A BUSY TIME IN THE GARDEN

A BUSY TIME IN THE GARDEN

The spring rush is just round the corner. Last year it was in full flow at this time, but spring 2017 has been quite cool, so there has been no rush to start outdoor seed sowing and planting.

Anna transplanting tomato seedlings

Last year I planted my first early Casablanca potatoes on the 20^th March, but this year the soil has not yet warmed up so they will have to wait a bit longer. The potatoes are all sprouting in their chitting trays but not putting on any growth to worry about.

Sweet peas are very disappointing this year. I bought three varieties to try but there was only ten seeds in each packet and I only got one of my favourite Air warden to germinate. The seed company from Newmarket will not be getting another order from me next year. Other seed packets were all very sparse. Gone are the days when you sowed half the packet one year and kept the rest for the next year. The sweet peas are very slow to grow so not yet big enough to go outside on a warm day.

Trying out some new chrysanthemums this year, so my delivery of plants from Harold Walker arrived on time with excellent strong well rooted cuttings, which are now potted up. Existing spray type chrysanthemum stools in the greenhouse are all growing well so a batch of cuttings was taken and will root in a small heated propagator.

Dahlias showing new growth

Dahlias boxed up a few weeks ago and kept in a warm place are now beginning to grow so soon another batch of cuttings will follow for the propagator.

Begonia tubers were beginning to sprout so they have

now all been boxed up and put into my cold greenhouse which I give some supplementary heating to on cold days and nights.

Broad beans and established geraniums are all growing well, but with continual gales and cool weather they will need to wait a bit before going outside to harden off.

Sowing continues with cabbage Kilaxy, cauliflower Clapton and Brussels sprouts Crispus (all my clubroot resistant varieties) as well as lettuce All Year Round, spring onions and beetroot Boltardy. These

Young seedlings

will be planted outdoors direct from their cellular trays into a bed warmed up with a low polythene tunnel at the end of April.

Last year’s leek crop of Musselburgh was very disappointing so this year I will try a different variety, Autumn Mammoth and sowing them earlier, but because of the cold weather they have gone into trays and will soon be needing pricked off.

Onions sown earlier are now all growing well and they are now ready for pricking off as soon as we get some warmer days. If you are using sets they can be planted at the first decent dry day onto well prepared and enriched soil.

Rhubarb ready to pick

As cooler weather limits what I can put outdoors for hardening off the greenhouse is getting very cramped, but I am lucky with having a lot of good windowsill space so my tomatoes are still indoors but needing pricked out into cellular trays. Later they will go into pots and get transferred to the greenhouse as the cooler atmosphere and better light will keep them sturdy.

The cool moist weather is just perfect for lifting and transplanting snowdrops and aconites in the green as they will get less disturbance, and continue to grow for a few more weeks, before dormancy begins and they die down for the summer.

Transplanting aconites in the green

Rhubarb crowns have had an early start so pull a few fresh shoots as soon as they are a decent size, and at this time of year they will try and run to seed so remove these as soon as possible. Rhubarb is a thirsty plant with its huge leaves and a gross feeder so give a fertiliser dressing then a mulch of well rotted compost to retain moisture throughout the growing season.

Wee jobs to do this week

Keep checking for slugs and snails and put down some pellets where ever you are planting young vulnerable plants such as salads, beans, sweet peas, as the mild winter has not helped to reduce the numbers overwintering, and they will be feeling hungry. Greenhouses with young seedlings and soft cuttings are a magnet as there are so many places to hide underneath pots and boxes.

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GROW SOMETHING DIFFERENT

GROW SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Grape Brant

Gardening just like technology is moving onwards at a fast pace. The days when we get an allotment to grow healthy food from a cheap packet of seeds are a distant memory. We still do that, but new plants are appearing at a fast pace, either an improvement on standard varieties so they are less prone to pests and diseases, (clubroot resistant cabbage Kilaton) or just a bigger version of normal plants like strawberry (Sweet Colossus), blackcurrant (Big Ben) or potato (Amour.) Every year we plan the garden with normal plants plus something

Aronia Viking

different to create a challenge to our gardening skills and give us an interesting topic of conversation to visitors to our gardens and allotments. Often new ventures one year soon become common place through success. I first tried sweet corn many years ago and was amazed how easy it was to grow this rare crop up north, but now they are almost a normal part of many allotment rotations. Mangetout peas were once a curiosity, but as a tasty and healthy crop to consume they have become quite popular.

Although I continue to try out new plants, so do many other plot holders on the allotment site.

Saskatoon berries

Last year the new crop was sweet potatoes, but it was not very happy with our climate.

Cape Gooseberry can be successful in greenhouses, but can be quite vigorous taking up a lot of space, so try them out on a south facing fence or wall in a sheltered spot. In a good summer they can be brilliant.

Scorzonera and Salsify were two root crops I just had to try out as I was intrigued by their names. They were easy to grow, and tasty on the plate, but a lot of work in preparation for cooking for such a small return. The same applied to kohlrabi as it does not have size on its side.

Our site will now have a Kiwi on trial, so I hope it has better success than my Goji which was very rampant for about four years then got wiped out as phytophthora fungus spread through my soil before I could see my first berry.

Fig Brown Turkey

Grapes growing outdoors are my latest venture into the exotics with some success but need a decent summer and autumn to ripen up the fruit and increase the sugar content. Both Rondo and Phoenix show a lot of promise, and Regent is also good but with smaller grapes. I want to try Siegerrebe outdoors, though it can be troubled by wasps as they know the grapes are very sweet.

Figs are another success, and I am very surprised they are not widely grown as they have been very successful year after year growing against a south facing wall on my allotment site. However I started them off by the book which indicated you plant them in a deep slab lined pit with a lot of drainage and only just enough good top soil to get them started. The roots will soon escape into the soil, but the initial restriction curtails excessive vigour and encourages fruiting.

Peach Peregrine

Cherries on the new dwarfing rootstock Gisela 5 is suitable for garden culture and saskatoons and chokeberries are some of the newer kids on the block for those into healthy black berries. If you can spare the space in the greenhouse, or have a very warm windowsill try the pepper variety the Carolina Reaper. The challenge is in the growing as it really needs a hot climate, but once you get the fruit what do you do with the hottest pepper on the planet where it has to be handled with protective gloves. This is not one to add to a summer salad dish, but there is plenty information around to keep you safe and enjoy its merits, and scientists are finding beneficial effects to sufferers of osteoarthritis. It will certainly be a great topic for conversation.

Wee jobs to do this week

Planting broad beans

This could be a long week as there are a hundred wee jobs all needing attention. Broad beans and sweet peas sown last month are now needing hardened off so they can be planted on the next warm day. Onions and leeks from seed as well as tomatoes are all needing pricked out, and it is time to sow cabbage, cauliflower, sprouts, kale and any amount of salads. Then in spare moments take cuttings of early chrysanthemums and dahlias if they are big enough. Geraniums grown from cuttings last autumn have now been potted into their final pots.

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GRAFTING APPLE AND PEAR TREES

GRAFTING APPLE AND PEAR TREES

As the world moves on into an age of high technology, change and progress are happening at all levels. There is no excuse now not to buy an apple tree as I don’t have a big garden. Breeders and scientists have produced trees to suit both commercial orchards as well as the enthusiastic gardener with small gardens. The step over apple tree grafted onto a dwarfing rootstock grows only a few feet tall but is kept small with summer pruning. Another dwarf tree is the single stemmed Starline apple (Firedance is a great variety) kept narrow and columnar also by summer pruning all side shoots to a couple of buds. Other apples for small gardens come as cordons, espaliers, fans or dwarf bushes all grown on dwarfing rootstocks.

John picks Red Devil apples

However you still have to sort out a good variety that is disease resistant, easy to grow and has good flavour, but to complicate matters you want an early variety to start picking ripe fruit at the end of August, continue for a few more months on the tree then in store for a few more months.

Cutting a scion for grafting

Over the years I have grown many varieties so now I can pick from end of August with those in storage taking me through winter. My first apple of the season started with the heritage variety the Oslin also known as the Arbroath Pippin, then my early Discovery takes over for a few more weeks. Maincrop Red Devil, and Red Falstaff keep me in apples into winter then finally it was the end of February before my last Fiesta reached the plate though the cooker Bramley lasted till March.

My garden my be bigger than your average, and I have four trees, but to get my wide range of varieties one large tree is a family

Scion inserted into prepared branch

tree with at least six different varieties grown on it, and every time some-one shows me a must have variety, I get some young shoots and graft it onto my tree.

My pear tree has undergone the same treatment and now has Comice, Conference, The Christie, Beurre Hardy and soon Concorde will be added to it.

In my early youth I was shown how to graft while working at the Scottish Crop Research Institute which had a museum collection of apples from all over the world to try and find varieties suited to Scottish conditions so grafting was a common practise. It sounded very technical and difficult, but is surprisingly easy and it is a wonderful feeling when you check up in early summer and find all the grafts

Grafted shoot tied and sealed with grafting wax

have taken and are pushing up strong growth.

Today the technique is shown on many Youtube videos, and you do not need many tools other than a very sharp knife, a pair of loppers or a saw and a wee tub of wound sealer or grafting wax which can be applied cold.
In winter I collect strong one year old shoots of a good variety which I want to add onto my tree and heel them into a shaded cool spot in the garden. In spring once trees begin to grow the sap starts rising and acts like a lubricant helping the bark to separate from the stem to allow our graft to be easily inserted and the sap will bring the two together. The tree is prepared by selecting a branch to be grafted and cutting it down to allow space for a new shoot to grow. If this branch cut is about one inch across it will take one graft, but if you are doing a larger branch say four inches across it will take three grafts. Take the graftwood (also known as scions) and clean any soil from it. Now make a two inch long cut going right through the stem near the bottom of the shoot

Grafts begin to grow

between two dormant buds with one bud opposite the sloping cut. Trim this scion to about three or four buds. It is now ready. Make a downward cut about two inches long at the top of the prepared branch and gently flick open the bark slightly. This will allow the short scion to be inserted with the flat cut against the inside. Commercially this is now tied tight with grafting tape, but I don’t have any so I cut up strips from some polythene bags and they do the same job just fine. Now seal up any exposed cut surfaces with some wound sealant or grafting wax. If you are doing a few varieties tie a label on them so you know what they are, then await warmer weather for the new shoots to grow.

Paul Barnett from Sussex has grafted over 250 varieties on one tree over the last 24 years.

Wee jobs to do this week

Mixed pansies

Check over pots, tubs and hanging baskets planted last autumn with spring flowering pansies and primroses and replace any that have died in winter. There are now plenty in flower available now in most garden centres.

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TIME FOR TOMATOES

TIME FOR TOMATOES

Tomato growing has always been one of the gardening challenges with great rewards when you pick that first fruit fully ripened on the bush, and then followed by loads more as the season progresses. Summer salads would never be complete without some home grown tomatoes.

Beefsteak tomato

At this time of year they are available in the supermarkets, but you struggle very hard to find a ripe one with some flavour, though we did find a small red cherry one on the vine, to go with our salads with lettuce leaves and spring onions fresh from the greenhouse. They had been sown last autumn to utilise the greenhouse borders over the winter months.

Early March is soon enough to sow the seed as I germinate mine at home on a warm windowsill growing them on a few weeks before they go into my cold greenhouse. If any frost or cold nights threaten them I have an electric heater to keep them protected over night.

Alicante tomato

Sow them thinly in shallow trays in seed compost and keep them warm for germination. They are generally very easy to grow so germination is usually good. Prick them out into individual small pots once they have made strong seed leaves and only handle them by the leaves, (not the stem)

As my windowsill space is limited I keep them as long as possible in small pots, but soon they will need a bigger pot and transferred to the greenhouse. Keep them growing in the pots until the first trusses show, then they are ready for their permanent position.

Tomato Ilde

There are several options to consider. Do you use large pots, ring culture, grow bags, straw bales (very popular fifty years ago) or border soil. I have tried all methods and while grow bags make life simple, it is growing in fertile border soil that has given my tomatoes the greatest flavour. This used to be the traditional method (many years ago) but commercially the soil was sterilised every winter with steam injection or chemically with chloropicrin. My fertile border soil has been composted and dug every year and I got three years of great crops, but as I have no means of sterilising the soil, last year my crop  Anyway I will try the border again this year, but then go back to growbags in 2018. The border will have some fertiliser added then the tomatoes planted about 18 inches apart. Once they get established and the first trusses start to flower begin to feed the plants with a tomato feed every week.

Ring culture tomatoes

suffered from verticillium wilt. So this year I take no risk, so the whole border got dug out a foot deep and replaced with healthy fertile garden soil with added compost. Who needs to go to the gym for exercise when you can grow a tomato crop.

Tomatoes grow on a single stemmed cordon that needs a strong support especially when full of ripening fruit. I use six foot lengths of polypropylene binder twine hung from roof wire supports and tied to the bottom of the tomato plants which are then twisted around the twine as they grow.

Remove all sideshoots so the plant can use its energy for fruiting. Remove the growing point after six to eight trusses or more if you get a glorious summer as tomatoes love the heat.

There are plenty of varieties and different types to try out from normal fruits such as Shirley or Alicante, cherry types such as Sweet Million and Sungold, beef stake types, plum types and a good one for hanging baskets or tubs is Tumbler.

Let the fruit fully ripen before picking and if you get more tomatoes than you can handle they will make an excellent soup, or they can be frozen for future use.

Wee jobs to do this week

Sampling first strawberry in May

There is nothing to beat picking that first strawberry in early summer. Our target date was first week in June in my youth when Red Gauntlet was favourite down in Sussex. Today we have so many new varieties to choose from that you can try a few and see which ones suit your location and conditions best. However, to bring on them on a fortnight earlier cover a row with a low polythene tunnel held up with metal hoops. Last year I picked my first berries on 22 May, but with the mild winter we are running ahead so could be even earlier this year. Fingers crossed!!!

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