Reawakening

Tags

granny squares, helelbores, Michael Pollan, seed sowing, snowdrops

A shy hellebore

Slowly but surely the garden is emerging from its winter slumber. On gloomy, grey days the nodding heads of snowdrops glow; on gin-clear days they sparkle and glisten. Hellebores hang their flower heads as if they are too shy to display their beauty. The slender green shoots of crocus bulbs are appearing. One lone crocus is ahead of the pack, its buttermilk-coloured petals opening to the first hints of warm sunshine.

I, too, am experiencing a reawakening. I feel a bit like a bear poking its head out of its winter hibernation home, sniffing the air, rubbing its eyes and deciding whether it’s warm enough to emerge yet. Up until Sunday I would have said no. If I was a bear I’d have retreated inside, had a good scratch and eaten lots of marmalade. That’s what bears do, isn’t it? As I’m not, I put more logs on the fire, I read, I crocheted, I wrote and I ordered seeds. Too many seeds, as usual.

Then it was if that first tantalizing hint of spring arrived. Sunday was a stunner. Crystal clear skies and warm sunshine. Well, when I say warm it was 8⁰C, but that felt positively tropical now there was no north wind to add windchill to the freezing temperatures of the previous week. After weeks of wondering whether my garden mojo would return I was outside filling seed trays with compost and preparing for the first seed to be sown. The compost was cold. Cold enough to make my fingers numb. No seed would be encouraged into life in this, so the seed trays and modules have spent the last few days warming up on the heated propagator and near a radiator. It’s imparted an interesting smell to the kitchen, but hopefully it has created a much more welcoming place to sow my seeds this week.

There’s a lot written at this time of year about whether to sow or not. Most of us are so eager to start growing. The conditions aren’t ideal yet for many seeds and sowing too early can lead to problems later on with a backlog of plants too big to look after indoors but it’s not quite warm enough for them to be planted outdside. Some plants however do need an early start. They can be slow to germinate or just need a long growing season to do their thing. For me this includes flowers for my cutting patch such as ageratum, statice and antirrhinums. Any plants which say on the packet they will flower in their first year from an early start are worth sowing in the coming weeks. They’ll need a bit of warmth in order to germinate and as much daylight as you can give them. But, as we’re only six weeks away from the spring equinox and seven weeks from the clocks going forward, light levels are definitely improving. I also like to get sowing now as I know how frantic March can be. I have limited space so starting off some plants now is one way of staggering the seed sowing demands on the horizon.

Warming up the compost

Obviously a few sunny days in February doesn’t mean we can shake off winter just yet – as I’m writing this post, the gloom of winter has returned, with an impenetrable grey sky looming over head. But I’m going to embrace the last few weeks (hopefully) of winter and savour any time in front of the fire. My winter project – a crocheted granny square blanket – is nearly completed. It’s been an epic. All 208 squares are finished and I’m in the process of stitching them together. Then I just need to edge it with a border. The aim is to complete it for the start of March. I hate having unfinished projects lying around, so I know it needs to be completed before the garden grabs my attention.

Granny square blanket coming together

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to read in my lunch break. As work has been a bit crazy over the last few weeks (the pattern of freelance work is very much like the frequency of buses) my utopian idea of reading every day hasn’t come to fruition. But my resolution hasn’t been a complete right-off and I have managed to devote some time to this gem of a gardening book.

Michael Pollan – Second Nature

Second Nature by Michael Pollan is a fascinating and wittily written book by this American author. It’s worth reading simply for the hilarious description of his war with a woodchuck which sets up home in his garden – I laughed so much I snorted my tea. One of the benefits of working from home is that nobody saw that moment of inelegance. The book is full of deeper, thought-provoking ideas too – our love of roses, a gardener’s relationship with trees and man’s desire to tame nature – with each chapter following the creation of his own garden. I would heartily recommend reading it. Stop drinking your tea though when it comes to the woodchuck bit.

 

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At Last – It’s Publication Day

Tags

Cinead McTernan, Jason Ingram, Kitchen Garden Experts, seed sowing, The Cut Flower Patch

So today is the day when my book is published. It feels like an age since I put the idea together and emailed it to a handful of publishers. I guess that’s because it is. It takes a relatively long time to put together a book with all its different stages. From idea to publication The Cut Flower Patch has taken 3 months short of 2 years, so to say I’m pleased the day has finally arrived is an understatement.

Tulips make stunning cut flowers

I have read some very lovely reviews and I’m over the moon that people seem to love the book. It really does make the hard work, sleepless nights and tearing my hair out at the weather worthwhile.

If you’d like a peek at some of the gorgeous images from the book to whet your appetite here’s a link to photographer Jason Ingram’s website. Whilst you’re there take a look at his own book Kitchen Garden Experts, created with his wife Cinead McTernan, which will be out on May 1st. Whilst Jason was working on my book he was also travelling the length and breadth of the country visiting the kitchen gardens of some of Britain’s best chefs and their head gardeners. Their book is a brilliant combination of growing tips and delicious recipes direct from the experts.

So if you love flowers, fancy filling you home with flowery gorgeousness and want to embrace the seasons rather than relying on imported blooms then hopefully my book will provide some inspiration.

Right, enough self-publicity, I’m off to sow some seeds. x

To order The Cut Flower Patch at the discounted price of £16.00 including p&p* (RRP: £20.00), telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk and quote the offer code APG101. 

 

*UK ONLY – Please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas.

If you’re in North America you can find The Cut Flower Patch at Amazon.com

Shrinking violets and dahlia shrieks

Tags

Barnhaven Primulas, Bodmin Plant Nursery, broad beans, heated propagator

Buds on my crab apple

I’ve been feeling a little bit grumpy of late. The weather has been preoccupying me somewhat. With my book deadline looming and photo shoots booked I’ve been anxiously looking at a garden and allotment that should be springing into life. Instead I’ve got bare soil and plants that are sulking, sitting there waiting for some warmer weather. The first photos of the year have already had to be postponed and now it’s a waiting game with me wondering whether spring and summer will arrive in time.

Over the last week or so I’ve started to write a post but I’ve heard my words as I type and I just sounded pretty fed up. I don’t like writing when I feel like that. Sometimes it can be cathartic but most of the time I find it just compounds my thoughts rather than relieving them. I promised myself I would only post if I could write something more positive, rather than inflicting my rants and frustrations on you all. So today I bring you flowers to cheer, green shoots and seedlings galore.

Heartsease

Last week I finally managed to plant up my purchases from my break in Cornwall. My run-in with some ropy seafood and a spell of decorating indoors has meant that they have languished in my cold frame for nearly a month now. I’d chosen a selection of shade loving, spring-flowering plants. a pretty little heartease and a sweet violet which was in bloom when I bought it in mild Cornwall, but a spell in colder Wales has made it a shrinking violet and there are no flowers to be seen at the moment.

My gold-laced primulas don’t seem too perturbed by the lack of warmth though. I’ve developed a bit of a primula addiction recently. Lynne Lawson from Barnhaven Primulas recommended a book to me, ‘The Polyanthus’ by Roy Genders. Written in the 1960s I managed to track down a copy on the internet and I’m now hooked. Hence my other purchases of Primula ‘Francisca’ and P. sieboldii ‘Snowflake’. Francisca has really unusual green, ruffled flowers which are tantalisingly close to opening and ‘Snowflake’ has small, white flowers with intricately cut petals which are held on tall stems above the foliage. My P. denticulata are just coming into flower. This is my first year of growing them and I’m intrigued to discover that they have quite a strange way of producing their flowers. Rather than sending up a stem and then the flower buds opening, the flowers are opening in a tightly packed rosette nestled in amongst the leaves, instead. I had thought it was something I had done but in the last few days I’ve noticed the stems are starting to elongate, carrying the globe of individual flowers upwards. Apparently this is perfectly normal and what these drumstick primulas do.

Primula denticulata

The Bodmin Plant and Herb Nursery in Cornwall is one of my favourites and no visit to the area is complete without a trip here. They have the most amazing selection of herbs. I never realised there were so many different types of rosemary and thyme for instance until I wandered into one of their polytunnels. This time I was tempted by a pot of parcel or leaf celery. Celery itself is notoriously hard to grow and I’ve never attempted it but the leaves of parcel taste just like celery and can be added to soups towards the end of cooking to give a celery flavour. I’m also hoping they’ll taste good in omelettes and salads.

My herb planters are otherwise engaged at the moment, planted up with tulips I couldn’t get into the ground last winter because of all the rain. But once they have finished flowering the parcel can go in the zinc baths along with my other herbs which have spent the winter in the greenhouse.

It may have been unseasonably cold so far this spring, and this may have played havoc with plants outdoors but we have been lucky in this part of Wales to have had some lovely sunshine at least. And, behind the glass on my windowsills, seeds have been germinating at a pace. In fact, my seedlings are at the stage I would expect them to be for the time of year. I sowed some zinnias at the start of April and they had popped up within days. The addition of a heated propagator this year has made a difference, certainly with some flowers I’m growing which needed to be started off in February. I’ve also tried to do everything properly, using seed compost for seed sowing rather than just multi-purpose and incorporating perlite. Germination from most seeds has been good but there have still been disappointments and frantic resowing in the hope I don’t lose any time.

Broad beans ready and waiting

In the greenhouse the broad beans have finally started to grow. I’ve potted them on into bigger pots and they can sit in the cold frame for a few weeks now. I much prefer to plant out substantial plants if I can and my February sown broad beans are even a little further on than some of those my allotment neighbours sowed back in November. I’m pleased I ignored the weather and sowed trays of lettuce, peas, beetroot and spinach. We have a fairly short growing season anyway so anything to try to gain some extra time is worth it for me.

seedlings in the greenhouse

My windowsills are pretty much at full capacity at the moment so some milder weather would be welcome, allowing me to move a few hardy annuals into the greenhouse. Oh, and I did get quite excited yesterday to discover the first shoots of a dahlia poking through the compost. I let out a bit of a squeal, loud enough for Wellyman to come downstairs to see what was going on. I think he thought I’d discovered a mouse or something.

So I’m trying to defy mother nature as best as I can but soon my plants will have to go outside. Lets just hope by then spring, at least, has arrived.

Ploughing on regardless

Tags

seed sowing

February Gold Narcissi flowering at last

So one minute it feels like spring the next minute we’re plunged back into winter. Of course, this is perfectly natural at this time of year as the seasons change. It’s possible to have snow and hail showers even in April but I am so desperate now for some warmth and some sunshine and I know I’m not alone. It doesn’t help that this time last year we were basking in sunshine and temperatures into the seventies. But then again we all know how last year’s weather turned out.

After a stormy night with gusts of wind that disturbed my sleep I thought I should check the plot just to make sure a couple of cloche-type constructions I have up there were still in place. They had collapsed but the plants underneath were fine. Some remedial repair work was needed though. Our timing couldn’t have been worse as the blue sky turned dark and grey and a squally snow shower blew across the allotments. There we were, Wellyman and I, trying to fold a sheet of polythene which turned into a sail in the strong winds as tiny snow flakes whipped at our faces. There are times when I wonder why I grow my own and this was one of those moments.

This is the time of year when there’s much debate as to when to sow. Most of us are champing at the bit to get our hands on some compost once Christmas is over. In January though, light levels are low and some of the coldest weather of the winter is still ahead of us so it is wise to be restrained. There does come a point however, when, regardless of what the weather is doing outside, you just have to go for it. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. For me I would much rather take a bit of a risk and sow a little early perhaps and if the worst comes to the worst I can resow. If I’m fortunate and the weather is good then I’ve got a bit of a head start.

Spinach seedlings

This year has been a frustratingly slow start with many seeds struggling to germinate in the greenhouse but a bit of sunshine is all it takes now for the greenhouse to be lovely and warm inside. So in the last few weeks seeds have germinated and there are now heartening signs of growth. Spinach is growing well, as are my red leaved dandelions and my pot of pea shoots. Signs that my first salad pickings aren’t too far off.

Sweet peas germinated in the warmth of my kitchen have been moved to the colder greenhouse to encourage strong growth. Tempting as it is to try to get plants to grow more quickly, forcing them on in the artificially warm conditions of my home will only produce soft plants which will struggle when introduced to the reality of outdoors life.

Back in January before we had our first cold spell I noticed Verbena bonariensis seedlings appearing in my gravel path. It’s a plant I love but I tend to buy in good-sized plants in mid-spring as these have had a head start on the self seeded plants that appear in my garden. The mild weather up until that point must have encouraged these plants to appear; I wouldn’t normally expect to see them until April. I gently pulled them from the gravel and potted them up and put them in the greenhouse. There was a point when it looked like they were all dying but in the last few days strong healthy buds have started to appear. Sheltering in the greenhouse today with snowflakes hitting the glass it’s hard to believe that these little plants will be taller than me by the summer and swaying in a gentle, warm breeze. Tucked underneath on one of the shelves of my greenhouse staging are pots with dahlia tubers in them. I potted them up last week into slightly damp compost. Planting up dahlias early, as long as you can keep them somewhere frost-free until mid May, means a much longer flowering season.

For me this need to persevere and keep going is one of the reasons why I love gardening and growing so much. In many aspects of life I have a tendency to pessimism, or realism as I prefer to call it but growing sort of forces me to get on with things. It would be easy enough for me to look out the window and become quite downhearted by the weather at the moment and think I’ll just stay indoors where it’s warm and cosy. I know though that if I don’t sow and don’t prepare that I’ll curse myself in several weeks time when it is more like spring. It’s the window sills full of little pots of newly pricked out seedlings and signs of growth that tell me to plough on regardless. I’d love to hear about the seeds you’ve sown so far.

Hip Hip Hip Hooray!

Tags

Anemone coronaria, sowing pea shoots

I swear if I’d woken up on Wednesday morning to find it was raining AGAIN I’d have crawled back under the duvet and stayed there until it stopped. Forget all the jobs I had to do, I would have stayed put. After two days and nights of non-stop torrential rain I was going stir-crazy. Fortunately Wednesday morning greeted me with blue skies and the sun had got his hat on and he was definitely out for the day. It might have been blowing a hooley outside but I was determined to get out into the fresh air. I’ve spent way too much time in front of a computer recently and needed to garden. Even if the garden had looked pristine and there wasn’t a single thing to do (is that ever the case?) I’d have had to find something to do, the urge was so strong.

Luckily the garden didn’t look pristine. In fact the weight of all the snow and then the subsequent thaw meant that the garden looked a bit sorry for itself so there was plenty to get stuck into. My neighbours’ cats have this annoying habit of sitting on my grasses and herbaceous plants, using them like a cat bed and in the process squishing them to a pancake. Well it appeared that the snow had had a similar effect. Grasses and their seed heads that had looked lovely pre-snow now just looked a mess and the brown foliage of the irises and the crocosmia had become big soggy piles. In amongst all this decaying plant matter though were the first new shoots tentatively appearing. Armed with secateurs I snipped and cleared. The snowdrops are in full flower, as are the hellebores and I can see buds swelling on the tete-a-tete daffodils.  I only have small feet, size four, but sometimes I think I’m possessed by an elephant as I clumsily step through the borders. I do try to be careful but it wouldn’t be spring if I didn’t accidentally step on something emerging from the ground. On Wednesday it was narcissi. Luckily though the flower stems survived intact even if the leaves are now growing horizontally rather vertically.

The best bit of the day though had to be my first afternoon spent in the greenhouse. We constructed it back in November and although it has been home to several plants over the winter I haven’t really had the need to do anything in there. It was disconcerting to be in there as the wind pummelled the sides; I’m so glad Wellyman screwed it into the patio.

I’ve never had any luck growing Anemone coronaria as the corms rot in the ground and, although at the time I didn’t realise the winter would be quite so wet I thought, fortuitously as it turns out, that I’d try them in pots and then plant them out in spring. Well instead of non appearing as has happened before they have all emerged but, they’ve all grown too well and it’s too wet to plant them out so I’ve to pot on into bigger pots. I’m not sure whether it will work as some plants don’t like root disturbance but I thought it was worth a try. If it doesn’t work I think I’ll have to accept defeat on the windflower front.

I’m resisting the temptation to sow most of my seeds but I did sow a few pots of winter salad leaves, some pea shoots, spinach and sorrel. It’s exciting to be able to start plants off this early but the best bit about the greenhouse is being able to sow standing up. I know it’s a pretty prosaic reason but after years of sowing whilst sat on a compost bag outside my shed it’s a real joy. My shed has always been too full to have a proper potting area and with no window it’s so dark I can’t see what I’m doing. Sitting on a compost bag was never particularly comfortable and chasing seed packets that had blown off or knocking over a pot I had just sown meant something I should have loved was quite a frustrating process. So it’s bliss to now have a dedicated place to stand, out of the wind and rain and still be able to get on with gardening jobs.

So it’s the 1st of February today. We’ve got through January and although I’m sure we’ve still got some of winter to come there’s a feeling that we’ve broken its back. The first seed sowing and the appearance of flowers in the garden has filled me with positivity. It’s a feeling I’d like to maintain. Best not look out the window then, that sounds distinctly like more rain.

Bringing You The Dribber

Tags

Christmas present, Derek Jarman, Dribber, Hen and Hammock, stocking filler for gardeners, sustainability

Hen and Hammock dribber

One of the side effects of having a blog is the emails I sometimes receive. There are ones I don’t even bother opening, generally with words such as Viagra in them. There was a request to use a photo from my post on Derek Jarman’s garden for a Hungarian art magazine which was featuring an article on artists and their gardens. And then, occasionally, I’m asked to review products. Generally I turn down these offers. I’ve no desire for the blog to become an advertising ground for other companies. There’s also the problem with the ethics of a company. My blog is a very personal thing and I don’t like the idea of being linked to products that may damage the environment or with companies I know little about. I don’t like to stray too far from the themes of gardening, the environment and the countryside but you’d be surprised at the companies that contact me. There was talk on twitter a few weeks ago amongst garden bloggers about who had received emails from a PR company asking them to blog about the wonders of Velcro. Is Velcro that useful to gardeners? I recently was sent an offer of writing about AGA cleaning products. Firstly, I’m not sure of the relevance of AGA cleaning products to the people who read my blog and secondly, I’m not sure how I can review AGA cleaning products without an AGA.

This is all a rather long-winded way of saying that occasionally I will get asked to review something that intrigues me, is actually relevant and I really like the sound of the company behind the product. And this is how I happen to have come across the Dribber. Designed by the team at Hen and Hammock the idea was to combine several tasks in one tool. Measuring 20cm long the dribber is designed to fit standard and half-sized seed trays and allows you to drill lines for seed sowing, dib holes for individual seeds and then tamp down the surface of the compost.

I have to admit I’m not much of a gadget girl as my kitchen cupboards will attest. I’m not an asparagus steamer or pasta maker type of person and this follows into the garden. Generally, this is because of a lack of space to store all these tools and once you’ve managed to function without them for so long why bother accumulating more stuff but I do like the idea of a product that multi-tasks.

The dribber is beautifully made in Shropshire. The wood is oak, grown sustainably but, unfortunately, imported from America. But as Andrew, from Hen and Hammock, points out there is very little sustainable oak grown here in the UK. Perhaps if we managed our woodland more effectively we would be able to exploit them more successfully as a sustainable resource.

Wooden tools always feel so nice to handle. There’s a warmth to the wood that you don’t get with metal or plastic and there’s a feeling that this is a product that will last. Like the old tools you can see in the potting shed at Heligan, quality tools like this feel like they’ll be around for a long time.

When it comes to seed sowing I tend to be a bit haphazard. My RHS tutor would shudder at that sentence. Trying to grow all of my plants for the allotment using one windowsill means that I have to maximise the space I have and this includes in the trays and pots when I sow. I tend to split seed trays up into 3 or 4 sections and start off 3 or 4 different varieties rather than devoting one tray to one type of plant. I also sow quite closely together and then prick out and plant on quickly. The spacing of the dribber is quite generous compared to what I would normally do, but there is also the ability to use it as a drill. There aren’t any seeds that I need to sow at the moment but I did do a dummy run in the shed a few days ago and it does what it says and is nice to use. With my new greenhouse and the ability to have a potting bench now, rather than using the floor outside my shed, I plan to be much more organised and methodical about my seed sowing and this tool will certainly be well used come the spring.

It’s the quality of the dribber, its sustainable credentials and it’s mulit-tasking that really are its selling points, in my opinion, and it is something that would make a great stocking filler for a gardening friend or family member. The price of £8.50, I think, is reasonable for such a well made piece and shows that British-made, sustainable products don’t have to be expensive.

I also like the ethos behind Hen and Hammock. A small independent company, their belief is that it is possible to have nice products for our homes and gardens that are long-lasting, made sustainably and in a way that doesn’t damage the planet. They also donate 10% of profits to non-profit organisations every year. They have a great range of products not just for the garden. Perhaps one of my favourite features about their website is the ‘meet the producers’ page. So many of the goods we buy nowadays are mass-produced by anonymous people somewhere. OK, most of us don’t have time to research where everything we buy comes from and their environmental credentials, but a company like Hen and hammock does that for you. For instance, there is Ken, a carpenter, who collects waste wood from local builders and makes traditional wooden seed trays or Damien, the last garden riddle maker in the UK who crafts beautiful garden tools from beech wood.

For more information and to see a great range of products which might inspire you, with Christmas coming, take a look at Hen and Hammock’s website.

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.

Planning for Winter

Tags

Nicky's Nursery, Sarah Raven, Vegplotting, winter salad

Slug attempting double pike dismount from my carnation

I didn’t want to use the W word. I’m not quite ready to start thinking that we’re now heading in that direction again; I don’t feel I’ve had enough of a summer yet to prepare myself for the inevitable shortening of nights and even more miserable weather than we’ve had so far this year.

Much of gardening is about planning and looking forward, and at this time of year that unfortunately means accepting that autumn is just around the corner followed by the not particularly enticing prospect of winter. I had little in the way of winter crops last year on the plot. Some cavolo nero kale, and some leeks that were given to me as small seedlings by a fellow allotmenteer. This lack of winter produce was partly because it was my first year and getting the plot up and running for spring and summer had been enough of a task and partly because I thought I might be a bit of a fair weather gardener and wouldn’t actually venture up to the plot on cold, dark winters days. The reality was somewhat different, possibly because we had such a mild autumn which ran all the way up to Christmas. I found the allotment, even at that time of year, was a useful place to escape to, somewhere to clear my head, get some fresh air and peace and quiet. I actually liked the fact that we had a few, if sparse, crops to still be able to pick. So, this year, the plan is to have a little bit more on the plot through the leaner months. And, if this is the idea, I need to start planning and sowing.

Sprouting Broccoli plants perched on a chair hopefully out of reach of slugs

Of course, my planning hasn’t been that great, as I suddenly decided I’d like to give sprouting broccoli a try but had of course missed the sowing date. Fortunately, Delfland Organic Plants came to the rescue. A few clicks on the computer and several days later I had 5 plug plants of white sprouting broccoli and 5 of a purple variety called ‘Claret’. At the same time, I happened to read an article saying that it is actually better to sow your sprouting broccoli seeds a little later, say in July, and plant out your plants in August and have smaller plants that are still as productive. I felt quite pleased that I hadn’t missed the boat.

My leeks are already planted up and celeriac, a crop that loves moisture, has thrived, in this my first attempt at growing and should be ready to harvest from October onwards. I think it’s beginners luck that, for this crop anyway, it has been such a wet year.

So, to the seed sowing. I love spring greens and have just sown a variety called ‘Wintergreen’ which should be ready to pick from February. I’m hoping to be able to keep us supplied into the autumn at least with salads. I won a packet of winter salad leaves from Sarah Raven in a competition through @Malvenmeet and Vegplotting. Thanks Michelle. Hopefully I can keep them out of reach of the slugs!

I’ve discovered 4 packets of mizuna. I’m have no idea why I have so many but I guess I’d better get sowing some of them. There’s also ‘Reine de glace’, an excellent winter hardy variety of a hearting type lettuce, that I haven’t grown before. Now is the time to sow spinach. Notorious for bolting when it gets dry and hot, late summer is the best time to sow. I have a variety called ‘Red Cardinal’ which I’m hoping will add a little bit of colour to salads later in the year. Browsing around Nicky’s Nursery website I came across Italian red veined dandelion. Bitter leaves are, apparently, very good for stimulating the liver and are especially popular on the continent but much underutilised in British cooking. I have become quite partial to some of the forced chicory but without the space to do this myself, I thought I’d just try some bitter leaves instead. I can’t quite believe I’ve actually bought dandelion seeds.

Salad crops to take us into autumn

Alongside these seeds, I already have batches of Cima di rapa, an Italian sprouting broccoli. Unfortunately, on close inspection this morning several looked like their stems had rotted. I have a few spare, in the cold frame which seem fine at the moment, so all is not lost. Russian red kale, cavolo nero and endive are all getting to a good size. I just need to clear some ground at the plot, so I can get a new crop of plants on the go.

I’d love to hear about your must-have autumn and winter crops.

Getting on with the Job

My first apples, looking nearly ready

So far, this year, it has felt like I haven’t actually done much gardening. I must have done something, to be picking flowers and harvesting produce but most work has been snatched in between the torrential rain or with me huddled in my shed sowing seeds. There have been very few completely dry days and two rain-free days in a row have only existed in my imagination. But what’s this, the clouds have parted and a golden glowing orb that I believe is the sun is actually there, in the sky.

It appears, for now at least, that the jet stream, responsible for the worst summer in the UK since anyone bothered started to record these things, is on the move. With the first predictably dry weekend coming up it will no doubt mean a flurry of barbecue activity and the baring of inappropriate amounts of flesh, despite temperatures struggling into the low twenties. For me, it finally means the opportunity to get out and tackle all those jobs that have been building up. I’ve already managed to clip my yew cones in the front garden, that had started to look a bit too shaggy, with fresh, new growth, resembling octopus arms, reaching out into the garden. The box balls in the back garden need a similar trim.

The list of jobs feels a little overwhelming but at least I know I can spread them out over several days rather than frantically trying to get lots done in the short dry spells between the longer periods of rain that has been gardening so far this year.

Leeks and dibber

Yesterday, I finally got round to moving my leeks to their final growing positions. Fortunately, harvesting my Charlotte spuds has freed up some ground, so they’ve gone in there. It was my first opportunity to use the wooden dibber that was in my stocking last Christmas. Thank you Wellyman, it worked a treat!

There is some debate as to how to plant up leeks. The traditional way is to trim the roots and then trim the green shoots before placing in a deep hole. Some believe this method is used to make it easier to get the leeks and their roots into the hole and if you’ve cut the roots you need to reduce the stress on the leek by reducing the green growth, too. Others think that root pruning like this encourages the formation of more roots allowing the plants to search for more nutrients and become healthier plants. Last year was my first year growing leeks and I just plonked them in the holes with no trimming at all and I produced perfectly good leeks. The RHS doesn’t recommend any trimming and suggests that if you have problems getting the leeks’ roots into the hole then dipping them in water first can help. It does. Once the leeks are in the holes it’s important not to back-fill but to water in around them instead. The water will pull down some soil into the hole to hold the leek upright. This is how the long blanched stems are achieved without getting soil into the core of the leek.

A mixture of seedlings for autumn crops

There’s more seed sowing to do for crops to take us into the autumn and I need to pot up all the seedlings on my window sill. If your harvest has been disappointing so far this year due to the weather it’s not too late to give some crops a try. If we do get some good weather between now and November it’s still possible to resurrect something from the growing year. Dwarf French beans, cavolo nero, endive, carrots and lettuce will all produce well into September and beyond.

In August, I’m sowing some spring greens and various packets of salad leaves, such as orientals, that would bolt if sowed earlier in the year. Thanks to a great tip from Charles Dowding, that I picked up on his salad growing course, I’ll be sowing chervil and coriander in August. I always thought coriander needed warmth but then never managed to grow it as it always ran so quickly to seed. Apparently it, and chervil, much prefer this later sowing time. And, if you sow an early pea variety that can cope with cooler temperatures, you can have a ready supply of peashoots up to Christmas.

Drying shallots

I harvested the shallots on Wednesday and they’re in my cold frame so their skins can dry, ready for storing. In their place went my pathetic florence fennel plants. This is my second year of trying. Last year, they were all got by slugs. This year I’m left with 5 plants, which isn’t a great haul and at the moment they’re looking decidedly weedy. I love fennel but it’s notoriously temperamental, bolting at the slightest opportunity which doesn’t fill me with confidence, especially with such topsy-turvy weather but I’m determined not to be defeated by them, well not yet anyway.

My weedy Florence fennel

All this and I haven’t even got round to thinking about tackling the back garden which has taken on a dishevelled billowy appearance and I really need to look into how to prune my new espalier apple tree, since July is the best time to do this job. I’m feeling a little exhausted thinking about it all. Tea and a biscuit I think, first, before the wellies go back on and I embark on some topiary.

Rainbow Food

Tags

French bean 'Roquencourt', Holt Farm Organic Garden, More Veg, Sarah Raven, Seedy Sundays

Sometimes the choice in seed catalogues is so daunting and tempting it’s hard to narrow down my list of potential purchases to a vaguely sensible, and affordable, order. One thing I did have in mind this year was a desire to grow really colourful varieties. It has been suggested, in recent years, that eating a wide range of different coloured fruit and vegetables is good for us, as they are packed full of anti-oxidants, important for fighting disease and slowing down the ageing process. I do like to eat healthily but I have to admit my desire to grow a rainbow of vegetables had more to do with them looking so good on the plate and the feeling of achievement, that I’d have some crops I couldn’t even get at my excellent local farmers’ market.

Carrots are impossible to grow on the plot, as carrot fly are just too much of a problem. A fellow allotmenteer has an impressive wooden and enviromesh construction, in an attempt to keep out them out, which seems to work but as he said, ‘they’re damn expensive carrots’. The soil on the plot isn’t ideal either, so I decided to give them a go at home, away from the carrot fly ridden allotment, in containers. Back in April, I sowed half a packet of ‘Bambino’, a baby, orange coloured carrot with some ‘Yellowstone’, a lemony coloured variety. About 6 weeks later I sowed another pot with ‘Cosmic Purple’. I’ve been picking from the first container for a couple of weeks now and pulled the first purple ones last night.

I certainly won’t be self-sufficient in carrots this way. It’s more about providing some small, super fresh, carrots for adding to salads and eating raw with dips. So far, it’s worked well. The idea with growing carrots like this is to sow quite densely and as you harvest them you thin them allowing those left to grow a little bigger. I’ve just sown a couple more containers so I should have carrots to pick into the autumn.

The gloriously, and intriguingly, named ‘Ezeta’s Krombek Blauwschokker’ purple mangetout pea was another purchase. I’ll admit I picked this one simply because of the name. Not the best reason, I know, rather like picking a car because you like the colour. It’s a tall growing pea which I have climbing up a wigwam at the allotment. It produces very pretty pinky-purpley flowers and the pods are a gorgeous colour which they retain once cooked. I’ve found it’s best to pick the pods when they are quite small, about 5cm long, smaller than I would pick my green mangetout, otherwise they are quite tough. If they do get too big you can let the peas inside swell, and pod and eat the peas instead. As plants go, it so far hasn’t been the most prolific of croppers so I’ll probably seek out another purple variety next year.

Despite the weather, in the last few days I’ve started to pick my first French beans. They’re a dwarf variety called ‘Roquencourt’ which produce slender yellow beans. I’ve grown these before and they’re great for an exposed site like my own plot, as they don’t grow much taller than a foot. I’ve also grown them in containers and had great yields. Then tend to crop more quickly and over a shorter period of time than taller French beans, so it’s worth sowing some every 6 weeks to have a successional crop.

I’ve also got a tall wigwam of climbing French bean ‘Blauhilde’, which produces dark purple, almost black, pods. I noticed some flowers on it yesterday which I find quite incredible considering the wind, lack of warmth and incessant rain, not ideal French bean growing weather.

Beetroot this year has been the usual, ‘Boltardy’ and the stripey, ‘Chioggia’. I’ve found the beetroot has struggled this year. Chioggia is now bolting which is no great surprise. I may be tempted to try beetroot in containers next year, like the carrots and see if I have more success.

And finally, I’m eagerly awaiting the appearance of pods on my ‘Yugoslavian Black Bean’, dwarf French beans. A purchase from the Seedy Sunday event at Holt Farm last autumn, I’ve put them in a containers as I’ve run out of space at the allotment. I bought them because they sounded quite exotic and I spent some time in Yugoslavia as a child and have a soft spot for the place. I’m fascinated to see what will appear. I just need to keep the slugs off them.

I’d love to hear about any other colourful veg varieties you would recommend.

I bought my seeds from the excellent More Veg and Sarah Raven.