The temperatures are dropping and growth is slowing down. But there are still some things that you can do in the garden to prolong the flowers and keep active outside this season. Its tempting to think that the fat lady has sung and you can hang up your boots for the year. The weather is still very dry though so don’t give up yet on watering your plants, especially the ones in pots. If you deadhead your flowers such as roses, antirrhinums, lupins or sweet peas, they may still produce a few more flowers. 

If some of your dead heads are looking nice and dry you can collect their seeds to sow next spring. I often go to other peoples gardens and see flowers that I want for my own garden and collect them. Different lavenders, hollyhocks, delphiniums people don't tend to mind….. You can still sow things too like herbs and winter salads. I cleared away a nice spot in the greenhouse the other day in order to sow some coriander and lettuce. The chicken thought that this was an extremely comfy new armchair that I had made her though! So I have sown the seeds into some recycled plastic ‘seed trays’ and will move them on later.