This time of year is good for catching up. Before the winter snow arrives its a good oppotunity to clear the borders. The garden is ready for a mulch but no point mulching over the weeds and its satisfying tidying it all up, on the days it's not too cold.

Perinnals can look very sad by this time of year and in need of a tidy up. When cutting back, its interesting to see at the base of the plant next year's shoots already appearing. The signs of life are there; the garden never sleeps.

Some of the early spring flowering plants such as Aquilegia are already above ground, even in November

We may be sliding towards winter but its good to look forward to next spring and summer.  Personally I love Sweet Peas, I know they are considered by many as old fashioned but I find their colours and scent irresistible.

And if you want to get a head start next spring now is the time to sow them and they will be ready to plant out early spring

Mainly though I like to sleep through the winter and spend this time of year putting the garden to bed. Raking out the worst of the weeds and clearing the veg patch piling it up with manure to rot down further over winter.

If you have tender plants they should be in by now as the frosts are starting to bite and mulch what you can - a thick layer of mulch on the Agapanthus to keep them going over winter.

And time just to look and marvel at the autumn colour.

The veg plot is slowing down as the weather chills and the daylight hours shorten. A few beans have been left on the plants to provide seeds but soon the Sunday Gardener will start to prepare the plot for next year.

Tips and Advise for the vegetable plot in October are in the Sunday Gardener's  Calendar but now is the time to start clearing the plot, giving it a good weed and dig in organic matter to improve the soil for next year. It is hard to beat well rotted manure and either dig it in or leave on the surface the weather and worms will help over the winter.

Tomatoes in the greenhouse are slow to ripen now and soon the only way will be to bring them indoors. For an easy foolproof way of ripening tomatoes click here. This works because one year The Sunday Gardener moved house in September andthe tomato plants were in full fruit and it was impossible to transport them in pots. The green fruit was cut on the vine from the plants and laid out in a sunny conservatory on card board as an experiment. Result: over several weeks 85%+ ripened. Now as many as possible are ripened in the green house and the remainder brought indoors to ripen and it works every year.

It may have been a poor summer but there's lots flowering in the Sunday Garden.

Roses and Sweet Peas are still blooming, along with Asters, Crocosmia Lucifer a devilish red; Creamy Hydrangea paniculata and many fading shades of Achillea. A second flush has appeared on Choisya Aztec Pearl which is draped with flame coloured Tropaeolum speciosum. Braving the autumn gales are the tall stems of Thalictrum and Sun flowers. There is a blaze of rusty coloured Rudbeckia and just turning red the lovely Sedums. The delicate late flowering clematis Diana with it's delicate nodding blooms in deep red is in full flower and those agapanthus which survived the winter are waving their blue wands.

There is plenty to see and enjoy in the garden as the grasses turn golden and the autumn hints come through. Still, it feels, even with such blasts of colour, that the garden is starting to wind down as it slides into autumn.