And breathe

Tags

blueberries, fruit netting, mangetout, successional sowing

Mangetout peas

I can’t believe it has been so long so I last posted. I’ve missed blogging but it has all been rather hectic here. My book deadline was today so the last few weeks have been spent writing, checking, writing some more, stressing about the weather and having photos taken. I have discovered a subconscious ability to predict rubbish weather. If anyone has a big event planned in the future but the date has yet to be confirmed you could ask me to pick the date and then go with the following day. So far every photo shoot has been cold, dull and decidedly not spring or summer-like. But as soon as Jason, the photographer, has left the clouds part and the sun comes out. It could have been worse, so far we’ve yet to be rained off but I’m touching wood as I write this, as I still have one photo shoot left. So fingers crossed July is wall to wall sunshine.

Yesterday I sent off the final draft of my book to my publisher. It was a strange feeling. With sweaty palms I spent quite a while rechecking and going to press the send button but not doing. A bit like when you’re a teenager wanting to phone up the boy/girl of your dreams but you can’t summon up the courage. It’s not as if I won’t see my words again. I now face the quite scary prospect of the editing process. But between now and October it should all start to come together and I’m really excited. Hopefully soon I should be able to say a bit more about it but for now I still have to keep it secret.

As well as the book it has been busy, busy, busy with plants. I’ve just about managed to keep up with the allotment. Of course there’s nothing like the prospect of having photos taken to spur on a weeding frenzy. My lettuce supply so far this spring and summer has been bountiful. I have more baby leaves coming through so I’m hoping for the holy grail of successional sowing this year . . . well with salads at least. I’ve been picking mangetout for the last few weeks and my broad beans are looking really healthy and are tantalizingly close to picking.

The first courgette

I’ve even got round to netting my blueberries and tayberry. Last year the blackbirds stripped 2 blueberry bushes dripping in unripe fruit. We didn’t get any, not a sausage. Much as I love birds and they do a good service in ridding my plot of slugs and snails I wasn’t planning on providing them with such fruity delights. I had looked into proper fruit cages but was taken aback at how expensive they are. So with Wellyman’s help we used some coppiced hazel poles and bamboo canes and made our own constructions for a fraction of the price. It was a bit of a faff and like any DIY job it always takes so much longer than you planned for. Hence us still being at the plot at 10pm one night wrestling with fruit netting.

Blueberries protected from rampaging birds

Not everything has worked quite so well. The topsy-turvy weather has meant some plants have sulked. The courgettes are finally looking happier but my squashes are still sitting there doing very little. The ornamental hops that I planted to grow along a trellis panel have not taken kindly to the gale force winds that battered the plot in mid-June when the weather resembled November and not the start of summer. Still, there are always winners and losers. We all dream of that perfect year when everything grows well, but I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s just a pipe dream, the dangling carrot that brings us back for more each spring.

I always think that this is a strange time of year. It feels as if the summer has only just got going, in it’s typically British unpredictable way but in so many ways the garden is what it is now for the rest of the season. The cold spring this year really compressed that short window of opportunity we have to sow, plant and divide. I catch myself thinking ‘oh I wish I’d grown that this year’ or ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ Then curse myself that I’ll have to wait until NEXT spring now to carry out those ideas. Still that’s what it is all about. I really must find a notebook though and write down those ideas.

Shopping Trolley Guilt

Tags

Charles Dowding, River Cottage, salad growing

It was all going so well. My plan this year was to get from mid April to October without having to buy any lettuce. After an inspirational day with Charles Dowding, the salad growing guru, I even harboured ideas of winter lettuce. Gone would be the bag of soggy salad leaves with all the verve and vigour of a teenager in the morning. We would be self-sufficient in lettuce and leaves; that shouldn’t be too hard. In the past it’s been my organisation, or lack of it, that has let me down. Starting off well, I then forget to keep up with the sowing regime for the holy grail of successional crops and, inevitably there ends up being a gap.

This year would be different and it really would have been, if it hadn’t been for the slugs and snails. It started well with harvests of ‘Freckles’, ‘Rubens’, ‘Dazzler and ‘Little Gem’ all from the plot. I was priding myself on how organised I was being by sowing some trays of salad leaves before we went on holiday, in June, so that these would follow on from those at the allotment. I prefer to grow salad leaves in containers at home. I did try them in the ground last year but they were quickly infiltrated by weeds and at one point it was hard to distinguish what was weed and what was edible leaf.

Well they say pride comes before a fall and, whilst my organisation skills may have improved, my ability to protect my salad leaves from slug attack hasn’t. Three troughs and a large pot have all been annihilated. One container was 6ft off the ground, for heaven’s sake. All I can say is slugs must have an incredible sense of smell. They even bypassed hostas to climb the equivalent of a mountain to them, to dine out on my specialist Italian salad leaf mix. The tiny seedlings which had appeared just before we went on holiday had gone by our return.

I’ve resown twice and moved the containers but each time, just as I see little green shoots emerging, they disappear just as quickly. Strangely lettuce on the plot hasn’t been touched, thanks I can only think to the resident song thrushes and blackbirds but in recent weeks with warmer weather my plot salads have bolted and now reside on the compost heap.

Plot lettuces

And so, with a sense of guilt and disappointment a bag of salad leaves and some cos lettuce made its way into the shopping trolley at the weekend. I never expected to be self-sufficient when I took on the plot but I think because lettuce is so easy to grow that I should at least be able to achieve it with them. We had some non-gardening friends stay with us back in June and when we were preparing food they kept asking what was from the plot and it felt a little embarrassing that so little of it was from there. Similarly, looking in the trolley at the weekend I did think we should be buying less vegetables in August. Surely the plot should be providing more. I’ve accepted that without a greenhouse and living in the damp west of Britain with perfect blight conditions that tomatoes are a lost cause. Carrots are impossible on the carrot-fly ridden allotment and although I’ve had tasty baby carrots grown in containers at home these were never going to mean I could stop buying carrots over the summer. The courgettes have been slow to get going and I’m by no means inundated. I’m actually missing my courgette glut. Peppers, and aubergines both need the extra warmth of a greenhouse. I had about a month supply of new potatoes but don’t want to devote more space to spuds.

My plot growing is still in its infancy, as this is only my second season, so some of it is learning what is most productive and easy to grow but it’s also accepting that the veg growing portrayed by the glossy gardening magazines isn’t always the reality that the majority of us experience. Just as with other aspects of the media constantly showing us images of what constitutes perfection, the immaculate house, the flawless body, the most desirable products there is a danger of ‘growing your own’ becoming another element of our lives where we feel we have to live up to ideas of perfection. There is an immense feeling of satisfaction when I can cook a meal from the plot but to do this is difficult to achieve over a sustained period. Perhaps the disparity between the portrayal of fruit and veg growing in the media and the actuality of it is one of the reasons why many new allotment holders hand back their plots after a few years. The idea of the River Cottage type utopia is very enticing but the reality is somewhat different.

I have salad seedlings on the go and I’m keeping a close eye out for further slug attacks but whilst I wait for them to achieve an edible size I guess I shouldn’t feel guilty that my plans didn’t quite come to fruition.

Flowery Friday

Tags

edible flowers, garlic chives, nasturtiums

Sweet peas at last

At last we’re having something that passes as summer. Temperatures into the eighties, unbroken blue skies and baking sunshine, for nearly a week now, have made an incredible difference on the plot. Plants that have been sulking have suddenly perked up and it looks like I might actually start to get a courgette crop. It’s not just the fruit and veg that are loving the weather, my flowers are blooming. It’s a little late for some plants such as my rudbeckia, which have never recovered from the incessant rain but, at last, I’m actually able to pick enough sweet peas to have some on my desk and some by the bed. It wouldn’t be summer without some sweet peas.

The cut flower beds seem to be going through a bit of a purple patch at the moment with the tall spires of larkspur, some sweet peas and my annual asters just starting to open. The larkspur are my first attempt and I’m so pleased with them. I’ve never managed to grow delphiniums, simply because they were just slug fodder but the larkspur were quite substantial plants when they went out and, despite plague-like proportions of the mollusc enemy this year, have remarkably remained untouched. They last ages once picked as well.

The asters are another newbie. They haven’t looked quite so good and got off to a very slow start and even now look quite weedy but they’ve started to flower and are looking much healthier in the sunshine, so fingers crossed they’ll keep going for a good while.

The real stars of the show at the moment are my scabious plants. A mix of white, pink, an almost black colour and my favourite of them all, this gorgeous plum colour.

Scabious

It’s not just flowers for the vase though. I love having some edible flowers in our salads and the first nasturtiums have opened in the last couple of days. With a beautiful, rich, velvety texture and a reddy-orange colour, they look and taste great scattered in with some salad leaves. Add in a few calendula petals, pink chive flowers and white garlic chive flowers and you’ve got some unusual, tasty and very pretty additions to the plate.

Edible flowers

So, despite the fact that I appear to be allergic to summer, with hay fever, a touch of sunburn, insect bites, rashes from contact with borage and now prickly heat, all my flowers are making me smile.

Salad Days

Tags

cos lettuce, grow your own salad, lettuce, salad, salad leaves

Tasty Salad Leaves

After a long winter of eating root vegetables and brassicas I find by spring my body and palate are craving lighter, fresher foods. The longer days and warmer weather (well maybe at some point!) bring about a desire to eat salads. Not some bag of soggy salad leaves lurking in the bottom of the fridge or the tasteless but crunchy iceberg, no I want something colourful, interesting and fresh but most importantly tasty.

I’ve grown salad leaves for quite a while now, even before we had our own garden. You can quite successfully grow enough salad leaves for two from some long plastic window box style troughs. Even now, with the allotment, I still use this method to keep some lettuce close to the house for quick pickings.

Picking ‘Ruben’ leaves from around the edge

I was, initially, reluctant to grow salad at the allotment, worried that slugs would prove to be too much of a problem. However, a desire to grow some of the bigger ‘romaine’ and ‘hearting’ type lettuces led me to give it a go. Well, I’m so pleased with the results. I haven’t bought any lettuce for a good 6 weeks now and despite the tremendous amount of rain we’ve had, giving us perfect sluggy conditions my lettuce have been a great success. A great deal of this is thanks to the local bird population that seem to be scouring my allotment beds in the search for anything slimy.

So far, I’ve grown ‘Dazzle’ from the Thompson and Morgan ‘Kew Garden’ range. It is a particularly attractive lettuce, a mini romaine type with leaves that are a beautiful apple-green colour merging into burgundy. It produces a heart of pale green leaves if left to heart-up but I like to pick this, as well as my other hearting lettuces, by the leaf rather than the whole plant. Picking from the outside and leaving several smaller central leaves the plant will continue to grow, giving you a much longer picking period. Because this variety is only a ‘mini’ type it is perfect for containers or grow bags. I am also growing ‘Rubens’, a coppery-red cos lettuce that looks so good. ‘Freckles’ is another looker, an heirloom variety that has glossy green leaves splattered with speckles of burgundy which is apparently slow to bolt, although there has been little danger of that so far this year.

For some contrast on the plate I have also grown the all-green ‘Lobjoits’ another cos type lettuce that has a good crunch. Again I pick this like a cut and come again salad, removing just a few outer leaves at a time.

To add some further interest I love to add the softer salad leaves such as salad bowl and pea shoots. I have one big pot outside my front door with peas in it, every couple of days I can harvest a few shoots. The plants will continue to send out shoots until into mid July when the change in day length back to shorter days (boo) means they change from putting on leafy growth to trying to fruit. My plants, which will have been grazed over and not achieved much height, will then just be composted but in the meantime they are adding a lovely pea flavour to my salads and sandwiches.

Russian Red Kale, picked small for salad leaves

Russian red kale is a great plant. Colourful, with a stronger flavour than lettuce leaves, if picked when young it adds another dimension to your salad. I have a pot of this which I can pick over twice a week and the bonus is that any leaves that get too big for salads can be lightly steamed like spinach.

Finally, a salad wouldn’t be a salad without a few herbs. At the moment this includes a few basil leaves, chives and the colourful addition of chive flowers.  As the summer progresses I will resow in an attempt to keep us supplied. I’ve got a second batch with a few additons such as ‘Catalonga verde’ on the way and I’ll introduce others such as rocket and mizuna later in the summer so that they don’t bolt in the heatwave summer that is just around the corner!!!

Salads needn’t be boring after-thoughts and are one of the simplest and cheapest of all the edibles you can grow.

For a great choice of lettuce seeds try More Veg, Sarah Raven and Seeds of Italy.

Salad growing guru Charles Dowding

Tags

Charles Dowding, no dig gardening, salad leaves

Charles Dowding showing us around his polytunnel

For my birthday at the end of last year, Wellyman kindly bought me a day with Charles Dowding. Charles has been growing salad crops and selling them for nearly 30 years now. He has, over that time built up quite a reputation not only for inspiring the British public to be a bit more adventurous with their salad growing but also for following the ‘no dig’ practice of mulching beds and then letting worms and other soil organisms do the hard work of improving his soil structure and fertility.

Charles runs courses from his farm, where he explains the thinking behind his ideas and you get to pick his brain and see his philosophy in action, and this is how I spent yesterday. From his farm in Somerset Charles runs a successful market garden, selling bags of mixed seasonal salads to businesses within a 4 mile radius. With 2 polytunnels and over an acre Charles makes £30,000 a year from growing salads. The site is less than ideal facing north and on clay but by using the ‘no dig’ technique of mulching with compost and well-rotted manure every year he has created soil conditions most gardeners dream of. The colour of his soil and the lack of weeds were the most striking aspects of his farm.

Just a few of Charles' incredibly productive beds

The soil is black and just so rich in organic matter from years of mulching with manure and compost. This dark colour means the soil warms up much more quickly in the spring, absorbing the warmth from the sun. The structure of his soil is much improved draining more freely but holding onto moisture when needed. In fact the structure of his soil is so amazing that he is able to walk on his beds when the ground is almost fully saturated, as it is at the moment after several weeks of rain. When he moved his feet you could see the ground underneath spring back and there was no footprint left behind. This really was quite remarkable to see.

Greeted by tea or coffee and tasty flapjack the course started with everyone introducing themselves. There was a broad mix of people, some with newly acquired polytunnels wanting inspiration, others running or planning to run their own market garden and some who just wanted to take away some ideas for their allotment or garden. Dodging the heavy downpours we spent time in the polytunnels seeing what varieties of winter salads he has been growing and getting the opportunity to taste along the way. This was particularly useful. I have never tasted sorrel or chervil before and was impressed enough to be add them to my seed wish list. Charles doesn’t just grow salad crops though and a visit during the summer and autumn will show a site packed to the brim with squashes, tomatoes, leeks, celeriac and much more.

He shared with us seed sowing tips and how to achieve good compost. Part of the garden has raised beds which Charles uses as experiment beds, comparing dig versus ‘no dig’ and the effects, if any, of charcoal as a mulch or when dug in.

A tasty lunch of foraged nettles for a soup and homemade spelt bread and of course some of Charles’ salad leaves was followed by the opportunity to ask questions and a final tour of the garden, which included a trip to the all important manure and compost piles.

Black gold - Charles' compost and manure heaps

I had a great day and came away with lots of ideas. The main ones being to track down a good source of manure and to use the space I have got more effectively to produce more salad and with lots of different varieties. For me it was refreshing to see a different and successful approach to growing. For me studying with the RHS for 4 years has been extremely useful, giving me an understanding of the theory behind growing but some of what you are taught is quite rigid and restrictive in it’s thinking. I’m learning that becoming a good grower is an ongoing process, with a great deal of experimentation and trial and error along the way. People like Charles are very inspiring and courses like the ones he offers are a great way of seeing your plot in a different light.

For more details about the courses offered by Charles Dowding visit his website.

If you can’t get to Somerset don’t despair, Charles has written a selection of books on the ‘no dig’ method, organic gardening, salad leaves and how to get the most from your plot in winter. Again have a look at his website for more information.