- H C de L
- Oct 23, 2024
- 2 min read
Autumn Tidy Up in the Vegetable Garden

Mr C is not a man for buying presents or celebrating any sort of event. So I was more than delighted to receive the unique wedding present of a trio of lavender Muscovy Ducks. Unusual - yes I know!
That was eight years ago and Mr Muscovy is still with us, although his original wives flew the nest, literally , after a few years, leaving Mr Muscovy looking increasingly glum in the company of a few game hens. I needed a good excuse to buy him a mate or two, and what better reason than to consign them to clear up the vegetable garden in preparation for winter. I came across an advert for nine Muscovy ducks - an adult pair and their seven offspring - brilliant! they were such a good bargain that I even got the purchase sanctioned and collected by Mr. C. Mr. Muscovy was so excited that he did a funny little dance at finally seeing some of his own species again.

They are now about to begin their task.
The vegetable garden has not been a roaring success this year - too much rain, too many humungous slugs and not enough time. This year I completely embraced polyculture principles and did not tend the vegetables too much, just weeding and dropping when I had time. So it grew and grew - well he weeds did anyway and the slugs destroyed everything just about. They ate the asparagus as it was just emerging, the beetroot were gnawed to death, tender poppy seedlings all gone. I managed to harvest some tomatoes, rhubarb, and some sorry-looking runner beans (I don't know why they were so depressed this year), a few strangely shaped carrots and some celery. The autumn raspberries, closely followed by the figs were the stars as usual.
Now it's time to clear up though and do all of the important jobs to prepare for the winter
Clean up any dead or decaying plants
Harvest any remaining vegetables
Remove weeds
Turn over the soil to aerate it
Add compost or mulch to enrich the soil
All well and good I thought! I had bought a strimmer in the summer which proved to be a little weak for my type of gardening, but useful all the same for giving some semblance of order and a very cathartic experience when strimming down nettles whilst drowning out the chorus of 'you need to get the roots out '........ yes I know!
But I'm still short of time..... I surveyed the tough grass, the nettles and various other undesirables and......the great idea emerges....DUCKS...I need DUCKS. They will make short shrift of this and hopefully scoop up all of those slugs as well.
So here the experiment starts........I'll let you know how I get on.

