September brings lots of work in the garden, and we have been cutting our meadows as well as storing vegetables and fruit, especially apples. The poor summer weather has meant the apple crop is poor, but there are still enough cookers for puddings through the winter, and more dessert apples than we can possibly eat! Potatoes have been dug and stored in a dark basement and onions and shallots lifted and dried in the greenhouse. We have an overload of lots of good things to eat as I am still picking spinach, courgettes and french beans amongst other things. The fruit store and freezer are overflowing and cupboards are beginning to fill up with jam and chutney. Preparing all we have grown for the months ahead is a long job, but I still have to find time to make sure the meadows – and we have about an acre of meadows and mini-meadows all together – are cut and raked. This year the job was made easier by a small flock of friendly sheep in the field next door. The hay has been raked up and thrown over into their field, and they are the happiest sheep I have even seen!
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About wildlifegardening
Jenny Steel was a Plant Ecologist at Oxford University before becoming a writer. She has more than 20 years experience of writing about and teaching ecology, natural history and wildlife gardening. She is also a photographer, journalist and former plant nursery owner, and a lecturer and tutor in adult education. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television programmes including Gardener’s World with Alan Titchmarsh, and she presented a series of items on the BBC 2 gardening show, How Does Your Garden Grow. She has worked with and written for a variety of organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society, Natural England, Atropos, Ernest Charles, the Adult Residential Colleges Association (ARCA), Haiths, Usborne Books, Complete Gardens, Oxfordshire County Council, the charity Growing Native and several of the Wildlife Trusts. She is also the Garden Bird Guru for the wild bird food company JustAddBirds of which she was a co-founder. The Emmy Award winning film company Panache Productions are currently making a film about her wildlife garden in South Shropshire. She has written 10 books on wildlife gardening. Her website can be found at www.wildlife-gardening.co.uk and her bird food company at www.JustAddBirds.co.uk
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Healthy living for sheep!
I have a stack of hay and nothing to do with it!