A Northern Delight

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Duncombe House, Helmsley Walled Garden, Horticultural therapy, Landshare, North Yorkshire

Helmsley Walled Garden

I’ve just come back from a few days visiting family in the north east. It’s unusual to head back there and experience better weather than at home in Wales. It wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination what you could call summery. As Wellyman observed at one point, ‘it’s July, I really shouldn’t be wearing a shirt, jumper AND coat’ but hey, it didn’t rain for 2 whole days, so that was something at least. The sun even popped out occasionally. So making the most of the dry spell we thought we’d visit somewhere that has been on my list for a while now.

The Display Glasshouse

Helmsley Walled Garden in North Yorkshire is an incredibly inspiring place, in so many ways. The red brick walls enclose a five acre garden that dates back to 1758 and which lies next to the ruins of the Norman castle. The garden was created to supply the nearby Duncombe House, owned by the wealthy Duncombe family, with food and flowers. It was during the Victorian period that the gardens were in their prime. The abolition of the tax on glass   meant that it became so much more affordable and this, coupled with improvements in the production process, allowed large scale glasshouses to built all across the country. At the same time, the burgeoning empire and intrepid plant hunters brought about a demand for interesting and exotic flora from across the globe. Vines, figs and pineapples were all grown at Helmsley. At the peak of their productivity the walled gardens employed 20 gardeners but, as for so many large estates and their gardens, it was the First World War that would bring an end to this idyll. The Duncombe family moved to London and over the subsequent years the garden was used to provide food during the Second World War for the local area and was then run as a market garden but from the early 1980s weeds took over and the glasshouses fell into decline.

Then, along came a remarkable woman, Alice Ticehurst. In 1994 she embarked on a project to restore the space with the idea that it would become a haven for all but especially those who would benefit from the restorative powers of a garden. With a group of friends and volunteers, weeds were cleared, the original paths uncovered and the old dipping well discovered, where gardeners in the past would have dipped their watering cans. Within only two years Helmsley Walled Garden had opened to the public but sadly, Alice died suddenly whilst in the gardens in 1999. However, those at Helmsley shared Alice’s vision and 13 years later it shows the incredible potential of places like this.

The gardens themselves are stunning. The double herbaceous borders stretch for 120 metres down the centre of the garden. They were such an amazing vision of colour with large blocks of flowers such as heleniums, achilleas and salvias, intermingled with grasses and towering spires of Verbascum olympicum. Running off this main path were other smaller gardens such as the white garden and a gravel garden. There’s a physic garden grouping plants together in raised beds depending on the areas of the body there are used for healing. And then, there was the cottage garden, a sheer riot of colour. There were colour combinations there that would probably make some garden designers and arbiters of taste turn pale and have palpitations but I loved it and it’s exuberance. It made me smile.

The Cottage Garden

A couple of areas had been sown with different wildflower mixes and along the entire length of the east wall is Lindsay’s border. Designed and planted by the assistant manager, Lindsay Tait, it is packed full of bulbs for spring and pastel coloured herbaceous perennials throughout the summer.

If anyone from the National Trust is reading, this is what you call a salad.

Unlike so many walled gardens, where the Victorian glasshouses remain unloved and unused, here at Helmsley they are integral to the gardens. Reconstructed using the original iron frameworks, the Vinery is now the location for an excellent vegetarian cafe, with vines still growing inside and the display house contains a collection of tender plants, including succulents, pelargoniums and Brugmansia.

Brugmansia

It’s not just the beauty of the plants that makes this such a special place, it’s the ethos of serving the local community and helping those in need that means it has a real sense of purpose. Following Alice Ticehurst’s vision, Helmsley Walled Garden now employs 2 horticultural therapists. It’s become a place where people with disabilities, learning difficulties and those who have been long term unemployed can come to learn new skills, to interact and make friends and ultimately to feel secure and relaxed. I can understand why a walled garden makes such a great place for such an enterprise, with the walls giving a feeling of protection from the outside world, a safe cocoon from the pressures of modern life.

And, if all that wasn’t enough, there is an area of the garden that has been given over to allotments. As part of the Landshare initiative raised beds were created and made available to budding allotmenteers. Surrounded by well established heritage fruit trees, it’s an inspiring place, even in a summer as bad as this one.

I really don’t know what else to say about this place, other than it’s BRILLIANT. The only problem with it, is it’s too far away for me to volunteer there. If you’re in the area or passing by, it’s only 30 minutes from the A1 at Thirsk, please do visit, you won’t be disappointed.

For more information about the gardens at Helmsley.

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Growing Your Own – is it worth it?

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Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, Incredible Edible, Landshare, Which Magazine

Growing Your Own

If you had to say what was the biggest trend over the last 10 years I think most people would agree it has been the incredible growth in the popularity of growing your own. Sales of vegetable seeds now outnumber those of flower seeds and the last 2 years or so has seen an increasing interest in growing fruit. Waiting lists for allotments are up to 30 years in parts of London and the demand for land to grow produce has inspired many an ingenious project such as Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall’s Landshare, which puts people with land in touch with those who want some and the Incredible Edible project in Todmorden, Lancashire.

Much of this has been attributed to a desire to know where our food has come from. Interestingly however, a survey commissioned by Which Magazine last year showed that the top reason for growing your own was not because of the health benefits but because of the increase in food prices people thought growing their own would save them money.

I say this is interesting because it has always been of some debate in the Welly household whether you do actually save money growing your own. This has come to the fore again as I contemplate growing carrots for the coming season. Simple you might think, seed aren’t that expensive, just buy some, sow them and then several months later you’ll have carrots. But as all you fellow carrot growers will know it’s not quite that simple. I tried some last year at the allotment and they were decimated by carrot fly.

Keeping out the carrot fly with wood and enviromesh constructions

Fellow plot holders went to extreme lengths to keep the flies out with wooden contraptions constructed and covered in fine mesh but they admitted it would have been much cheaper just to buy them from the supermarket. The other problem is the soil isn’t fine enough for carrots with a high proportion of clay in the soil on my plot. So that was that, at the end of last season I had decided not to bother with them. But the addiction to grow things won’t go away. So I’ve now decided to grow them in pots at home, away from the allotment carrot flies and in compost mixed with some sand to give them the right conditions. I have suitable pots but there is the purchase of compost, which isn’t cheap and some sand. So is it really worth it?

We don’t weigh our produce so it is difficult to know how much, if anything we actually save. You need to factor in your allotment rent and any expenditure, for instance any fertilisers, equipment and compost. Even if you can produce enough compost for your plot you still need to buy it to sow the seeds. There are some plants that are better to grow if saving money is a key, what I call high end produce. Soft fruit is one of the worst offenders for chemical residues and buying organic is expensive but even after purchasing raspberry canes last spring and not expecting much of a crop in the first year we were certainly up by the end of the autumn. This was partly due to discovering the variety ‘Polka’ which was especially high yielding even in it’s first year.

Bountiful Raspberries

Anything that crops over a long period and that keeps producing are a cost effective use of space. Courgettes, for example will happily overwhelm you over a good 2 – 3 months. This year I’m growing broad beans based on it being difficult to get organically produced ones and that they were expensive last year. I plan to weigh this crop, although I’ll probably forget, to see how we do on cost.

One crop we’re definitely not growing is sweetcorn. We’ve tried it twice and  it has succumbed to our cool, dull summers. I know it’s meant to taste sublime when picked and cooked immediately but weather is the one element I can’t do anything about.

So here are my tips for getting the most from your plot:

1. If your plot is small don’t grow crops, such as onions or maincrop potatoes, that take up a lot of space and can be bought relatively cheaply.
2. Do grow soft fruit. It’s expensive to buy organically and is always sweeter when picked ripe from the bush. There is the initial cost of the plants but they will soon pay you back. Any surplus can be frozen or made into jams.
3. Do grow your own salad leaves. Salad bags are expensive and have been washed in all sorts of chemicals. Franchi seeds in particular are great value for money. One packet of their salad leaves will keep you going all summer.
4. Do grow Cavolo nero, a type of kale. From a midsummer sowing you will have baby leaves for pastas and omlettes, bigger leaves in autumn and winter for steaming and you can eat the flower heads in early spring like purple sprouting broccoli.
5. Do grow french beans, which are expensive to buy in the supermarket, and give you good quantities. They lose their freshness quite quickly as well and are always bendy when bought but there’s none of that from your own supply.
6. And finally, remember you can’t put a price on flavour, freshness and ultimately the enjoyment and satisfaction that comes with growing your own. So don’t get too hung up on whether growing your own will save you money, it’s meant to be fun too. That’s why when I was up at the plot this morning, Brian was sowing his carrots in his specially built raised beds and putting in place their wooden and enviromesh covers. And that’s why I’ve just ordered some carrot seed. It might not be cost effective or easy but it is worth it.

Allotments – The Good News Stories

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allotments, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, Landshare, National Trust

Produce from my plot - just to show I didn't just grow flowers!

Following on from my last post about how difficult it is to get an allotment I thought I would write about the organisations and individuals that are trying to do something to provide land to those who want it. Whilst local councils and central government might not see the need for a new approach to allotment there are fortunately others who do.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, TV cook, author and promoter of all things foodie saw that something needed to be done to match the growing demand for land on which to grow. In 2009 he launched ‘Landshare‘ a website which puts people who want to grow their own produce but don’t have the land in touch with people who might have some spare land, or a garden that is too big for them. So far the venture has proved incredibly successful with over 66,000 members. Older people with large gardens that are too big for them to manage any more now have people growing fruit and veg and sharing with them the produce. There are some people who are just too busy to garden who have released part of their garden or some who have fields that are doing nothing and have given these up to allotments.

The National Trust has also joined the fight for more land. In 2009 it announced it wanted to create 1000 new allotments by 2012. They reached this target this summer. Some allotments are in walled gardens, others on vacant land near the Trust’s properties. In Woolacombe, Devon a field owned by the Trust was turned into 50 plots including one for the local Woolacombe Primary School. At Springhill in Northern Ireland a run down walled garden was brought back to life and now there are 27 allotments. Monk Coniston allotments must surely be a candidate for best location and view. Perched above Coniston Water in the Lake District the walled garden was disused until the National Trust received a Lottery grant and there are now 10 plots for the local community to grow fruit and vegetables.

The Trust joined forces with Landshare and available plots at Trust sites can be found on the Landshare website and just because they have reached their target of 1000 allotments they don’t plan to stop there with another 200 planned in the future.

It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that someone saw an opportunity to take advantage of the huge demand for allotments and set up a privately rented allotment company. The New Allotment Company opened its first site in 2010 in Kent. The charge is £150 for a year or you can pay in monthly instalments. This includes water, storage and manure. It sounds expensive and may well price some people out of the opportunity to grow their own. The other downside is that you sign up for 3 years with the opportunity to leave after the first year but after putting in all the hard work of establishing your plot it would be difficult if after the 3 years the rent rose and became prohibitively expensive. However, the plots are pre-prepared so no dreadful weeds to remove and the site provides secure storage, toilets and an all weather shelter and I know from my own experience that those would be welcome additions to my own allotment site.

It is good to know that people have taken on the task of dealing with the lack of land for growing but this should not be an excuse for local authorities to neglect their responsibilities. Politicians like to suggest they are in touch with the voter and listen to what they want but they seem to have some wax in their ears on this one. It would be nice to see a local councillor somewhere in the country to take up the issue of allotments and the lack of them.