Out with the old – learning to be ruthless

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Anne Wareham, Blackberry 'Waldo', Gardeners' World, Highgrove, hostas, Monty Don, Outwitting Squirrels

Blackberries

I’m not sure why I have persevered with certain plants but this is the year I devote my energies elsewhere. I’m currently reading the wittily written book Outwitting Squirrels by Anne Wareham (review to follow in the next few weeks). Two of Anne’s tips which I have taken to heart are ‘to be ruthless enough to throw out miserable plants’ and ‘to be brave enough to change course if something is turning into far too much trouble’. It seems simple advice but one many gardeners find hard to follow, including myself. For years I have admired the tightly rolled, spear-like leaves of hostas emerge in spring. For a short time their new leaves unfurl, pristine and beautiful, but this stage is fleeting. As spring merges into summer they become increasingly studded with holes, looking increasingly like lace doilies, devoured by the mouths of slugs and snails. My hostas have been grown in pots, hostas in the border would be like treating them as sacrificial lambs. I tried copper tape last year around the pots. It didn’t work. As it was sold specifically for that purpose perhaps I should have made a complaint under the Trade Descriptions Act. I noted with interest that Monty Don on last week’s Gardeners’ World suggested hostas which are attacked by slugs are stressed plants. There’s certainly something in a slug’s homing instinct for the runt of the litter and the weakest plant in the row, and perhaps my pot-grown hostas didn’t have enough food and water. I did look on with envy at his pristine, hole-free hostas just as I did when I visited Prince Charles’ garden at Highgrove and saw his immaculate hostas.

Hosta doilies

I have used organic slug pellets and they work to some degree, but I have seen slugs climbing onto hosta leaves from a nearby fence or from another plant, and it’s hard when my attention is on the more pressing needs of my young flower and vegetable plants to devote time to hand-picking slugs and snails off my hostas. So this year the hostas are going … well, they’ve already gone. No longer will I wince at doily-like leaves or feel the need to hide them when a garden photographer comes to the house. Oh the shame! The gooseberry has gone the same way. Not because it is beloved by pests but because it was the pest. I inherited it when I took on the plot along with at least four other gooseberry bushes. Doing the maths and coming to the conclusion there were only so many gooseberries the two of us could eat I decided to keep just one, and it was one too many. It’s the thorniest plant I’ve had the dubious pleasure of gardening around and this is someone who just removed a pyracantha from her parents’ garden. Every year I would curse as I tried to harvest the berries and weeding underneath it was impossible. There was such a heavy crop a few years ago coupled with a deluge of rain that the branches all sagged and the plant hugged the floor like an octopus spreading out its tentacles. Underneath it a carpet of wild strawberries had established itself which I could neither weed out nor eat because of the vicious thorns that were in the way. I could be tending another bed and bend down absent-mindedly forgetting what was behind me only to be spiked in the bum. I’d been mulling over getting rid of the damn thing for a year or so but after the latest encounter with a thorn in the finger its days were numbered. I made the most of a dry spell last week and out it came. It was odd though. As I made the first few cuts with the loppers I wondered if I’d done the right thing. Seems it’s hard for a gardener to kill a plant. Well, until it spiked me again…

Blackberry ‘Waldo’ waiting to be planted

Its neighbour the blackcurrant has gone too. There were two blackcurrant bushes but it’s too much for us. We don’t make jams and blackcurrants need so much sugar to make them palatable that they tend to languish in our freezer rather than being eaten. Instead a blackberry bush will fit nicely into the space now created by the absence of the gooseberry and blackcurrant. I prefer fruit I can eat without the need for extra sugar – anything that I can scatter on my porridge is ideal. The tayberry, blueberries and strawberries are perfect for this and I think a cultivated form of blackberry will make an excellent accompaniment. Why grow a blackberry when there tend to be plenty to pick from the hedgerows? Foraged blackberries are often quite small and their quality is very dependent on the weather we have. A dry summer tends to produce small fruits with very little juice and a wet summer often results in watery fruits with little flavour. The benefits of growing a cultivar are bigger, juicier fruits and a stronger blackberry flavour. Hedgerow brambles are incredibly vigorous plants, as anyone who has tried to get rid of a patch of them will know. Many of the cultivated versions though are much better-behaved, and some can be grown in a relatively small space, especially if they are trained up against a fence or wall. We’ve chosen the variety ‘Waldo’. Choosing a thornless variety was essential after the problem with the gooseberry and the online reviews all suggest this is a heavy yielding cultivar with great flavoured berries. It takes a certain leap of faith to buy a pot with one unpromising looking stick planted in it and it’ll be next year before we get any fruit as a blackberry fruits on two-year-old canes. We managed one tayberry fruit in the first year of planting. The excitement at this one fruit was enormous and it was halved for us to both try. Perhaps we’ll get a tantalising taste this year too, if not this impatient gardener will have to wait until next summer for the taste of home-grown blackberries. I’d love to know if there are any plants you’ve decided aren’t worth the trouble or you’ve persisted in growing even though you don’t really eat them.

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A plum …. but not as you know it

Tags

'Cambridge Favourite', Firle Place, Greengages, Hengrave Hall, Reine Claude

Greengage ‘Cambridge Favourite’

I’ve become a bit of a recluse recently. Book number 2 is taking up all my attention at the moment with a final push before my deadline and I’m digging deep to keep the motivation going. I only really realised how little time I have spent in the garden over the last few weeks after a whole day of gardening on Saturday. The garden had started to look a little rough around the edges but it was the stiffness which followed the gardening that took me by surprise. I felt like I normally do at the start of spring, at this time of year I would expect to be ‘garden fit’. I sat down on Saturday night for an hour or so and then got up to get a cup of tea and Wellyman had to give me a helping push to get me upright. Too much time sat in front of my computer, I think. And, you know you need to get out more when you get a tad too excited about a punnet of greengages at the supermarket.

The greengage is a fruit I’ve heard about but until relatively recently had never actually come across. It had almost started to take on mythical properties – a fruit that had once, many moons ago, filled late summer and early autumn kitchens where cooks wearing mop caps and proper aprons, surrounded by copper pans, would turn them into jams and compotes. Of course, I couldn’t turn down the chance to taste them, so a punnet was purchased. On the way home I wondered why they were such a rarity – they are deemed as a ‘speciality’ fruit by the supermarket. This thought only grew stronger once I had tried them, they were delicious.

Greengages are cultivars of the plum family. If you think greengages are a fruit of the past it turns out there are also yellowgages, such as the amber-coloured ‘Coe’s Golden Drop’, and the strangely titled ‘transparent gages’ like ‘Early Transparent Gage’, not much time was lost on thinking up that name! Greengages tend to be slightly smaller and a bit more round than a normal plum but the most obvious visual difference is the green-coloured fruit.  There is something a little odd about biting into a green fruit. Your brain is saying ‘don’t do it, it’ll not be ripe and it’ll taste bitter’ but in the case of greengages your brain couldn’t be more wrong. That first bite is very much of a delightful honeyed sweetness and it is this that distinguishes gages, in all their various hues, from a typical plum. I love plums with their slight tartness but greengages are something else, so why are the shelves of supermarkets groaning under plums, and greengages are sidelined to the ‘unusual fruits’ section?

Greengages have been cultivated from a wild green plum and are popular in Europe, particularly France, Germany and into Eastern Europe. It’s believed that they came to Britain from France in the 18th century, but the story is a little confused. Accounts vary as to whether they were imported by Sir William Gage to plant in his garden at Hengrave Hall in Suffolk or whether it was another branch of the family and Sir Thomas Gage (1781-1820) of Firle Place in Sussex which introduced the greengage. Whichever Gage, the story is that the labels were lost in transit and that when the plums turned out to be green they became known as green Gage’s plums. An avenue of greengages form the structure to the current kitchen garden at Firle.

In France greengages are known as ‘Reine Claudes’ after a 16th century queen. Perhaps she gorged herself on them, which would be perfectly understandable, or maybe the royal gardener discovered these honey-flavoured fruits and named them after her.

‘Cambridge Favourite’, an old heritage variety is the greengage I bought but as it turns out there are quite a few to choose from if you’re thinking of growing your own. Some are more suitable to growing in the UK than others. And this is where we get to the crux of the matter – why they aren’t more widely available as a cultivated fruit? Well it seems like they might be a bit difficult to grow in a typical British climate. Gages need a lot of moisture which isn’t normally a problem for most British growers but they also dislike sitting in waterlogged soil. They also flower early in spring and, whilst the plants are hardy, the blossom is prone to being damaged by early frosts. Siting gages in a sheltered spot with plenty of sunshine to help that sweet, honey flavour to develop is essential. If you live in a frost-prone area there are varieties which flower later such as ‘Late Transparent’ – wow fruit- naming people you really pushed the boat out with those transparent gages. Some gages are self-fertile, others will require another fruit in order to produce a crop. For this reason it’s worth consulting a specialist fruit nursery if you fancy trying to grow your own.

As for how to eat them. Well their natural sweetness makes them perfect for just as they are but they are an incredibly versatile fruit. Try them in crumbles, pies, jams and chutneys.

I often daydream about having my own orchard. The planting plans always included plums but never greengages. I’m not sure I’ll ever have the orchard but hopefully one day I’ll have the space to squeeze in a gage or two.

 

Frustration and Inspiration

Tags

Beetroot 'Chioggia', Cinead McTernan, colourful carrots, Jason Ingram, Kitchen Garden Experts, Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, Raymond Blanc, sea kale

Lettuce ‘Freckles’

My computer bit the dust the other day. It didn’t come as a great surprise, it hasn’t sounded healthy for a while now. The noise it was generating had become so loud I couldn’t concentrate, it was like I had an old diesel car under the desk. I had hoped it might limp on for a few more months and Wellyman had replaced a few parts. Then it took to shutting down without being asked to, but the final straw was the chequerboard screen of pinks and yellows which looked like a punk Harris Tweed – I knew then that the game was up.

I’m not a complete technophobe but getting a new computer is such a faff, why you would do it voluntarily I don’t know. We’d had this one for ten years and it’s incredible how much stuff ended up on it. All I can say is that thanks to Wellyman I’m up and running again but if it had been left to me, well I wouldn’t have known where to start. I’m embarrassed and frustrated by this. I’m generally a practical, can-do type of woman but when it comes to IT I can get by but if anything out of the ordinary happens, well I’m stuck. It’s rather worrying that so much of life is becoming ever dependent on technology that requires the brain and dexterity of a teenager to get through all the setting up stages and glitches that inevitably appear. And don’t get me started on the thought process behind the creation of Windows 8.1. It took 20 minutes and a phone call to Wellyman to find out what they’d done with spell check. Still at least the new computer is quiet – I barely know it’s on as it purrs gently like the most contented of cats. The Welly household must be a bit of a technology black spot at the moment as my ‘not so smart’ smartphone keeps having a hissy fits too. This particular problem has left even Wellyman, who spends his working days fixing IT problems, perplexed.

Green and red mizuna seedlings

At times like this I crave a simpler life. The closest I’m going to get to getting away from it all, for the moment anyway, is escaping to the allotment. There can’t be many better antidotes to the frustrations of modern life than a few hours weeding, tying in sweet peas and picking flowers. There’s a simplicity to growing which is good for the spirit which might explain why I have got a bit carried away this year with my growing. When I took on the allotment the plan was to keep all the veg growing there. It’s funny though how there is no longer enough space there for my ambitions and veg crops are now creeping into the garden again. Part of this is can be attributed to the idea that we may not have a plot or garden at all next year if we move so I’m going all out this year for a bountiful summer.

Kitchen Garden Experts

Inspiration has also come in the form of a book I bought a few weeks ago called Kitchen Garden Experts. It’s the creation of Jason Ingram, who took the photographs for my own book, and his wife, garden writer and editor, Cinead McTernan. They travelled the length and breadth of the country last year photographing the kitchen gardens of some of our top restaurants and picking the brains of the chefs and the gardeners who provide them with top-notch produce. I’ve found it a fabulous read. A few years ago I was lucky enough to meet one of the growers included in the book, Jo Campbell, who at the time was growing fruit and vegetables for Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. Talking to her about how they work with the chefs to decide what to grow, how they can make the most of the produce when it’s brought to the kitchen and how they’re always looking for new crops, whether that’s seeking out inspiration from other countries or rediscovering forgotten native foodstuffs, was fascinating. It’s this relationship between the chef and grower which is the basis for this book.

Vallum Farm – Kitchen Garden Experts

Kitchen Garden Experts cleverly combines two topics close to many of our hearts – food and growing. It’s a combination of restaurant guide and gardening and recipe book. You could easily use this book as the basis for a foodie pilgrimage to top eateries but it’s not short on horticultural information. Cinead has packed it full of tips and techniques gleaned from experienced growers. I liked, grower for The River Cafe, Simon Hewitt’s policy of growing tomatoes originating from northern Italy as they are more adapted to our own cooler growing conditions. Dan Cox of L’Enclume in Cumbria recommends placing your veg crops into a bucket of cold water as you harvest, it helps to preserve their freshness, especially on a hot day, and makes cleaning easier once you get them to the kitchen. I will certainly be consulting the book when I make future seed orders, seeking out the recommended varieties, and growing home-grown sea kale sounds an intriguing prospect. But for now it has inspired a few last-minute pots of colourful carrots – purples and yellows, some yellow heritage tomatoes, which I might just squeeze into the greenhouse, and a sowing of stripey beetroot ‘Chioggia’.

The Star Inn at Harome – Kitchen Garden Experts

The recipes range from the simple but delicious sounding rocket pesto, squash soup and plum and almond flan to the dinner party type wet garlic barigoule and leeks vinaigrette. There are some recipes I probably wouldn’t attempt, but even these recipes provide inspiration in the form of flavour combinations and crops I’d like to try to grow in the future.

What I really loved about Kitchen Garden Experts is how it encapsulates how far British food has come in the last 10 to 15 years. Once derided by our European neighbours for our poor quality produce and indifferent restaurants we now have world-class eateries, chefs and artisan food. We’re learning to care about seasonality and appreciate the effort which goes into quality food production. Jason’s photographs are incredibly beautiful, not just capturing the stunning food but also a sense of place for each of the kitchen gardens. If his photographs don’t have you drooling your way to the kitchen, reaching for the seed catalogue or picking up the phone to book a table at one of the restaurants I don’t know what will.

 

A Forgotten Fruit

Tags

'Blenheim Orange', 'Pitmaston Pineapple', Brogdale, Otter Farm, quince, quince crumble recipe

Quince (Cydonia oblonga) are an odd fruit, shaped like a knobbly pear, skin the colour of school custard with a downy covering similar to that of a baby bird. And yet, despite being easy to grow in the British climate they’re a bit of a rarity. You won’t find them in supermarkets where a myriad of exotics flown in from abroad are easy to come by. If you’re lucky to have a greengrocer nearby who really knows their stuff you might catch a glimpse of the fruit and it’s unmistakable, almost radioactive, yellow glow.

I first came across this forgotten fruit a few years ago. I’m lucky to live not far from an amazing farmers’ market where twice a month a wealth of locally produced food goes on sale in the village hall. One of the suppliers is an organic fruit grower. He has introduced us to jostaberries, yellow raspberries and an impressive selection of apple varieties including ‘Pitmaston Pineapple’ which does have a pineappley flavour, and ‘Claygate Pearmain’. Then one October Saturday I spotted a tray of quince and I had to snap some up. I wasn’t sure what to do with them but I figured there would be some recipes lurking in my collection of recipe books.

Quince used to be popular here in Britain. It’s ability to work as an accompaniment to meats and cheeses as well as a dessert meant they featured significantly in medieval cooking when the distinction between sweet and savoury food was much more blurred. One drawback though is they can’t be eaten raw when grown in our climate. The flesh is hard, like an unripe pear. Perhaps this explains why quince fell out of favour as our eating habits changed. Cooking softens the flesh and provides the opportunity to add something sweet to reduce the sharpness of the fruit. Quince might not provide the perfect quick snack on the run, like an apple or banana, but the need to spend a little time preparing it isn’t a negative for me. They form part of the bounty of autumn, a time when colder weather and darker nights lend themselves to slow cooked food. A bowl of strawberries wouldn’t satisfy me as it did back in summer, now I crave a crumble, and so far this is my favourite way to eat quince. It’s also rather lovely roasted in wedges with pork chops or you could add it to tagines instead of apricots, like they do in Morocco. Use it in jams and pickles. It’s even a popular flavouring for a fruity brandy in the Balkans.

You can get an idea of the flavour of the fruit from the aroma they emit. Forget those artificial plug-in air fresheners, put a few quince in a bowl and they will fill your room with a beautiful citrus scent until you use them. They last well too, so leaving them in a bowl for several weeks is not a problem. As for the taste, well there’s definitely apple, a hint of orange, the astringency of lemon and a touch of the floral, but not in a parma violets, soapy way. it’s that floral note that elevates quince to a higher fruity level.

Quince are native to western Asia, the area around Afghanistan, Iran and Georgia but they spread into the eastern Mediterranean too and they have been cultivated there for many centuries. The Spanish make dulce membrillo, a fruity paste known as a cheese which goes perfectly as an accompaniment to cheese of the dairy kind. They adapt surprisingly well to growing in our climate, so if you would like to guarantee a supply of the fruit the best way is to grow your own. They are hardy but a warm, sheltered, sunny position is best to protect the blossom from frost and to help the fruit ripen. They are self-fertile so one tree is sufficient and will provide even the most ardent quince-lover enough fruit to get them through the winter. The RHS recommends the varieties ‘Meech’s Prolific’, ‘Vranja Nenadovic’ (AGM) and ‘Portugal’. You might also come across ‘Serbian Gold’ which used to be known as ‘Leskovac’ and is said to be the hardiest and the variety most able to cope with a wetter climate. One of the latest additions is ‘Krymsk’, an introduction from Russia which is said to ripen sufficiently on the tree to be eaten fresh. If you’re tempted then try one of the specialist fruit growers for advice on the best rootstock and which variety would suit your conditions. Otter Farm, Carrob Growers and Brogdale all sell a selection of quince. If space is tight there’s even a patio quince, ‘Sibley’s’, that can be grown in a pot.

You should be able to find quince for sale right through into November so if you can track some down here’s my Spelt, Apple and Quince Crumble recipe.

Ingredients – Enough for 2 but Wellyman does have a big appetite.

• 80g spelt flour for a nutty flavour
• 30g butter
• 20g golden caster sugar
• 1 medium size apple – I like ‘Blenheim Orange’
• 1 quince
• a sprinkle of sugar for the fruit

Making

• Preheat your oven at 180C or gas mark 4.
• Wash the downy bloom from your quince and place whole in a pan with boiling water.
• Cook on a high heat for 10 minutes or until a fork goes into the flesh easily. Then remove from pan and allow to cool.
• Rub the spelt flour and butter together until you have a breadcrumb type texture.
• Stir the sugar into the crumble mixture.
• Cut the quince into chunks, removing the core. You can rub off the skin if you want but it isn’t necessary.
• Prepare your apple, cutting into small chunks and removing the core.
• Add the quince with chopped apple to a baking dish and sprinkle with sugar. Dessert apples are naturally much sweeter than the traditional cooker, ‘Bramley’s’, so you won’t need to use as much sugar. As the quince has a natural sharpness a sweeter apple variety works well in the recipe.
• Then cover with the crumble topping. Place in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Reacquaintance

Tags

tayberry, trachelospermum asiaticum

Ruby coloured tayberries

I thought I might have a bit more time on my hands once I had sent the book off to the publishers but that’s not quite how things have turned out. For a start there’s all the housework that has been a little neglected recently, the mess that is my shed and the area behind it that functions as a general dumping ground for old compost bags, pots with bolted salad leaves and that sort of thing. It has all needed some attention, as has my garden which has had to get on and do its own thing so far this year. So I’ve spent this week reacquainting myself with my borders, plants and paths.

The beautiful summery weather has been bliss. It’s been such a long time since we’ve been drenched in so much warm sunshine after last year’s dismal summer that this has felt like a reacquaintance too. We’re eating outside, the deck chairs have taken up residence and it’s a pleasure to potter about in flip-flops and feel the warmth radiating from every surface.  The heat has meant a change in my gardening routine though. This is by no means a complaint. I would love this weather to continue until October and can’t bear to hear, after such a long, cold winter the person in the queue at the supermarket say after only a few days of sunshine, ‘Oh it’s just too hot’. I sigh inwardly as I remember only a few weeks ago the same person complain that we never get a proper summer. For me, gardening takes place early or late in the day now and I retreat indoors when the heat makes working too uncomfortable. Watering sessions at the allotment take the best part of two hours but I’d rather give everything a good soak every three or four days than have to go there every night.

Sanguisorba

Last year’s cool, dull and wet weather meant my tayberry crop slowly ripened over the course of six weeks providing a regular, and a manageable supply of fruit. This year is completely different. The heat and sun mean the fruits are ripening rapidly and I can’t keep up. And the blackcurrants are dripping in black fruit that need picking too. I think I need to get organised, and quickly, for a mammoth freezing session. Wellyman has been instructed to make some white sourdough bread for a summer fruit pudding and I have plans for some homemade cassis. Maybe we’ve become so used to awful summers but it’s taken me by surprise and I feel completely unprepared.

It also appears that I’m going to be reacquainted with a flower I’ve been eagerly anticipating for some time. About four or five years ago I bought a Trachelospermum asiaticum from a nursery in Cornwall. It was about a foot tall and in flower and it smelt divine. The plan was for it to scramble up the side of my shed and drape itself in a romantic kind of way around my not so romantic looking shed door. I hoped that its deliciously scented, delicate blooms would conjure up images of an idyllic cottage garden retreat rather than my concrete panel constructed shed which I can’t justify the expense of replacing with something much more aesthetically pleasing. Well perhaps I should have done my homework because as I have discovered trachelospermums aren’t the fastest growing of plants. It has taken all that time for it to reach about 5 foot but worse it hasn’t flowered. Nothing, zilch. But then, last night whilst watering, I spotted what looked like flower buds. I’m not getting carried away, I can only see two sets of buds so far, so we’re hardly talking a screen of heavenly jasmine-perfumed flowers but it gives me hope that one day my plan might come to fruition. Although we’ll have probably moved by then.

Christmas Cranberries

Tags

Blackmoor Nurseries, Christmas dinner, cranberries, Delia Smith, Pomona Fruits

My cranberry plant

Cranberries are a bit of a strange fruit. Related to bilberries and blueberries they tend to get wheeled out only for the festive period in the form of a sauce or jelly to accompany turkey and all the trimmings. Either that, or we drink the juice, which reputedly has great qualities for curing bladder problems. The flavour of cranberries is certainly unique. They are very tart and can’t really be eaten without some dose of sweetener. I’m not sure if it’s the tartness but they have a strange after taste too which I find really hard to describe but which has a sort of drying effect on the mouth. I know, I wouldn’t get a job for the cranberry marketing board, would I?

They are mainly associated with America and Canada where they grow in moist, acid, boggy soils. It’s commonly thought that they grow in water but it is only at harvest time that the beds where the cranberries grow are flooded to aid the harvest. A special machine removes the cranberries from the plants and then the fruits float to the surface creating the spectacular sight of red covered lakes. I was surprised to find out that they do grow in the wild here in the UK. In fact, there used to be a place in Lincolnshire known as Cranberry Fen because of the quantity of the fruit that used to grow there in the peaty ground. Draining of the fens changed the growing conditions and the native cranberry declined but they can still be found in parts of the Peak District, Cumbria and the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire.

I have never been much of a fan of them to be honest but then we inherited a cranberry plant 2 winters ago when we took on our allotment. At first, we weren’t sure what the straggly looking plant in its own dedicated raised bed was. I had an idea it might be something that needed ericaceous growing conditions and so had a look through a few books before coming to the conclusion it must be a cranberry. The raised bed itself was in the way of my plans for a path on my newly designed allotment and so the cranberry was going to have to be moved. Wellyman and his reluctance to get rid of anything wanted to give the cranberry a go so we found a home for it in a large pot filled with ericaceous compost in a shady part of the garden at home.

From a central clump the cranberry sends out long stems, known as vines in the commercial cranberry growing circles, and if you had the right soil conditions could make good ground cover. It’s evergreen with the leaves taking on reddish tints from late summer and then, in spring, tiny pink flowers appear. As the summer progresses the tiny light green fruits swell and then start to flush red from August with them being ready to pick from November onwards. I hadn’t really given much thought to actually using them last Christmas but then I spotted a recipe card by Delia Smith in my local supermarket and thought why not give making my own cranberry sauce a go.

I can’t eat much sugar which means the whole festive period is a bit of a torturous experience but this recipe used mainly orange juice as a sweetener. Initially, I wasn’t so keen on the resulting concoction but after 24 hours in the fridge the flavours had developed and it did taste good.

Cranberries picked for this year’s Christmas dinner

This years crop is much smaller in comparison to last year. I think the flowers suffered from the cold spell, all the rain and the resulting lack of pollinators. There should still be enough to make some sauce for Christmas Day though.

Would I recommend growing your own cranberries? I guess it depends on how much you like them. I have come across several recipes that use them which don’t involve simply having them as part of a Christmas dinner, so they can be more versatile that you might first think. They are easy enough to grow but for me they are too much of a novelty to make them worth buying a plant or two. Still, if you have your own plant at least it means you don’t have to rely on your local supermarket providing them. I hear there have been runs on cranberries in some stores over the last few days.

If you would like your own cranberry plant there are several mail order nurseries that can supply you with one. Try Blackmoor Nurseries and Pomona Fruits.

Weaving, Winding and Snipping

Tags

Charles Dowding, Espaliered apple, Japanese wineberry, RHS, tayberry

Whether it’s an allotment or garden, most of us don’t have a lot of growing space and have ambitions greater than room will allow. There are ways of maximising space though. Fruit bushes and even trees can be trained in all sorts of ways making it possible to fit quite a selection into a small area. With careful planning and some nifty work with the secateurs it’s surprising just how much you can grow.

Training my tayberry

My tayberry is a perfect example. A cross between a raspberry and a blackberry its growth habits are certainly more blackberry than raspberry. The canes it sends out are long, really long, up to 9ft. It’s also a biennial cropper which means that it sends out canes one year which then flower and fruit the next. The idea when I first planted it was to train it into a panel of wire fencing with one year’s canes which would be bearing the fruit trained in one direction and then the fresh canes it sent up during that growing season trained the other. That was the plan anyway. I just didn’t give the plant enough space or metal fencing for this method to actually work. Instead, I ended up weaving and winding the canes around the metal support in a snake-like fashion. The problem came when the new canes started to grow from the base during the summer. It’s important to keep the two different years’ growth separate so that when you come to prune out the canes that have fruited you don’t mistake any of next year’s growth. If you do you’ll have no fruit the following year. In the end, I ended up allowing these stems to simply grow out along the ground. By August, the tayberry had stopped fruiting and I pruned those canes out at the base and removed all the growth that was on the metal support. The task then was to wrestle with the new growth. Fortunately, the canes remain really pliable and apart from the vicious thorns (you can buy a thorn-free variety) it isn’t too difficult a job to wind these stems in and out of the fence support, snaking them around just as the others had been. It is a bit of a faff but doing it this way means my tayberry only takes up a space of about 4ft. Ideally, each year’s worth of growth would have a space of about 6ft so that’s a space of 12ft in total but I’m not sure many of us could devote that to one plant.

A fellow allotmenteer has employed the same strategy successfully with a hybrid blackberry and Naomi at Out of my Shed recently wrote about training her Japanese wineberry which has very similar sprawling growth. Her ideas are much more aesthetic than mine! This summer I visited the kitchen garden of a local restaurant and I loved the idea they had had of growing a thorn free variety of blackberry up one side of an arch and on the other an apple was being trained to form an apple and blackberry crumble archway.

A blackberry being trained up an archway

I dream of having my own orchard but at the moment it certainly isn’t a possibility but I did manage to squeeze in an espalier apple tree into the garden last spring. I was impatient and so bought one that came already trained into 2 tiers but when I pruned it in July I spotted two branches that looked like the beginnings of a third level. With the posts and wire in place for the tree already Wellyman added another line of wire and I tied some twine around the 2 stems to the wire to start training the branches down into a horizontal position. We only got 6 fruit from the tree this year but I’m hopeful as the tree gets older that we should get a good supply.

I have toyed with the idea of adding some stepover apples to one of my beds at the allotment. These are the type that grow to about 1ft in height before the branches are trained out horizontally. I really like the idea that I could get several varieties running down the edge of one of my beds with space to grow salad crops which would not make great demands on the soil. Charles Dowding successfully grows crops like this at the base of his larger apple trees. Pruning of fruit trees grown in this way might seem quite daunting but armed with my RHS encyclopaedia it wasn’t actually that difficult. It is mainly about keeping the shape of the trained tree and encouraging fruiting wood by keeping the stems short and stubby. One of the great advantages of all this pruning and contorting is that it actually encourages the plants to produce more fruit, a bonus in a small space.

Pears, cherries and nectarines can be trained to fit smaller spaces and gooseberries can be made into beautiful standards giving your kitchen garden or allotment a sophisticated air. Currants can also be trained and look beautiful up against a wall dripping in glistening fruit. By concentrating growth to fewer stems and opening up the plant more light can get to the wood to ripen it, important for fruit production. It also means fruit will ripen more quickly and air flow around the plant is improved, leading to fewer problems with fungal diseases.

I’d love to see any of your own examples of growing fruit in small spaces.

An Apple Resurgance

Tags

apple orchards, Cornish Gillyflower, Cotehele, National Trust, River Tamar

Cotehele has been on my must visit list for some time now. A Tudor manor house with 19 acres of gardens and woodland perched above the River Tamar in Cornwall it was once owned by the wealthy Edgecumbe family but is now managed by the National Trust.

The gardens were fading into autumn and, as with most Cornish gardens, are probably at their best in spring and early summer when the azaleas and rhododendrons are in full flourish. But it was not so much the gardens that I had come to visit, strange as it may sound because this was more about a bit of fruity pilgrimage.

The River Tamar forms the boundary between the counties of Devon and Cornwall and, once, used to be a hub of food and flower production. The slopes of the valleys down to the river used to be the site of many market gardens and away from the Tamar orchards covered the land. The area benefited from good rainfall, shelter and ground that warmed up quickly in spring and was particularly famous for its fruit with the first strawberries and cherries being especially prized in London. As far back as 1796 Bere Ferrers was known for its pears, cherries and walnuts but it was really the Victorian period up until the 1940s that saw the peak of production.

Much of the produce was taken down stream by steam boats to Plymouth and Devonport but once the railways came to the area the fruit, vegetables and flowers would leave from stations such as Calstock destined for the markets of Borough, Spitalfields and Covent Garden in London.

Once tourists used to travel upstream on boats to gaze at the blossom that clothed the valleys and the daffodils grown for picking for florists in London. Now the valley is no longer so productive. It’s still possible in places to see where the market gardens once were but the land has mainly become overgrown. At Cotehele, however, they are still trying to preserve the heritage of the area. They have some 13 acres of old orchards and in 2007/08 they established the ‘Mother Orchard’, 8 acres of mainly Cornish and Devon varieties of apples, pears and cherries that have become under threat with the grubbing up of orchards. These trees will act as a gene pool, allowing the National Trust to propagate more trees, for sale and planting at other properties. I’m always astounded by the incredible number of apple varieties we used to have that have fallen foul of modern agriculture, supermarket supply chains and us, the buyers, seemingly happy to buy bland but shiny, uniform and blemish-free fruit. Cornish Gillyflower, Colloggett Pippin and  Manaccan Primrose. The names of these forgotten varieties alone make them worth buying.

Lichen covered apple trees

The old orchards with their sprawling, lichen covered branches were beautiful and must be an incredible haven for hundreds of species of insects. The trees looked like they had had a hard time, just as many fruit trees do after this year’s appalling weather. The ‘Mother Orchard’ is in its infancy still but it was such an inspiring place and I loved the apple sculpture giving a modern touch. Wellyman was rather more taken by the solar powered mower that was pootling about keeping the paths trimmed. A clever little creation that knew when its battery was running low and would take itself off to its little ‘kennel’ to get a recharge.

Apple sculpture – Cotehele

At the top of the orchard was a large barn that housed a cider press from the 19th century that had been relocated from Bovey Tracey in Devon, restored and ‘pressed’ into action. It can squeeze 1.5 tonnes of apple pulp in one go making 900 litres of apple juice. There were a few barrels dotted about and Wellyman spotted one that looked like it was in use. Easing the plug out of the barrel we had a sniff and I was nearly floored by the potency of the liquor inside. Wellyman, on the other hand, is made of sterner stuff.

Cotehele’s cider press

The visit was special for another reason. Some of my family, long before I was born used to live in a small Cornish fishing village not far away. When the fishing industry went into decline at the end of the 19th century and work was hard to find many moved to Plymouth to work in the large naval dockyard and that is what my ancestors did. This is an area they would have known well which added another element, knowing that they would have seen this area in its heyday.

Cotehele has another claim to fame and that is the everlasting garland that is created from over 30,000 flowers grown on the estate which is then hung in the hall. Visitors from November can see the garland being constructed by National trust staff and then see it hanging in place from December. I have yet to see this spectacular but hopefully I’ll time my next visit for winter.

For more information on Cotehele (pronounced Coatheel, by the way) take a look at the National Trust’s website.

Rich Pickings

Tags

borlotti beans, bubble and squeak, celeriac remoulade, Florence fennel, Sophie Dahl

Rich pickings from the plot

The blue skies and sunshine of the last week or so have been lovely but the resulting cold nights are much less welcome. Parts of the country experienced their first frost last night and, although it is the middle of September, it just feels too early to be having frost. I’m just not prepared for the colder weather yet, no logs for the wood burner, no pallets chopped for kindling. We were fortunate to escape the very low temperatures last night but the prospect of it spurred me on to go up to the plot this morning to harvest some of the produce. The French beans, courgettes and fennel will all suffer if the nights continue to get colder and it would be a shame to lose them, so I thought I’d better start harvesting.

It has been such a short growing season, with a lot of these plants only getting into their stride in mid-August coupled with the threat of frost putting the kibosh on ideas of an Indian summer. Still, looking at my basket of produce I’m pretty happy with what I’ve managed to produce.

I’m particularly chuffed with my celeriac and Florence fennel. Carrying them back from the plot this lunchtime felt like I’d been given a trophy. It was slightly tempting to raise them aloft as I walked past one of my fellow plot holders in a triumphant gesture to show I can grow veg and not just flowers.

I’ve never tried celeriac before and had read that it could be a bit difficult but it has been really easy to grow. I started off the seeds very early in mid-February and planted them out in May and other than pulling away any leaves that have fallen down around the sides I haven’t had to do anything. I think I have been helped somewhat by the wet summer. By all accounts, they don’t like to dry out but there wasn’t much danger of that this year. Today was the first harvest. A vegetable that wouldn’t win any beauty awards it has an unusual flavour, similar to celery but milder. It is something I had never even eaten until about 2 years ago when I saw Sophie Dahl use it in a recipe on TV, for a bubble and squeak type dish. The recipe looked so good I thought I’d give it a try and I wasn’t disappointed. Half of it will be used to make that recipe tomorrow night but, for tonight, I think a bit of celeriac remoulade is in the offing. It sounds really quite fancy, celeriac remoulade, but it’s only small batons of celeriac mixed with mayonnaise, lemon juice and I use a little dijon mustard. A very tasty accompaniment to all sorts of meals.

And, I’ve finally cracked growing Florence fennel. I’ve tried in the past but they’ve never got beyond seedling stage always devoured by slugs. This year, I managed to get 5 to a big enough stage to plant out at the plot and they have all swollen to very respectable sizes. OK, 5 fennel bulbs isn’t exactly self-sufficiently but I’m so pleased I’ve managed to grow them that I’m encouraged to attempt more sowings of them next year. My favourite way to eat the bulbs is to slice them into chunks and roast them in rapeseed oil. They are lovely mixed with other roast vegetables such as peppers and courgettes and go particularly well with fish and pork.

I’m picking so many raspberries at the moment. Pretty much a large bag-full every day, it’s a good job they freeze well.

The borlotti beans have been a real success. The opposite of the celeriac, these are real beauties. The pods start off green with the faintest mottling of red but as they develop the green turns to cream and they end up looking as if they’ve been splattered with a paint gun, as the red increasingly becomes more dominant. I have been picking them at this stage and then podding them and using them in casseroles and soups. The beans inside are stunning, creamy white or eau-de-nil, often with streaks of red on them, too; disappointingly this colour disappears once cooked. Their lovely creamy texture when cooked, a little like butter beans, more than makes up for this, though. Today’s harvest are destined for a minestrone soup at the end of the week. So not such a bad harvest after all.

Fruits of My Labour

Tags

Clifton, cooking with nasturtium flowers, Damson gin

Blackberry ‘Ruben’ will soon be ready to eat

Last week’s taste of summer, albeit late, was a delight. At the allotment the light on a morning and in late afternoon was beautiful. I’m not sure why the light in September is so lovely, maybe it’s the angle and the tone, there is none of the harshness of sunlight in high summer but crucially there is a warmth that isn’t there in spring. Shafts of light falling on the dahlias and rudbeckias and heavy dew glistening on the feathery foliage of the fennel meant the plot sparkled.

September is one of my favourite months, even though the prospect of winter just being around the corner doesn’t thrill me. There is something about the shortening days that makes me want to prepare the house for winter. To squirrel away fruit from the plot in the freezer, to dig out recipes for warming stews and to think about ordering our wood for the log burner. Food might have something to do with me loving this time of year so much. The month of harvest, even in a year where the weather has impacted so much on food production, September is the time to celebrate the best of our crops.

Damson gin

Unlike last autumn, where the hedgerows were laden with hips and haws, this year is looking a little bleak, certainly in my neck of the woods. We fancied making some damson gin for the first time but hadn’t been able to find any on our walks around the village. However, on Friday we spent the day in Bristol and were sat opposite a great greengrocers in Clifton, enjoying a spot of café culture when we spotted a large tray of dark, juicy damsons. Buying isn’t quite the same as foraging but needs must. So on Sunday we filled a jar with damsons that I had pricked all over, a fair amount of sugar went in and then I filled it up with gin. Sealed and stored in the larder I need to give it an occasional gentle shake and then after several months I can decant the liquor into bottles. For someone who doesn’t really drink it might seem like a strange thing to have done but there seemed something quite special about trying it at least. The colour of the liquid inside the jar, if nothing else, will remind me on a cold January evening of the warmth of a September day.

My autumn fruiting raspberries are producing a great crop. I have a mix of ‘Polka’ and ‘Autumn Bliss’ with the former having far superior berries and I’m picking enough to fill freezer bags full, for treats later in the year. Crumbles are a favourite dessert of mine and a versatile way of using autumnal fruit but even I can get sick of crumble. So I’ve started making the healthier option of compotes and purées. My favourite at the moment consists of cooked apple and plums with blackberries. I use eating apples and therefore don’t need to add any sugar to sweeten it. Apparently, in France there is no distinction between eating and cooking apples and it is perfectly acceptable to use what we would consider dessert apples such as Cox’s, in tarts and pies. I blitz my fruity concoction so it is very smooth and it’s yummy with porridge, yoghurt and ice cream. To make a compote, just keep the fruit quite chunky and add a little apple juice and cook over a medium heat until the fruit has softened. The pectin in the fruit should make for a slightly syrupy sauce and the colour will be amazing.

Nasturtium breadcrumb topping

I’ve even found a great use for my nasturtium flowers. They have added a real splash of colour to salads but I tried them in a breadcrumb topping a few weeks ago and it was a real success. Simply chop a good handful of flowers and add to some breadcrumbs, some grated parmesan and chopped sun-dried tomatoes, stir and then add a little rapeseed/olive oil, put in an ovenproof dish and cook until golden, in a medium oven. This topping is perfect with some grilled white fish and the nasturtium flowers add a real peppery flavour.

With the inaugural first harvest of celeriac, fennel and the prized No. 1 squash it looks like a tasty autumn ahead.