September is a time of year when you can start preparing for Winter. Take some time to look round your garden and take a careful note of the growth that the trees have made over the Summer months. Decide which branches need to be pruned and which trees need to be coppiced. If you don’t get into the habit of doing this each year, you will probably find that your garden gradually transforms itself into a little wood, and it will become difficult to grow flowers, fruit, and vegetables because there will be too much shade.
Now, when there is still foliage on the trees, is also a good time to identify spaces where there is room to plant new trees. If you are planning to plant any fruit or nut trees, you can start to prepare the ground now: dig a large hole – anything up to three feet square and two foot deep – and fill it with a mixture of your best compost and topsoil. Fruit trees planted in this sort of soil will get off to a good start and may yield fruit one or two years earlier than those planted in rough ground.
