THE ALLOTMENT WORKOUT

THE ALLOTMENT WORKOUT

Gardening can be an exhausting hobby. As an apprentice gardener we were often used as a source of cheap labour. The Parks dept grew fields of potatoes and Swedes at Camperdown park for the schools kitchens and it was us that planted, weeded and lifted them, as well as sorting, cleaning, bagging and lifting the hundred weight sacks into stacks for storing. We were always competitive so hard work to us was fun, and as a wee treat we got a small bag of tatties home.

Digging drains by hand at Dawson Park all winter, as the machine kept breaking down, was also our task. We must have had plenty energy, as me and my fellow apprentice lived in St. Mary’s and we cycled to work each day. In the early sixties Dundee embarked on a programme of bringing flowers to the town so we grew roses by the thousand. All rose beds got double dug two feet deep adding in plenty of manure but the hard work was rewarded when the roses came into flower.

Today I have a fair sized garden plus an allotment, and as all works have to be done by the book, so single digging and double digging where necessary still have to get done.

Planting potatoes

It is a modern idea that the nation needs to get fit, so going to the gym for a workout is quite popular and fashionable. However it is not cheap and at times the repetitive exercises can be a wee bit boring, so I analysed all my gardening activities and reckon that getting an allotment will give you just as much exercise, but at a fraction of the cost. Annual renting of a plot of land is well below £50 a year. Add to that all the very fresh fruit and vegetables available all year round makes allotment life a better option to keep fit with added health benefits of fresh produce.

Shredding prunings at City Road allotments

During the winter months there is the digging, manuring, pruning fruit bushes and trees, then shredding the prunings which get wheel barrowed up steep paths to the compost heap. Any permanent planting of fruit trees and bushes will require soil to be double dug.

Then on dry days fences need fixing and sheds and greenhouses are sure to need repairs to keep them wind and water free.

In spring we break down the soil and rake it level ahead of sowing and planting. Deep furrows are needed for potato planting adding some compost to the bottom of the trench, then earthing them up.

The compost heap is beginning to build up, so it will need turning over to help fresh garden and kitchen waste to rot down. This task will need repeating another twice in summer and autumn.

As seedlings begin to grow they will need thinning out and weeds will take over unless you get down to soil level. Gardeners always develop strong backs with all this bending, and it doesn’t get any better with age as your sight is not as good as previous so you need to bend even closer to the ground so you can tell the weeds from the rows of seedlings.

Harvesting the Red Devil apples

Summer is when we get our rewards for all the hard work as we pick our first strawberries, raspberries, peas and the first of our early potatoes. Then as the temperatures rise we can relax on the patio with a small glass of Saskatoon, blackcurrant or apple homebrew. However these moments of sheer heaven are short lived as the harvesting season kicks in with a very heavy crop of broad beans, picking the whole crop in the morning, get the beans out of the pods, remove the skins from each seed, then bag up for the freezer, to be completed so we can sit down and relax before the ten o’clock news comes on. Then it is the onions to lift and dry off, followed by sweet corn.

Autumn now kicks in and serious harvesting begins with potatoes then apples, plums and pears.

When you look back over the year, you begin to wonder if membership of a local gym might be no such a bad idea.

Wee jobs to do this week

As new crops begin to grow but will take several weeks to use up their allotted space, sow some quick maturing catch crops such as radish, salad leaves or rocket.

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LIFE ON THE PLOT

LIFE ON THE PLOT

The gardener’s weather plays a very important role in our activities. Plant growth was running around two weeks or more later than normal, then all of a sudden we get our Scottish summer (three, sorry, four continuous cloudless hot days in mid May) on the east of Scotland while the south of England has been basking in hot weather for weeks. However it was brilliant to see the Isle of Skye as the country hot spot for sun and high temperatures. It has always been one of my favourite holiday destinations and gives me a wealth of images to paint.

However coming back from holiday mode and down to soil level, it has been great to catch up with planting and sowing, and even watering as our soil begins to dry out.

City road allotments has been a hive of activity as plotters enjoy a spot of leisure gardening. Weeds have not been a big problem as the cool spring held them back, but now seed sowing and planting are at full speed, but land is scarce as some overwintered crops are still taking up space. I have excellent winter hardy lettuce, Swiss chard, rocket and spring onions ready for the table from early March onwards and my cauliflower Aalsmeer, sown last autumn will be ready at the end of May.

Overwintered lettuce and chard

Lettuce, radish, spring onions and beetroot sown early in cellular trays indoors and transplanted under low polythene tunnels is now well established and I should be picking the first of these fresh healthy salads at the beginning of June.

Strawberry Elsanta, also under tunnels is well ahead and I hope to pick my first fruit at the end of this month especially if this warm spell continues. I am trying a new perpetual strawberry called Albion. This everbearer was bred in California and gets a good rating so I hope our Scottish climate doesn’t give him a fright. Another strawberry newcomer to try out is Sweet Colossus said to have gigantic fruit and still very sweet and juicy. Better make sure the slugs and local blackbirds are kept well at bay.

Strawberry Elsanta under tunnel

Parsnip, turnip and swede have all been sown and my first early pea Kelvedon Wonder and first early potato Casa Blanca are all well up. Both got earthed up earlier just in case of a late frost.

Dwarf French beans are now sown and other plotters have planted out their runner beans, started earlier under cold greenhouses.

Summer cabbage, cauliflower, sprouts and kale are now all planted and protected from slugs, (pellets) rootfly (collars) and pigeons with nets.

Pumpkins and courgettes sown at the beginning of May and pricked out into individual pots in mid May are well ahead, but the land where they are destined to grow has been sown down with a clover green manure. Unfortunately the cold weather has held this back, so the idea might not be successful this year. Time will tell.

Saskatoons in flower

This green manured patch was also earmarked for my sweet corn, but these grew so rapidly that they needed planting well before the clover even germinated, so they are now planted on another patch earmarked for root crops. As this area had not been manured, I brought in a load of well rotted garden compost and forked it in just a few inches deep. They seem quite happy at this stage.

Gladioli and chrysanthemums give me some cut flower for the house as well as adding colour to the plot, so they always find a spot in the crop rotation. Good weather has allowed planting of these.

Wee jobs around the garden

Heathers of the Calluna type often flower in summer to autumn. To keep the plants bushy trim back any long shoots removing about 4 to 6 inches as they are now beginning to grow beyond last years flower spike and looking a bit leggy.

Remove seed heads from daffodils and tulips and discard. Seed heads from other bulbs such as snowdrops, crocus, anemone blanda, chionodoxa and aconites can be saved or scattered to increase stock as these will all grow again. However bluebells and grape hyacinths should be discarded once they have filled their allotted space otherwise they would love to take over the garden.

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A DAY IN THE GREENHOUSE

A DAY IN THE GREENHOUSE

April and early May have had more than their share of cold biting winds, but the greenhouse is protected from this, so plants have been putting on a lot of growth. Trying to harden off my onions, dahlias and sweet corn has been a real headache. They go out on a sunny morning but with strong cold winds, then with a wee frost forecast over nights, they had to go back inside, only to repeat this process day after day. The hardier plants such as my cabbages, cauliflower and sprouts went out, never suffered much so they are all now planted. Geraniums are quite tough, so they went out early, then in mid April many got planted in tubs and pots. However some had put on a good bit of growth, then along came the strong winds and broke them in half.

I still have a lot of young dahlia and chrysanthemum cuttings recently rooted and now ready to pot up, but they will stay in the greenhouse for a week or so to get established.

Fig cuttings, grape vine cuttings and some gooseberry cuttings will stay a bit longer under glass as they are slow to put on growth.

Planting tomatoes in prepared border

Pumpkins & courgettes sown in late April have now germinated and will soon be potted up into individual pots, and will remain in the greenhouse for a few more weeks.

Tuberous begonias are always slow to grow. I have about forty growing in deep polystyrene boxes, but now the foliage is expanding they will need separating and either boxing up with a lot more space or potting up into big pots. They may take up a lot of glasshouse space, but they would not be happy with these cold nights and strong winds, so hardening off will be a wee bit later.

A summer hanging basket planted with fuchsia Southern Belle, is still under glass as the fuchsia has been extremely slow to put on any growth. My outdoor hardy fuchsia Mrs Popple has more shoots on it. Southern Belle needs a few more warm sunny days.

The tomato border has now been prepared with digging in a lot of good garden compost and adding some fertiliser. It was then well watered and a couple of days later my tomatoes got planted. My main crop is still favourite Alicante with Sweet Million my best cherry type and this year I am trying another cherry, the yellow fruited Sungold, and a beefsteak type known as Costoluto fiorentino, an Italian Heirloom variety.

Pepper Tobasco sown in mid March germinated just fine then got potted up, but they really need warm conditions, so growth has been at a standstill. Just like humans they eagerly await the summer. Whatever happened to the promise of a wee bit of global warming for Scotland!!!

Fuchsia Southern Belle

Grape Black Hamburg and Siegerebe both appear to be well ahead in growth and many shoots are showing two bunches of grapes. There was an abundance of young shoots from every spur and most had bunches, so some thinning was necessary. I took out all the weakest shoots and on one upright rod thinned all the grapes to one bunch per shoot to give me a bigger dessert size bunch, but on another rod I am allowing all the bunches to develop. This will give me smaller grapes, but hopefully a heavier crop which is better for my wine making.

Wee jobs around the garden

Late spring is often a time when we can take advantage of a few dry days to do some spraying. Knowing the rain will not wash the chemicals off is important as most need a few dry days to work. Spray paths with an herbicide containing glyphosate which is absorbed by the leaves which then translocate it to the roots to kill all of the weeds.

Moss on lawns and drives can be controlled with sulphate of iron at a rate of one dessert spoon per two gallon can.

Greenfly on roses, blackcurrants, gooseberries and blackfly on cherries can be killed off with an insecticide designed to tackle greenfly and a host of other pests.

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TULIPS

TULIPS

This must be one of the best ever years for spring flowering bulbs. In normal years we get a spring flush when a few really sunny warm days all come along together, but there has been none of that this year. Instead the long cool spell has been a boon as flowers are slow to open but remain in place for much longer than normal. Thus the tulips are having a great time alongside the daffodils and narcissi which are continuing to flower well past their season.

The garden is now seeing the benefits of flower bulb recycling over the years, as all bulbs used in flower beds, pots, tubs and baskets are replanted all over the garden and allowed to naturalise. Left to do their own thing without disturbance, and given a wee dressing of well rotted garden compost in early winter they seem to thrive and clumps build up over time to create magnificent drifts of mixed colours.

Tulip Carnaval du Nice

Last autumn flower tubs were planted up with polyanthus and winter pansies all underplanted with tulips, hyacinths and crocus. The tulips used were all dwarf early types so the flowers would show just above the bedding plants. Some of my favourite tulips included Monsella, Red Riding Hood, Peach Blossom and Abba. One large wooden tub has a group of scented oriental lilies for summer colour and fragrance. To give some spring colour the tub was also planted with Iceland poppies and a yellow single early tulip Cape Town. These will all be left to naturalise, but if the Iceland poppies begin to go over in mid summer they will be replaced with another late summer bedding plant.

I have always experimented with companion planting, so I thought it would be great to start the show early with tulips flowering alongside other garden plants. Tulip Scarlet Baby, an early flowering kaufmaniana type was planted adjacent to a large established drift of lemon yellow saxifrage. This year timing was perfect as they both came out together in early April, but my plan to add early orange tulips into a drift of blue pulmonaria is another story. I used a dwarf early variety, Monte Orange which never opened up till the end of April while the Pulmonaria was in full flower at the beginning of April. Just can’t win them all. This autumn I must find an earlier tulip.

Tulip Monsella

However my triumph tulip Negrita a deep purple growing 18 inches tall was just perfect mixed amongst a new planting of yellow Doronicums. Both are flowering together this year so I will leave them to naturalise, hoping next year they will still flower at the same time.

Last year I found a highly scented white tulip, Purissima. The scent was very pleasant so after some research I discovered there are quite a few scented tulips so I thought I would try several scented tulips to see if this feature had any prominence.

I bought another batch of Purissima, a fosteriana type frowering in mid April, some William of Orange, Abba and Monte Orange. I cannot say I got one whiff of scent from any of them, unless they need a warm humid atmosphere to give off their perfume. Even my own established Purissima let me down. Maybe it is just too cold this year for exotic scented tulips.

Up at the allotment I have a flower bed next to the main path to brighten up the plot. It has a permanent planting of a few roses, flag iris and Iceland poppies, with bulbs between them. It is

Tulip Aperdoorn

packed with daffodils, crocus, aconites and tulips so I get a continuous show from spring till autumn. The bulbs have been in the ground for many years and I add more whenever I see a wee gap. It is no longer possible to cultivate the soil so I just add some garden compost in autumn and the worms do the rest.

Wee jobs around the garden

As cold north winds continue to blow and frosty nights remain a problem, watch out for growth on early potatoes and earth up to give them some protection. My Casablanca appeared above ground in mid April one month after planting, but now towards the end of April there is still little sign of warm spring days. Similarly, early sown peas such as Kelvedon Wonder is now showing the tips breaking through the soil, so if frost threatens the either cover them with fleece or some soil.

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SPRING SOWING AND PLANTING

SPRING SOWING AND PLANTING

Sunny days are arriving so now we can get down to some serious sowing and planting on the vegetable patch. A lot of plants have been ready to plant, but it was necessary to wait till the soil had warmed up as cold north winds continue to dominate our spring weather.

Broad beans however are quite hardy so these were planted at the end of March and are now getting established, though the late cold weather did not help them.

Onions sown at the end of February had to wait a fair bit in the cold greenhouse to thicken up before they were big enough to plant out near the end of April.

Pea Kelvedon Wonder was sown at the beginning of April, but more in the hope that warmer weather was just round the corner. I am sure they will appear and grow just fine, but weather forecasts keep warning us of cold winds coming from the north, so I will be ready to give them a wee earth up if necessary.

John with lettuce ready to plant

Lettuce, radish, spring onions and beetroot grown in cellular trays eventually made some decent plants to plant out on my plot under a low polythene tunnel. This protection should bring them on fast, so salad days will soon be with us, though I am still getting plenty of use from my overwintered lettuce, spring onions and rocket. The rocket may be running up to seed, but the plants are still producing plenty of fresh leaves to use. Swiss chard sown last autumn has overwintered just fine and is now growing strongly so the row will get thinned out.

Other overwintered crops are now either finished such as my Swedes, sprouts and leeks but there is still plenty kale, cabbage, parsnips and soon my cauliflower Aalsmeer will be hearting up.

Turnips and parsnips have now been sown as we have had quite a few dry sunny but cool days when working the soil has been good.

My first green manure crop of clover has been sown on the ground allocated to my pumpkins, courgettes and sweet corn as these will not get planted till early June. I hope to get a good cover then dig it in a week before planting. Some people prefer to cut off the top growth and compost it in case it hinders planting. This ground has been well composted in winter as pumpkins, courgettes and sweet corn are heavy feeders and need fertile soil. The sweet corn has now been potted up into final pots to grow into bigger plants ahead of planting.

Sweet corn potted up

The greenhouse has been a hive of activity as plants get potted up and need more room so anything that is hardy goes outside. My tuberous begonia collection just gets bigger every year and although growth is well behind they still take up a lot of space. So young cabbage, cauliflower and brussel sprouts plants are now all outdoors getting hardened off. The greenhouse border got a load of well rotted garden compost added and dug in to get ready for tomato planting direct into the border.

Sweet peas are also quite hardy so they went outdoors in mid April for planting out in very fertile soil at the end of April.

Geraniums are another hardy flower and several got so big I just had to get them planted into some tubs, at present full of pansies and tulips. So I had to remove some pansies to a flower border to make room. I now have geraniums in flower with a group of tulips waiting to open up. I’ve not tried that combination before.

Wee jobs around the garden

Rhubarb is now in full growth as the ground is still moist and warmer days appearing every so often, so start pulling off some sticks for immediate use and if you get a heavier crop than you can use then put some in the freezer. Remove any flower stalks as soon as they appear. Rhubarb used to be the poor man’s fruit as it was easy to grow and very cheap, but now research has shown it to be very important for good health. It is packed with vitamins C, K and B and the minerals calcium, potassium, manganese and magnesium. It should be eaten all year round and is just about reaching superfood status.

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