PUMPKINS

PUMPKINS

Pumpkins have been associated with Halloween for a long time, but there is a magic moment when you grow your own massive pumpkin fruit. My father introduced me to pumpkin growing when I was about ten years old hoping to get me interested in a spot of gardening. However the soils left over from the builders in the new St. Mary’s housing estate was not all that clever and without any additional manure or compost the resultant tennis ball sized pumpkins did not impress anyone. However fathers, peas, turnips, lettuce, radish and cabbages plus strawberries and raspberries helped to give me the gardening bug.

Picking pumpkins

Twenty years later it was my turn as by then I had my own garden and a huge allotment with plenty access to manure, leaf mould and compost, and with two young daughters to entertain, many hours were spent on the plot growing, planting and harvesting all sorts of vegetables and fruit. Wendy had the responsibility of making sure her sunflower reached as high into the sky as possible

Spooky lantern

whereas Val took on the task of growing a huge pumpkin. This did not get picked till Halloween and then the task of creating a scary lantern took a fair bit of time. As darkness descended the lantern turned spooky, but my young lady got so much fun from the event that she performs this ritual annually though now she has her own young daughter to teach the skills of creating spooky lanterns.

Way back in time to my early years before pumpkins were invented our Halloween lanterns were created from the biggest Swede turnip we could find, but life moved on and before long Swedes were replaced with monster sized pumpkins.

I think I have grown pumpkins as part of the normal range of fruit and vegetables to be grown on an allotment or garden for food. They are also a great challenge as when your patch of five or six orange balls starts to swell up into massive pumpkins the garden gets noticed.

Pumpkins are relatively easy to grow provided you give them plenty of feeding and watering and plenty of room to grow. They are gross feeders so they get the lion’s share of compost during the winter digging

Pumpkin flower

. Select a variety of seed known to produce huge fruits such as Hundredweight, and sow in individual pots in warm conditions in late April to early May. They soon germinate and grow so pot them up once they have filled their first pots and do not be in a hurry to plant out as they are still very tender and can be affected by cold weather and strong winds. June is a good month for planting out spacing them about a square metre apart. Water the plants in and add a mulch of rotted compost to retain moisture and add extra feeding as it rots down over the season. The plant will grow very vigorously with many side shoots. Although initially there will be plenty of flowers, they do not all produce fruit so wait till you have two decent fruit forming on each plant and then start to prune back over vigorous shoots if they are barren. Keep weekly feeding all summer so by mid October your prize pumpkins will start to impress.

Val's first pumpkin

As all my family have flown the nest our pumpkins are food (not lanterns) as over the years Anna has tested out numerous recipes to use up our pumpkins, so we just love this taste of autumn. My favourite is still roasted

Roast pumpkin slices

pumpkin slices sprinkled with some seasoning and nutmeg, and then drizzled with honey at serving. Pumpkin soup, risotto, pumpkin pie, pasta and cakes and the puree can be used in numerous dishes and surplus frozen for future use. However pumpkins can be stored for four to five months in a cool utility room. Pumpkins as well as being very tasty are just full of healthy goodness packed with fibre, and vitamins A and C and minerals. Seeds can be roasted and eaten, but do not save them for sowing in case they have been cross pollinated by bees visiting nearby courgettes, or you will end up with weird courgette shaped pumpkins.

Wee jobs to do this week

Geraniums at the end of October

Geraniums planted in a sheltered spot against a south facing wall will continue to flower well into autumn so don’t be in a rush to remove them when clearing out the last of the summer bedding plants. If we get another mild winter they can survive so take the chance and enjoy the flowers while they last.
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END OF SEASON TIDY UP

END OF SEASON TIDY UP

As autumn arrives and the summer flowers fade, and crop harvesting is well under way, we theoretically enter a quiet phase of gardening, (I’m told) so take the chance to carry out the end of season tidy up.

Tidying up the borders

October is my target month for the final weed clearing task from allotment plot, rose, shrub and flower borders and along paths and fence lines. At this time of year hoeing is not very effective as the sun is not strong enough to shrivel weeds up so hand weeding is preferred and weeds can go on the compost heap. Then as leaves begin to fall rake them up and put them on the compost heap. On the vegetable plot some plants lose the lower leaves such as Swedes, kale and sprouts so remove these to the compost heap. If you do not have room for two compost heaps, try to keep fresh additions separate from old rotted down compost as this will be in demand as the winter digging starts. Any land cleared of crops can get composted and dug over to leave it rough for winter to allow frosts to break down the soil surface. It is now too late to sow any more green manure crops, but if tares, clover,

Six month old compost

field beans, mustard or winter rye have been sown there is no rush to dig these in unless they were sown early and are likely to start flowering. In which case trample down the plants and dig then in carefully so they get completely buried and left to rot over the winter.

Late autumn to early winter is a good time for getting out the secateurs, loppers and a saw as fruit trees and bushes, tall shrubs, roses and raspberries will all need pruning. If you have access to a wood shredder put all the pruning through the machine and the resultant fine or course shreddings will be invaluable for allotment paths, mulching fruit trees or adding to the compost heap.

Prune grape vines

In the glasshouse tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and grapes will now be at the end of their season, though I have picked some Black Hamburg grapes in early December a few years back. This year most will have been picked by the end of October. Take the chance to carry out a good clean up. Wash the glass both inside and outside, removing any moss and algae from overlapping glass panes. Give the gutters a good clean as they usually fill up with moss and leaves and all sorts of debris. Repair any broken panes of glass and make sure the sliding doors runs smoothly.

Bring wooden patio tables indoors as there won’t be much opportunity to eat outdoors for quite some time. I store ours in the garage, which also gives me the chance to clear that place up to make room for tables and storage of fruit, flower bulbs and corms and vegetables. Check over the patio tables and give a coat of varnish to preserve them for another year.

Put out the bird table with fresh seeds

Towards the end of the month we put out the bird table for winter and top up with fresh seed. However be guided by the weather as there may well still be plenty of natural berries on trees and shrubs and if the winter is mild birds can still find insects, grubs and worms in the soil.

The lawns should just about be finished growing now so give them a last cut, but set the blades slightly higher than normal so they have some growth to see them through winter. Now is a good time to get out the springbok rake and give the lawn a good scarify to remove thatch and moss. It also improves the lawn if you spike it with a garden fork every six inches to a depth of at least four inches. Brush in a sandy lawn compost to fill the holes, improve surface drainage, and add a sprinkle of a long lasting lawn fertiliser.

Check lawn edges and repair any broken bits to keep the lawn looking pristine.

Wee jobs to do this week

Winter cauliflower

Plant spring cabbage, Durham Early or Duncan and cauliflower Aalsmeer from sowings made in July and August. These will overwinter and provide fresh spring greens and hearted cabbage and cauliflower in spring. Space cauliflowers about 18 inches apart each way, but cabbages can go closer if you intend to harvest alternate plants earlier as spring greens. Duncan is very versatile so can be also grown as a summer and autumn harvested cabbage by altering the sowing date.

Protect crops with netting against pigeons and put a few slug pellets down as they have thrived in this mild but wet summer.

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AUTUMN HARVESTING

AUTUMN HARVESTING

There was a time when the autumn harvest was all about potatoes and apples, but there are so many new crops and new types of existing crops that we are spoilt for choice as to what to pick, leave a bit longer or even take a chance with crops left in the ground in case we get yet another mild winter.

Harvesting Red Devil  and a few Bramley apples

Autumn raspberry Polka

Raspberries now come as summer and autumn fruiting with spine free stems and larger, sweeter fruit. It is mid October and I still have a few Polka raspberries to eat fresh, but Autumn Bliss fruit is past its best though ok for freezing for use in jams and compote.

Potatoes have now all been lifted, dried out and sacked up for storage in my garage. The crop weights have been outstanding with both Amour and Sarpo Mira producing massive spuds. Hopefully they will both store a long time. We are now using Lady Christl as the main potato as it does not store too well as young shoots want to break into growth, and our salad potato Casa Blanca gave us a very heavy crop of small but delicious potatoes.

Sorting out potatoes for storage

We are now into our fifth wet month, but with mild temperatures, so plant growth on everything has been luxuriant. Courgettes needed constant picking to keep sizes down before they looked like prize giant marrows, but still make great soup. Pumpkins continue to swell but rampart growth needed pruning before they took over half the allotment. Harvesting will be the end of the month.

The Oslin Apple

Apples may have been thinned twice in summer but still the trees are producing massive crops. The Oslin started us off with fresh apples in August, though suffered a fair bit of brown rot with the wet summer, to be followed by Discovery throughout September. A lovely early apple with a great flavour, but not so sweet this year due to lack of sunshine in these parts. Red Devil got picked early October and again the crop was massive with some really huge apples. Fiesta and Red Falstaff are still ripening up so wont get picked till the first few apples fall off naturally. Our cooker, Bramley is usually the last to get picked probably towards the end of the month, but then it is a brilliant keeper in store.

Apple Bramley

Pears appeared thin on the tree, but once they ripened up and started falling we discovered that we had quite a good crop and again there are some massive pears. Considering my pear has five different varieties grafted onto it over time, it has been quite difficult finding out how they are performing. Comice has no fruit, Conference just a few and Beurre Hardy is totally barren, but Christie has been prolific. Fruit may be a bit misshapen but very sweet and tasty. Concorde grafted in spring has four good shoots for fruiting next year or the following. I will cut down a few Beurre Hardy branches desperately reaching up to heaven and graft them with another variety called Beth which seems to do very well on City Road allotments.

Leeks, Swedes,

Leek Musselburgh

Parsnips, Kale, Sprouts, Cabbage and Cauliflower have all matured so picking/cutting can continue throughout the winter months.

Beetroot is another vegetable that just loves the warm but wet weather. Roots are plentiful and all are a good size. I have lifted some for storage in dry soil in boxes under cover, but still have three rows still growing happily on the plot. I’ll keep an eye on the weather and cover them over with soil for frost protection or if cold weather threatens they will get lifted for storing indoors.

Winter lettuce Hilde and winter hardy spring onions were planted on land cleared of onions, peas and early potatoes and are now just about ready for picking and should last for a few months.

Wee jobs to do this week

Taking geranium cuttings

Geraniums have had a great year and been in flower from late spring, and although they are still putting on a show now is the time to take cutting to ensure the display will continue next summer. Take strong young shoots and snap off at a leaf joint making a cutting three to four inches long. Remove lower leaves and any flower buds and pot up into well drained sandy compost. Keep them warm but not in the sun on a shady windowsill or greenhouse if it can have some heat over winter.

They will root after a couple of months but best leave them undisturbed till March before potting them up into small pots.

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TIME TO PLAN NEXT YEARS STRAWBERRIES

TIME TO PLAN NEXT YEARS STRAWBERRIES

Strawberry growing has always been a mixture of producing a very healthy and tasty fruit and rising to the challenge of growing them big, disease free, and over as long a season as possible. Way back to teenage years the normal growers season coincided with the school summer holidays as we were the pickers together with local folk from towns and villages. So the main picking was in early July. Growers had not yet discovered polythene tunnels.

Strawberry Elsanta

My horticultural career took me south to a farm in West Sussex in the late sixties where I first saw fields protected with low tunnels growing Red Gauntlet ready for picking in early June. However botrytis was a problem with most varieties at that time, so the crop got three sprays of fungicide plus a contact and residual weedkiller before the straw was run up the rows. Crops were still picked by our farm team of ladies from the village, plus local gypsies and many Londoners looking for some work in the sun with fresh air, good fruit to eat and good money if you worked hard. This was a working holiday for many of them.

Elsanta in tunnels

Today strawberry growing has moved on dramatically. Almost all the crop is commercially grown under tall tunnels and new varieties are not prone to botrytis, and as they are container grown there is no need for weed control around the plant.

On a garden scale we now have new varieties appearing every year so we can try out something different to sort out those that work best for our own locality. The challenge today is to pick the first strawberries well ahead of Wimbledon. With the right early variety such as Mae grown under a low polythene tunnel I can get my first berries by the third week in May.

Anna cooking strawberry jam

To sit outside on the patio on a sunny day for lunch with a plate of fresh strawberries you know summer has arrived, and it is only going to get better. Once you start to pick more than you can eat there is plenty for jam, compote and freezing. Where would we be without that freezer. It doesn’t seem that long ago when I was making 110 jars of jam (strawberry, raspberry and blackcurrant) during the berry season to last the next twelve months provided you stored them somewhere cool. We went through two pounds of jam every week, but needed it as lifestyle was very active looking after family, garden, allotment, car and home maintenance and weekend walks in the countryside.

Culture

I still grow my strawberries in rows three feet apart, spacing the plants six to twelve inches apart depending on availability of runners. With new varieties it may be wise to just take two seasons fruiting instead of the traditional three years as some are reluctant to produce runners after a couple of years. Today weed control is by hand or hoeing making sure the ground is clear before the straw is placed up the rows just before the first fruits start to show colour.

Lifting strong runners

Botrytis, red core and mildew are no longer a problem with modern varieties, but slugs, snails and birds just love them so slug pellets are essential and netting over the crop should keep the birds at bay. Other early varieties to try include Christine and Honeoye. Maincrop varieties include Elsanta Alice and Hapil, then two good late season strawberries are Florence and Symphony, but to continue the season into September look for the perpetual varieties like Flamenco. I tried Albion, but bright red berries with a texture like a wee red turnip did not impress me, and Colossus was not at all big and the plants had plenty of leaves but very few berries. It is getting dug out.

Wee jobs to do this week

Winter lettuce Vaila

Tomatoes will continue to ripen for a few days if the sun returns, but once the crop is over and the old plants get cleared out take the chance of the free space to grow some winter salads. Whether you grew your tomatoes in bags, pots or border it is a good idea to be well prepared by sowing the salads well in advance then prick out into cellular trays so they are a decent size for transplanting. Use a variety of winter hardy spring onion, winter hardy lettuce e.g. Hilde or Winter Density, some radish and Mezuna, Rocket or mixed salad leaves. Lightly fork over the surface and add some fertiliser then water plants in after planting.

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TIME TO PLAN FOR SPRING FLOWERS

TIME TO PLAN FOR SPRING FLOWERS

Planting tulips

The summer flowers are past their best, so now we look ahead to the spring for our next show of floral colour. Remove old summer bedding plants from borders, tubs and hanging baskets and put them on the compost heap. Remove some of the old compost and check for vine weevil grubs especially around fuchsias and begonias. Top up with some fresh compost and a dressing of fertiliser before planting up with wallflower, myosotis, polyanthus, primroses, pansies or other spring bedding plants. The display will be enhanced if you add some bulbs, but select carefully to match heights and colours. Tulip Apeldoorn, a tall red Darwin Hybrid is perfect with yellow wallflower, but for other low growing spring bedding plants choose from the range of dwarf double early tulips such as Abba, Sun Lover, Monte Orange and Global Desire.

Tulip Abba with Doronicums

Tulips can also enhance other garden plants flowering in spring such as the yellow Doronicums which I combine with the purple tulip Negrita as well as the red Abba. My earliest tulip Scarlet Baby, a dwarf red flowering in March is perfect with my yellow ground hugging saxifrage. It might also be the perfect companion for a drift of the early blue pulmonaria.

Some tulips have the strength to stand alone in a drift to naturalise and make a huge impact, coming back into flower year after year. Try some of the Darwin Hybrids like Apeldoorn, Golden Apeldoorn, and

Tulip Scarlet Baby

Orange Sun and if you want scent as well try the Fosteriana types such as the white Purissima. Many other tulips are described in catalogues as scented, and I have tried most of them, but only ever detected scent in Purissima. I have some drifts of these tall Darwin hybrids planted about twenty years ago and they flower every year in a slowly expanding drift without fail.

Phlox and red tulips

When planting up a spring hanging baskets pansies are favourite and often very long lasting well into mid summer. You can combine some crocus with these as they are not tall so work well together just fine.

Tubs and borders near main doors and patios can have some hyacinths planted both for colour and scent. Wallflowers are also important here for the same reasons of colour and spring scents.

Polyanthus and primroses are very popular for tubs but also a favourite for vine weevil attacks so if you suffer from these in your garden, use some of the biological controls, as they are very efficient.

These plants are also perennial so after flowering they can be lifted and lined out somewhere to grow on during the summer months and be ready to reuse the next autumn.

Narcissus February Gold

Daffodils are usually planted in borders often underneath deciduous trees and shrubs and bring in the spring from early March onwards. One of the earliest and very reliable is my favourite February Gold, but up north in Scotland it flowers in March. It has been extensively planted by Dundee City Council gardeners along many road side verges including the Lochee Road.

The large trumpet daffodils Golden Harvest, King Alfred and the white Mount Hood will all make a terrific display and repeat the show year after year, providing the narcissus fly leaves them alone.

Nearly all daffodils and narcissus are scented with the Jonquils and Cheerfulness types particularly strong. Always leave foliage on daffodils alone for a minimum of six weeks or longer if the foliage remains green to allow the bulb to go dormant naturally. This helps to build up strength in the dormant bulb to ensure good flowering the following year.

Picking Baby beet

Wee jobs to do this week

Beetroot can remain in the ground, over the next few months provided we continue to get mild winters, but it is a good idea to earth them up to give some protection in case of frosts. If normal winters threaten to return, lift them up for storage in boxes with dry soil or sand in a frost free shed or garage. Recent studies on the health benefits of beetroot almost put it in the superfoods category, and you can also use the leaves and stems. Beetroot is high in fibre, folic acid, potassium and manganese and the leaves and stems are rich in calcium, iron and vitamins A and C.

The juice is used by athletes as a health drink.

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