Anybody greedy like me?

[Primrose]

Went into the garden this morning with the intention of yanking out the courgettes and the climbing bean vines. But found a few straggling flowers producing "the last of the summer wine" and couldn't bear the thought of losing the last gleanings of the crops so left them alone. How ruthless are the rest of you about deciding when the end of your cropping season has come?

[John]

Hello Primrose
I think of these 'stragglers' and 'also rans' as a good bonus at this time of year. Once we have stocked the freezer up with stuff from the garden all these extras are a nice treat. I leave most things to struggle on until we have the first hard frost. This knocks everything down and then its pull up, clear up, shred and compost time.

John

[richard p]

i normally dont clear anything before about easter unless i want the space to plant something else, the veg patch always looks a mess to traditional gardeners but im sure we get more birds and insects surviving through the winter both because they have a food supply and the decaying plants provide shelter. we also dont trim the hedges until early spring for the same resons.

[Wellie]

I tend to cover ALL of those in a period of months, and I'd like to think that most gardeners do, and would if they knew what good it can doa.

Over the relatively short years of vegetable gardening 'at home' and therefore not on an allotment, I've noticed a gradual but steady increase in bird, and general wildlife activity that's benefited me leaving certain things, and tidying up others.
Birds particularly. We're fortunate with our 'surrounding' habitat for wildlife with a range of oak, beech, spruce and fir (with gorse, bracken and bramble beneath)....
so wildlife can live happily outside our garden, and come in at leisure to forage for foodstuffs.

I really DO think it's important to leave a certain amount of spent crops and debris over the leaner months. Six years of a varied amount of that has given Trousers and me an enormous amount of watching pleasure in our garden.
Nice one Primrose...!