Sophie Wainwright
Clear Gutters Before the Rain Settles In
If you do one job this month, make it the gutters. On a Cumbrian holding they earn their keep, and when they block, water goes where it shouldn't — down the walls of the barn, into the stonework, behind the rendering, and eventually into the tack room you thought was dry. October rain off the fells doesn't mess about.
Wait for a dry, settled morning if you possibly can. Take a ladder, a bucket, thick gloves and a trowel or a length of stiff wire. Scoop out the moss, leaves and grit by hand rather than flushing it down the downpipe, where it will only block the bend. Pay attention to the gully at the foot of each downpipe and any roadside drain along the lane, both of which silt up quietly over summer.
While you're up there, look at the fixings. A bracket that has pulled loose will drop the whole run in the first gale. Check the water butts too — empty the sludge, clean the filter, and make sure the diverter is set so the first flush of dirty roof water doesn't end up in your feed store. If you keep hens or have a polytunnel, the same logic applies on a smaller scale: a blocked gutter on a hen house means wet bedding, and wet bedding means respiratory trouble before Christmas.
Firewood: Stack It Now, Thank Yourself in January
Wood wants time, not effort. The best thing you can do this autumn is get next winter's stack built properly and leave this winter's wood where it is.
- Get it off the ground. Pallets, old rails, or a few courses of stone. Damp rises.
- Leave the sides open. Wind does the drying work; a tarp thrown over the whole stack in September just traps moisture in.
- Cover the top only, weighted with a couple of tyres or slabs, hanging over the sides by a good 20 cm.
- Split anything over 10 cm across before it goes on the stack, not after.
Aim for a moisture reading under 20 per cent before it goes near the stove. Ash, sycamore and birch are the quick wins up here; oak and hawthorn will reward patience but want two years, sometimes three, on a wet site. Buy or barter in the spring if you can — a load of green hardwood sourced in September won't be ready for this winter, but it will be perfect the next. Keep a week's worth in a covered basket by the door and the rest out in the weather, and you'll not be wrestling with a frozen log basket at six in the morning.
Winter Shelter for Livestock
Stock will tell you when the weather turns, but they can't fix a draughty shed. Sort shelter before the first hard frost, while the ground is still workable and you're not doing it by torchlight.
For sheep, the priority is a dry lying area and somewhere out of the wind, not a sealed box. Ventilation matters as much as warmth — a stuffy shed grows pneumonia. Deep straw bedding, plenty of it, and feeders and troughs lifted off wet ground. Move stock off poached gateways onto a bark or woodchip pad before the ground is churned to slurry, and check field drains and culverts now, not in February when the bottom field is a lake.
Hens need a dry, draught-free house with a good perch and proper ventilation up high. Take the chance, while you can still see what you're doing, to check for red mite in the crevices and to dust the perch ends. Pigs will happily wreck a shelter given half a chance, so check fixings and reinforce corners. And lag every exposed water pipe you own. Frozen troughs are a misery you can prevent with a lagging jacket and a bit of forethought; if you're on a mains supply, know where the stopcock is and make sure it turns.
Sow Green Manure and Put Beds to Rest
Bare soil in a Cumbrian winter loses everything — nutrients leached away by rain, structure pounded flat. Cover it. Green manures are cheap, quick and quietly brilliant.
Winter tares and grazing rye are the dependable choices on heavy ground; field beans do well if you want bulk and a nitrogen boost for next year's brassicas. Sow by mid-September where you can, though a mild October will still give you a catch crop of mustard or phacelia in the south of the county. Broadcast, rake in, and tread lightly — birds will take some, so sow a little thicker than the packet says.
While you're at it, plant garlic and overwintering broad beans, tidy the soft fruit, and cut back anything that's finished. Leave seed heads on the teasels and globe thistles for the goldfinches. Then mulch the beds you aren't cropping with well-rotted muck or compost and let the worms do the rest until spring.
Tools In, Taps Drained, Workshop Tidy
A wet autumn is hard on tools, and a few hours now saves a fortune later. Clean every spade, fork and hoe, dry them, and wipe the metal with an oily rag. Sharpen the edges properly. Wooden handles appreciate a rub of linseed oil, which stops them splitting when the frost gets into them.
Service the mower and strimmer before they go away — clean the air filter, change the oil, and run the fuel out or add stabiliser. Bring batteries indoors; cold kills them. Drain hosepipes, coil them somewhere dry, and lag the outside tap. Store seed in mouse-proof tins, high up and dry, and check your feed bins for gnawed corners.
Then walk the holding once, slowly, with a notebook. Look at fences, gates, roof sheets and the state of the lane. A cracked slate spotted in October is a small job; the same slate in January is a soaked ceiling and a bad mood. Do those small jobs now while the light still allows, and the farm will carry you through to spring without any nasty surprises.
