The gardening year is like well written prose, punctuated like it is with er –  – – – – – well, punctuations!

There are certain jobs that have to be done throughout the year which mark a little point in time, and break the year up into smaller pieces like paragraphs and phrases.

Spring is for sowing seeds, planting potatoes and seedlings. Then there is the first harvest, usually asparagus.

The beginning of July is busy with harvesting and freezing peas and broad beans, quickly followed in August by doing the same with the sweetcorn.

Well today I completed another of those tasks, the one that marks the start of winter. I covered my gunnera.

For a plant that looks like such a thug, it is surprisingly tender. I first fell in love with the plant many years ago at a garden centre in North Yorkshire. They had a specimen there that was huge. I knew then that I just had to have one.

However, such a plant is not for a small garden, but as soon as we moved here I bought one.

gunnera

It was in a pot and quite small and cost something like £7. Now it is enormous, but still needs to be coddled through the frosty nights.

I’ve looked back in my diary and I’m about 3 weeks later covering  than in past years. We’ve had slight frosts but nothing severe, however as it’s forecast to come colder, I thought I’d better make a move.

Dried grass, saved from the summer and old towels weighed down with stones are what I use to protect it.

Looking forward to when I can uncover it again, which is another point in time usually in March.