that I wanted to remove. We’d put them back on after extracting honey from them so that the bees could clean the last drops out. I now wanted to take them off. The bees no longer needed the supers, they made feeding more difficult and more importantly they made the hive quite tall and therefore more susceptible to the autumn winds.

With the Supers removed I was able to feed them and insert an entrance block to start preparing them for winter. The hive by the bedroom window also had a good feed. Elsewhere in the apiary I removed a couple of spare hives and stored them away for the winter, cut back some overhanging branches and generally had a good clear-up. Hives were strapped down and weighted with plenty of brick to hopefully help them withstand the winter storms.

It’s always one of the less well-kept areas of the garden as the bees prefer it that way and I don’t want to disturb them too much. It does need a bit of a tidy-up at the beginning and end of the season though.

I’d really like to clear out the big mound of waste soil and dead vegetation that I’ve piled up in the corner. That would provide room for at least another hive and would make the area more manageable in the middle of summer. Or I could put a small shed full of beekeeping equipment in the space that it would create. I’d need a skip to dispose of the rubbish though and probably a digger to move it all though. So, I guess it’ll be staying as it is for a while!

Garden Tidy Up

Having tidied the apiary a little I just continued on. I’d strimmed in the apiary so I strimmed the rest of the garden too. Whilst doing so I cut back a few things here and there, moved the bonsai trees into shelter and generally pottered in the garden. It’s certainly not looking tidy and many things are now overgrown and looking a little unruly. I tend to leave it like this for the winter though. The bench still catches the sun and is quite well sheltered when things are a little overgrown too.

The birds like the cover and the seed heads, the vegetation provides shelter and the falling leaves rot down to form a mulch and enrich the soil. The piles of dry leaves that collect under the bamboo and in amongst the pampass grasses also provide nice nesting sites for hedgehogs. It might look a little nicer if I went around and cut things back now but it’s better in the long run if I don’t. So, that will be a job for the late Winter / early Spring.

Garden Shelter

I haven’t decided what to do at the bottom of the garden yet. The removal of the trees at the bottom of the garden have exposed it to the ravages of the Easterly winds that funnel down the valley.

I’m going to have to plant something there to provide some shelter, but finding something that will grow quickly, cope with the winds and look nice is a bit of a conundrum. It’ll also involve quite a bit of work as I’ll probably have to dig out a bank of soil, move a couple of compost bins and probably move a shed too. There’s always so much to do! I think I need to leave this until Dave next door has finished the work he’s doing anyway as he’s likely to be putting in a new fence along the boundary so I’ll need to see how that works before doing too much work here.

Tags: BeekeepingGarden