Pat’s 10 jobs for September 2026

1. Keep cutting or dead heading your Dahlias to keep the flowers coming, hopefully into October. Give them a weekly feed too.

2. It’s not too late to make some comfrey tea to feed your plants and veg. Just cut up handfuls of leaves and leave in a bucket with some water and a weight to hold it down. Try to cover the bucket as the smell is very unpleasant, then dilute 1/10 in water and aim at the base of plants you are trying to keep going.

3. I think this year we need to carry out a review of very dry areas in our gardens and replant with drought tolerant plants. If you made the visit to Beth Chatto her dry garden is an excellent example. I have a bank at the back of my garden and half of it looks very sad or even dead so I’ll be replanting some of it in the spring if things don’t come through.

4. If you haven’t saved seeds now is the time before the last ones disappear in the ground rather than where you want them to go.

5. Deadhead Agapanthus and give the plant a good feed to build up reserves for next year.

6. It’s time to order those spring bulbs before they start running out of your favourite varieties!

7. Figs have loved the hot sunny conditions and have cropped really well but it’s unlikely the small ones will ripen before the weather cools. Try to pick regularly… fig jam is lovely if you have a surplus.

8. My French and runner beans stopped cropping so I sprayed the flowers with water to aid pollination and its worked: the beans are coming through again. Beans aren’t keen on hot dry conditions.

9. Make sure to crop spinach and chard regularly so it doesn’t go to seed.

10. Time to look at those seed catalogues too and choose some pollinator friendly varieties to increase biodiversity in your garden next year.

Happy gardening all!

Pat K