A DAY ON THE ALLOTMENT

A DAY ON THE ALLOTMENT

As summer fades and autumn begins to show with the first autumn colour on my saskatoons which have a short season I still find plenty of jobs around. Anna and I decide to have an hour or so on the plot, as the Autumn Bliss raspberries will always produce a decent picking, and it shouldn’t take too long to cut a few vegetables. I thought I was well ahead with most of the seasonal work.

However we were still there four hours later as it is so easy to find numerous wee jobs to do.

We did get quite a few rasps, but also a few brambles from my thornless Helen, a few strawberries from Flamenco and five large sweet figs just ready to eat. So although we had not planned on a long stay we still managed to have our three o’clock coffee break minus the coffee, but with loads of fresh healthy fruit to eat, and just on time the sun decided to appear. Allotment life is no all that bad.

Weather forecasts were giving us a couple of dry days, so I decided to weed the whole plot using my onion hoe. Recent harvesting of crops was very demanding of time so weeding got ignored for the last month. Now was the time to chop them out before they got too big.

While I was weeding Anna cracked on with the fruit picking, then cleared away the old Kelvedon Wonder pea stems and supports as the crop had been picked.

A row of Physalis, the Cape Gooseberry planted against a warm south facing corrugated fence has now grown four feet tall with quite a few lanterns hanging along the stems. We need a warm autumn for these to ripen up, so we hope this brilliant summer continues for a wee bit longer.

Vegetables

Cabbage Kilaton has now hearted up and is ready to harvest. It is a late summer, early autumn cabbage that will keep us going till November when the January King winter cabbage will then be ready.

Nets have kept the pigeons away and collars prevented rootfly maggots. However these collars are perfect hideouts for slugs so pellets are necessary. The variety Kilaton is clubroot resistant so this year it has been a great success. Cabbage white butterflies have had a great year and caterpillars have had to be picked off all cabbage, cauliflowers and sprouts at least once a week.

Spring cabbage April and over wintering spring cauliflower Aalsmeer has established very well from a planting made about six weeks ago, but a few were showing signs of stress. Turns out to be clubroot as none of these are resistant, but I kept plenty of spares so I did a wee bit of replanting.

Beetroot have had a fantastic year and we will have plenty to overwinter as we use a lot of these very healthy vegetables in soups and numerous other dishes. Anna lifted a few to take home together with some Golden Ball turnip, radish, lettuce, kale, Swiss chard and the new salad leaf Polycress. This is the first of my autumn salad leaf vegetables to germinate and grow, though most of the others are not far behind.

Flowers

Chrysanthemums are all in flower as well as gladioli giving us plenty of cut flower for the house.

The front of my allotment has a flower border to add a bit of colour and now the bright orange African marigolds are in full flower growing up from a bed of deep blue lobelia Crystal Palace.

Gardeners must always plan well ahead, so I have several rows of Forget me nots and Polyanthus planted out in rows in well prepared soil. These will bulk up and give me good plants to lift for autumn planting of spring flowering bedding plants. I usually have a lot of wallflower for my spring displays but this year the seed failed to germinate and I only got about ten plants, whereas I normally get well over a hundred plants from one packet of seeds. I won’t use that seed supplier again. Now that next years bedding display will all be low growing plants I will have to order a fresh batch of low growing tulips to plant with them as my normal tall growing varieties will be too big. I will look at bulb planting next week.

Plant of the week

Astilbe comes in many red, pink, mauve and white shades, though my favourite has always been the bright red “Fanal” Astilbe prefers a cool moist shaded area and is perfect around the edges of a woodland pond. It is a perennial herbaceous plant that dies down in winter, but regrows again in spring. Make sure any new plants are kept well watered after planting to get them established. They can be propagated by careful crown division in late autumn, and are best divided after three or four years to maintain plant vigour.

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END OF A BRILLIANT SUMMER

END OF A BRILLIANT SUMMER

Nothing lasts forever, so I guess our long summer heat wave had to end sometime, so when the rain eventually did come it was very welcome.

Flowers have been glorious this year, with roses now into the second flush, though recent wet weather has brought back some blackspot. Wall climbers had their main flush then got summer pruned to remove any rose hips and encourage new growth for late summer blooms.

Bedding begonias and geraniums have never stopped flowering all summer. Geranium flowers produced a lot of seed heads, but these were removed so they can continue to bloom.

Outdoor fuchsia shrub Mrs Popple grows four feet every year and is a mass of flowers. Although these will produce fruits, they are allowed to develop as I like to eat them when they ripen. They have a sweet peppery flavour.

Into the greenhouse

In the greenhouse the tomatoes are very heavy with huge trusses of fruit. As it is impossible to eat them all Anna makes some delicious tomato soup.

Jalapeno peppers are producing a very heavy crop from just two plants in one growbag, but are refusing to turn red. More patience needed, while Anna looks for more hot dishes to experiment with. Realising the enormous health benefits from peppers and chillis Anna is throwing caution to the wind and living life in the danger zone. She is now cooking with Scotch Bonnet peppers; better get some yoghurt ready to cool down if things get a bit hot.

Red seedless grape Flame is now being picked while Black Hamburg slowly ripens and turns black. This is a crucial moment while grapes swell, ripen and turn softer. They are very prone to fungal attacks so keep the glasshouse well ventilated and do not water at all. The roots should have grown very deep so surface dry soil should not be a problem. Watering at this stage could split the grapes and cause botrytis to form and spread to healthy grapes. Remove any split grapes as soon as they appear.

Fruit trees

Early apple Oslin, the Arbroath Pippin has now finished cropping. It is a small golden coloured fruit with a distinct muscat flavour. It does not store well, so has to be eaten within a couple of weeks. However my other early apple Discovery is now ready and has a longer storage life, though I still leave the fruit on the tree for as long as possible.

Plum Victoria has a huge crop this year, so the problem will be, how can we use them all. The freezers are full of summer fruits and I am running out of demijohns.

Autumn Bliss raspberries continue to produce large sweet berries and my perpetual strawberry Flamenco gives us a steady picking of very flavoursome fruit though the plants are very slow to grow and produce runners.

Vegetables

As crops such as onions, French and broad beans, peas, salads, beetroot, cabbage, cauliflower and sweet corn finish cropping and the ground gets cleared, there is still time for successional sowing.

Lettuce, radish, spring onions are the obvious ones for a late sowing, but I am now also into trying autumn salad leaf vegetables. So I have now sown a few rows of Oriental mustard mix, rocket, land cress, polycress, corn salad, and how about pak choi, tatsoi, mizuna, choy sum gunsho and komatsuna. If they all grow and I present Anna with these culinary delights for the kitchen she will have her work cut out finding out how to use them. Life on the allotment never stays the same but can an old dog learn new tricks. I could have a few stories to tell in a couple of months time.

Plant of the week

Fig Brown Turkey has also enjoyed the summer this year. We have been eating figs almost every day since the end of August. The fig starts to bend over when it ripens as the stem goes soft, so it is easy to tell when to pick them. Always check low down under the canopy for fruit as many are hidden by the large exotic leaves. My bush is about six years old, six foot tall and pruned to try and keep it close to the wall supporting it. Roots are restricted as the planting bed was lined with paving slabs to discourage excessive growth.

Painting of the month

Climbing rose Mme Alfred Carrier was a mass of dazzling white scented flowers when some art students on my painting workshop in July went out to paint them. They needed some guidance so I gave a one hour painting demonstration on site then finished it off in the studio. It is an acrylic painting on a small board. We had a day painting on the allotments, then another at Rait village, (always a favourite place for a Scottish village painting) then a day around the garden.

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A TASTE OF THE EXOTIC

A TASTE OF THE EXOTIC

I managed to find a spare week for a wee holiday so it was back to Benidorm in Spain (my fourth trip to Benidorm) to catch some sunshine, relax and take a break from gardening and art. My last trip was five years ago, and although I was determined to forget work for at least a week, it was just impossible. The bright blue skies and colours of holiday makers in summer dresses, then the quaint old town centre in Benidorm were all screaming out to be captured on canvas, so before long the camera was out and I returned home with enough excellent images for about twenty paintings.

This year I was having none of that, but then my other major interest in gardening kicked in and before long the camera was out but this time it was the exotic plants, trees and flowers in focus rather than the people. I suppose I need the stimulation of work to relax. I can spend a few hours on a lounger by the pool or on the beach, but then once your lily white Scottish skin begins to warm up as it heads towards a lobster red colour, it is time to find another activity.

I am always conscious of the quality of fruit and vegetables as I grow most of what we eat and I am not impressed with supermarket produce where quality, flavour and goodness are sacrificed for uniform appearance and a long shelf life. We had a trip to the local outdoor market where the produce was not all uniform, some may have had a blemish or two, but it was very fresh and the taste was fantastic. How can you not be impressed with twelve large sweet tender figs needing to be eaten within two days for only 1.5 Euros, (about 10 pence each.) Back in our hotel we were very impressed with the quality and wide variety of food available. There was any amount of fresh fruit and vegetables. My favourites were the large ripe fresh tomatoes, peaches, pineapple and huge sweet soft black plums. However it was disappointing to see so many people opting for huge plates brimming with chips, sausages and beans, though beans are quite a healthy option.

Exotic plants

The hot dry climate of Spain suits plants we can only dream of as tender house plants. As Brits have been coming here for over fifty years most people will just take the native plants for granted, but I still enjoy marvelling at seeing our tender plants almost behaving like weeds here.

Fifty years ago everyone had a rubber tree plant, Ficus elastica, as the commonest, easy to grow house plant, which with a bit of feeding would reach the ceiling before it got the chop. You have to be impressed when you see them as huge trees creating very welcome shade from the hot sun.

Bougainvilleas create a riot of hot colour in spring in these hot countries, but even now there is still a lot of colour on them. Angel trumpets, the Datura is one of my favourite scented exotics for tubs, but now I find them as large shrubs pruned each year to stop them getting too big. However the prize winner for scent had to be the white flowered Jasmine, Jasminum polyanthum, planted at our hotel entrance so you caught the fragrance every time you walked through the door.

Another hotel had a dazzling bed of Portulacas in full flower. I have tried this half hardy summer bedding plant on several occasions, but our climate is just not warm enough to bring out all the flowers. Going further into the building where it was quite dark I found a marvellous bright red coloured Vriesia growing in a bed with other shade loving tropical plants.

One shopping area had large beds of flowering shrubs in full flower including the blue flowering Plumbago, bright yellow, orange and red Hibiscus, and salmon pink Oleanders.

Bananas are quite common here, so it was not unusual to see them planted as shade plants around our hotel pool, but when they all have large bunches of ripe bananas on them it does catch your attention. Dates, oranges, almonds and olives are planted amongst all the buildings and along the streets but more than likely to give shade and protection from the hot sun rather than for their fruit.

Evenings are very relaxing as we sit around the pool and bar where there is always some entertainment and still the scented jasmine fills the air. Then to keep you in a happy holiday mood they ask that daft question for a Scotsman as they pour you a couple of whiskies, “Just say when!!”

I always get stuck for words at this point.

If only that custom would find its way to Scotland. You have to dream.

Plant of the week

Gladioli are one of my essential cut flower plants for the house. I grow about sixty to one hundred corms every year. They add a lot of colour to the garden, the allotment and the house as cut flower where they can last a whole week or longer if you remove the fading lower flowers and a bit of stem so they don’t get leggy.

I plant then out on my allotment in mid May in rows a foot apart spacing the corms six inches apart and six inches deep in well composted soil and adding a handful of fertiliser. I also plant in the garden for colour but plant in natural looking drifts rather than formal rows.

They are pretty foolproof for pests and diseases and as long as they are planted deep enough they are fairly self supporting so I never need to stake them. Lift in late autumn and dry them off before storing them in a frost free airy place. Sometimes smaller corms don’t survive the dormant stage over winter in my frost free garage so I top up each year with a dozen or so new colours.

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SCENTED FLOWERS FOR SUMMER

SCENTED FLOWERS FOR SUMMER

Our summers are just too short in Scotland so we must make the most of every sunny day. Most gardens have some form of permanent plant structure to create form, boundaries, give privacy, screen eyesores or just to include some of our favourite plants. Each year we add to this a range of annuals and biennials to give colour and impact to borders, tubs and hanging baskets.

There is plenty of scope to consider scent as well as colour. Summer scents stay in the memory long after summer has gone and help to maintain pleasant thoughts of those happy days.

In the early stages of planting up the new garden or refurbishing an existing one with new plants there is a strong probability that scented trees, shrubs, roses, herbaceous plants and bulbs will be included as there are a lot of plants with scent. However once you have sorted out your favourites it is worth giving a lot of thought as to where they are best planted. If you have a sunny patio that is well used, then this is a must as well as around entrance doorways. Visitors will always be left with a good impression if they arrive amongst a strong waft of delicious perfumed plants, and sitting on the patio on sunny days is very pleasant if you can also enjoy some exotic scents.

Structure planting

Trees, large shrubs, and climbers planted along fences and on walls are all usually permanent and make a big impact on the landscape so choose the types very carefully. Many cherry trees such as Prunus Amanogawa are scented as are most lilacs, and coming down in size philadelphus may still grow very tall, but the scent is overpowering. Viburnum carlesii, juddii and carlcephallum all have a strong exotic perfume in early summer. Deciduous azaleas have a very pleasant scent of soft woodlands and coming down in scale the daphnes are one of the earliest to produce a scented flower.

House walls and all fences are perfect spaces to plant climbers or other suitable tall growing plants that can be trained to the support surfaces. There are numerous scented climbing roses and other shrub roses that can lend to being trained against a wall. My favourite pink one is Gertrude Jekyll and the Climbing sport of Ena harkness is a brilliant well formed deep red scented rose.

Honeysuckles are a must and if you have a sheltered spot try the white scented Jasminum polyanthum which can last many years but may not survive a severe frost in winter.

Beds and borders

Herbaceous and border plants are often used to bring the garden structure down to ground and lawn level and give ground cover to eliminate weeding. Flag iris, lilies, garden pinks and numerous herbs such as lavender, rosemary, thyme and mint will all add a range of different scents in early to late summer.

Tubs and hanging baskets

Most summer bedding plants are grown for sheer brilliance of colour as most do not have a scent, so I always include some blue petunias both for the deep blue colour but also for the scent. These always get planted in hanging baskets adjacent to house entrance doorways. For larger tubs try a dot plant such as the white flowered Datura, also known as Angels Trumpets, which has an exotic scent at its best in late evenings as it is trying to attract night flying moths.

Cut flower

If you have an allotment or large garden, and can afford to spare some ground for growing cut flower for the house, then plant a row of sweet peas. As you will be cutting flowering stems frequently you will not need to remove seed heads. Keep them well fed and watered and they will flower well into autumn. Border carnations are another perfect scented flower to grow for home decoration. There is a wide range of colours available and many have the strong clove scent.

Plant of the week

Shirley Poppies originated over a hundred years ago when a vicar, the Reverend William Wilks from the English parish of Shirley found attractive variations of wild field poppies which he then started to select from and breed a new strain. Over many years he established a range of colours from white, pink, mauve, red and lilac. They now come as singles, doubles and semi doubles. These annuals are easily grown from seed broadcast onto a prepared seed bed and lightly raked in. They do not need rich soil or fertiliser and even on poor soil will quickly grow and flower profusely all summer.

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