REVIEW OF THE YEAR

REVIEW OF THE YEAR                      

City Road Allotments Doors Open Day

rose Oshima

The past year has been so diverse for weather and its affects on garden plants that it’s hard to know where to begin. It has certainly not been a normal year, and plants have been just as bewildered as the gardeners. It started off at the beginning of the year as a normal mild winter with my snowdrops beginning to flower the previous year in December.  Oddly enough outdoor Fuchsia Mrs Popple did not like the mild winter and died back to ground level, but recovered later. I guess she knew what was ahead. As winter was relatively dry with little snow or frost, winter cultivations were well ahead of schedule. Then just as we were beginning to enjoy it, the weather turned colder and spring never really arrived. Cold biting winds continued for a few months delaying flowering of spring blossom on trees, fruit bushes, spring bulbs and flowers. The season slowed down and we were running three weeks late. On the apple, pear, plum and peach trees the flowers were in abundance but opened late so there were plenty bees around for pollination. However the trees could not support such huge crops so when the June drop came in June (not the usual July) it was severe and a lot of crop fell off.

Gold certificate for Anna's garden

Prior to this, the Beast from the East arrived in UK at the end of February and lasted a few weeks. Even Dundee got a bit of snow. However summer arrived at Easter and lasted a whole day, but then the snow returned on Easter Monday. A pattern emerged of decent weather followed by rain and gales for a few weeks, but if you watched the weather forecasts you could crack on with sowing and planting then stand back as the rain arrived to water the plants in. The spring flowers lasted forever as the climate was not too hot and there was plenty moisture. Tulips made a dazzling display.

Grape Brant

Summer returned in May and June with a vengeance trying to make up those three lost weeks. My climbing roses were a mass of colour and outdoor grape vines hanging heavy with potential crop then the gales arrived in June shredding leaves off fruit bushes, shrivelling up crops, flattening rows of raspberries, blowing away my polythene tunnels and breaking flowering shoots on my climbing roses. However the summer returned again, the rain disappeared and we ended up in the tropics for ages. Temperatures got so high that my sun lounger found a permanent spot in the shade. Plants recovered and strong growth resumed as well as flowering. Roses had a great year as did geraniums. On the allotment all crops were in abundance. Cabbage, cauliflowers, courgettes, pumpkins were never better. Sweet corn grew very tall and I harvested numerous large sweet cobs. Salads had a great year as did potatoes as the hot dry weather kept blight at bay, but the rows needed

Early strawberries

constant watering. Only crop to suffer was onions as they are prone to white rot with artificial watering, but would suffer in the heat wave if they got left out. They got harvested before the September gales arrived and had another go at flattening out the garden, and bringing down the apple crops.

Greenhouse crops were protected from the weather but needed constant ventilation to eliminate condensation and keep temperatures down. Tomatoes were all brilliant except Marmande which gave a very poor crop. The yellow cherry Sungold and Red Cherry were brilliant. Grape crops Siegerrebe and Solaris gave heavy crops which both ripened in August. Figs were another success as the tropical summer suited them perfectly, though oddly enough I got a better crop last year when we got a rotten summer. That I cannot explain. Weather was in our favour for our two

A selection of tomatoes

allotment events at our Open Day in August as well as the Doors Open Day in September. Our City Road allotments won an award for best site in Dundee and I got top spot for best allotment in Dundee and not wanting to be left out, Anna got a Gold Certificate for her garden in the competition run by Dundee City Council. I think the best memory of 2018 will be that tropical summer of wall to wall summer with no rain for months, and enjoying the garden flowers from a shady spot on the patio.

Best wishes for 2019 from John and Anna

 Wee jobs to do this week

As this is the last week of the year it must be time to relax, wind down, and stop trying to think up another ten minute wee job needing done, which you know will take a good couple of hours. Best stay indoors and open up that Christmas gift of a quality malt whisky. Cheers from John and Anna.
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FESTIVE GARDENING

FESTIVE GARDENING            

As Christmas is just a few days away we are more likely to get into relaxation mode rather than try and catch up with all those outstanding gardening tasks. Main problem to solve; will the gooseberry wine, the Saskatoon wine or the redcurrant be

Best wishes for Christmas from John and Anna

best for the Christmas table, and will Santa bring along a couple of bottles of good malt whisky. Anna will need my best sprouts, and this year they are huge, some Swedes, cabbage, kale, leeks and parsnips. We still have plenty beetroot in the ground and so far there hasn’t been any frost to bother them, and after the Christmas meal it is no a bad idea to keep some salad ready for the following days when you need something a wee bit lighter. The three rows of winter lettuce are all ready to use as well as rocket and spring onion.

A few winter vegetables

After a long dry spell in autumn the early winter rains started in mid November and stopped soil cultivations, so the winter digging is running behind schedule, but as a lot of the allotment has a covering of green manure the digging can wait a few more weeks. Areas of cleared crops will get composted and dug over first remembering to allocate compost quantity to heavy feeders, those that just need an organic top up and root crops which get none. It is a great task to keep you warm on a cold and frosty morning. Pruning rose bushes is another task I often keep for an early winter task when I’m keen to get outdoors but the ground

Christmas cactus

may be frozen, and there is always the chance that I may get a couple of blooms at Christmas. Looking ahead the mild winter phenomenon is almost becoming normal, but this year the bets are on for a bad winter to balance out and follow on from the brilliant summer. However at this point in time as my snowdrops begin to flower I am betting on another mild winter. In mid December the weather has turned reasonably mild, the sun is out so I wander around the garden to see if winter is upon us. Some roses are still flowering, pansies and polyanthus in tubs are still colourful, Fuchsia Mrs Popple shows no signs of giving up and my border pinks are still in bloom. The winter weather might restrict outdoor gardening, but there are still a few odd jobs to do in the greenhouse and indoors on the windowsills. In the greenhouse the old tomato plants have now been removed and chopped up for the compost heap. All

Early snowdrops

the grape vines have gone dormant and dropped all their leaves, so these get cleared up. Grape vine pruning will be done in early January both under glass and outdoors.

I had a fair few geraniums lifted from flower borders and potted up to give me a good start next year. These were in my cold greenhouse, but with cold weather now settling in they had to be moved indoors in a cool but sunny windowsill where they will stay till next March. Geraniums grown from cuttings take up less room, but I still keep them cool otherwise they will grow away fast and need potting up and more space.

Impatiens

Impatiens grown from cuttings in jars full of water quickly rooted, then got potted up, and are now happily blooming in a warm room. My Amaryllis bulb dried off in the greenhouse after growing throughout the summer got started into growth again in early November, but I doubt if it will be in flower for Christmas. Fingers crossed. My Christmas cactus is also flowering, but not as good as previous years so next spring I will take the shoots as cuttings and start again from a young plant. Poinsettias are now available from garden centres and stores and are not expensive, but almost essential as festive decorations in the house. However, this year there will be no orchids in bloom over Christmas as my two phalaenopsis are taking a break. They flowered so profusely for almost the whole year so I think they deserve a wee rest.

Patio tables go into storage

Wee jobs to do this week

Bring in outdoor garden furniture made from wood such as tables and chairs. Once they have dried out they can be cleaned and repaired if required, and sometime over the winter give them a coat of varnish to freshen them up.
Sun loungers are usually put into storage in October as it is then too cold for tea on the patio. It will be the end of March or early April before these get dusted off and get back to the patio.
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RASPBERRIES

RASPBERRIES

Autumn Bliss

My introduction to the humble raspberry was in the early fifties when this eight year old followed a group of young kids from our housing estate to our local raspberry fields, just a ten minute walk away. It was a magical moment when I first tasted

Planting raspberry canes

the fruit, and then when I filled a bucket of berries and handed them over to the farmer I got paid. A few years later, as the young apprentice gardener keen to learn horticultural skills, I purchased a few canes to grow my own raspberries in my garden. It was probably Malling Promise variety, though at that time Lloyd George and Norfolk Giant were also very popular. However Norfolk Giant was so vigorous that you needed to learn to arch over the canes in winter when you tied them onto the wires. Later on Malling Jewel appeared and became the favourite for many years. Raspberry breeders are still very busy seeking out those with excellent flavours, canes that are spine free and plants that can resist pests and diseases. Work on raspberry breeding has been going on for a very long time at the Scottish Crops Research Institute, now known as the James Hutton Institute. The early success with Glen Ample was a big breakthrough, but then the raspberry root rot phytophthora rubi appeared and devastated field production. Breeders added resistance to this disease a priority both here and other countries. Demand from supermarkets for clean fruit and the need to protect canes from soil borne disease changed the growing system, so now raspberries are

Pruning Autumn raspberry canes

grown in containers off the ground and under the protection of polythene tunnels. However the home gardener is still most likely to grow them in a row outdoors, but we can take advantage of new varieties as they are released to the trade. I now grow Glen Fyne and Glen Dee for my summer fruiting crops and Polka and Autumn Treasure for autumn fruiting. I also have Autumn Bliss, one of the first autumn fruiting varieties which is very reliable, but the stems are full of wee spines so picking can be unpleasant on a warm day with bare arms. Nikki Jennings has been very busy breeding new varieties at James Hutton Institute and this year the latest to be released is Glen Carron, a summer fruiting variety with excellent flavour and size, and spine free canes with good resistance to cane diseases. Nikki has another excellent summer fruiting variety RBC16F6 showing good resistance to

Raspberry Glen Carron

phytophthora root rot still under trial as well as two autumn fruiting varieties, RBC16P4 and RBC16P5, as yet un-named.

Soil cultivation and planting

Raspberries can continue to fruit for well over ten years, so make sure soil cultivations are at their best. Take out a trench and fork up the bottom adding plenty of manure or compost then backfill. Plant canes about a foot or more apart. In spring add some fertilizer and keep the rows weedfree.

Raspberry RBC16P5

In the second year they will need support with strong posts and wires at three feet and five feet from the ground. Summer fruiting varieties fruit on canes grown the previous year, so in winter cut out the old fruited canes and tie in the new canes so that they are about four inches apart along the top wire. Autumn fruiting varieties have all the canes cut back to ground level in winter. Raspberries like well drained fertile soil that retains moisture in summer and has a neutral pH. Once shoots begin to emerge in spring it is a good idea to add a mulch to retain moisture and suppress weeds.

Raspberries produce a lot of suckers which is fine along the rows but unwelcome anywhere else so remove these as they appear. The main pest is raspberry beetle which lays eggs which hatch and the maggot starts to eat its way into the centre. They can be controlled with carefully timed sprays at first pink fruit and a fortnight later.

Wee jobs to do this week

Drying off begonia tubers

Tuberous begonias that were lifted in November and brought indoors should now be quite dry, so clean off any soil and store them in boxes in a frost free garage or shed for the winter. Check tubers after a few weeks for any sign of vine weevils as they love begonias and the grubs will slowly eat the corms if not eradicated. Damage shows up as they burrow into the tuber leaving a wet hole.

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ART IN GARDENING

ART IN GARDENING

Gardening has always been in my blood from childhood days encouraged by both my granny and father who always liked to provide fresh food to feed the family. During my gardening apprenticeship (five years) I got the chance to learn how to create

Sophie watering geraniums

great looking gardens. My first landscape garden was my council house garden in St. Marys which got sweeping curves in the lawn, roses growing up the walls and brilliant spring and summer bedding plants. When my career took me to Dudley I got the chance to start planting trees to the bleak black

Cape Gooseberry

country landscape, then in Darlington it was a new golf course that needed my attention. Then moving north to Livingston New Town I started bulb planting by the thousand along highways and in urban housing estates.

Summer Colour

Creating beauty in garden landscapes from my small house garden to the larger outdoor landscapes was a big part of my life. However we all need a hobby and drawing and painting gave me the chance to extend my creative skills in other areas.

The principles of artistic beauty are the same for both creating an attractive garden or a painting. We look at shapes, colour, contrasts, composition, focal points, texture and fashion. My hobby of painting helped me to relax as I entered a different world away from every day pressures, then after submitting

Cottage in Rait

paintings to my first exhibition in Darlington, I got my first red dot (the mark for a sold painting) and my life changed. My casual hobby of painting took on a more serious role and I started to paint at every spare moment. I saw beauty all around me from Scottish towns, villages, flowers, snow scenes and figures. However my garden activities provided me with a great source of subjects ready to capture on canvas. At first it was red poppies growing in huge fields near Herriot Watt University captured on two canvases. They were very popular so I used the images to publish as prints. These were added to with my Fuchsia Swingtime and my favourite roses in a bowl, but as a proud Dundonian I had to paint the town as there were so many places I admired. The daffodils around Magdalen Green Bandstand were perfect for a large canvas in oil.

The Market

Artists tend to work in projects so one idea for a painting of an orchid left me with the problem, do I paint that lovely white Phalaenopsis, the red Cattleya Saturn or the golden Cymbidium. Problem solved I decided to paint all of them plus several more that caught my eye.

Ideas in the gardening world were also demanding attention when I tasted some Saskatoon berries on a holiday in Canada. No-one in the UK was growing them so I got some seed and before long I had about twenty small plants. I needed an allotment to plant them in, so visited City Road and got the perfect plot. This opened up another place of interest for paintings as it turned out to be a poppy paradise. Ramshackle sheds, quaint steps, dilapidated fences and floral patios to relax on were all screaming to be captured on canvas. Arthurs plot got painted three times, then there was the leaning apple tree, some gorgeous hollyhocks against a blue fence and a plot smothered in Californian poppies. It turned out to be the perfect spot for an outdoor art workshop, though one lady seeking my help asked me to hold a poppy still while she

Waiting Patiently

painted it, as it was blowing in the wind.

Still life paintings needed some good cape gooseberries, grapes and peppers from the greenhouse and raspberries from the plot, but spring flowers left me spoilt for choice from snowdrops pushing above the snow, Iceland poppies and flag Iris to daffodils and tulips.

Even in a figure study, “Waiting Patiently” I had to add a cracking red 

Amaryllis to the background.

Wee jobs to do this week

Pruning grape vine Brant

Grape vines both outdoors and in greenhouses are best pruned any time in December and January. Any later and the risk of sap weeping is high as grapes like to start growing quite early. Under glass they are usually grown as upright rods spaced about 18 inches apart. All sideshoots growing from these rods are cut back to a couple buds. As grapes need a lot of warmth to ripen up the bunches they are best planted against south facing walls or fences in Scotland. Establish a framework of main shoots either fan shaped or in laterals spaced same as rods and again all sideshoots are trimmed back to the main stems.
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GET READY FOR WINTER

GET READY FOR WINTER

Although the trees, shrubs and garden plants are ready for their winter rest as they go dormant, no such luck for the gardener. The day length in

John gathers up the leaves

winter may be shorter, but we can always find a job to do while there is light. Right now the wee jobs are just piling up as we prepare for the winter lying ahead. Every dry day is a bonus to get on with the winter digging, but on days when the soil is wet we can be checking tree stakes and ties, fix fences,

Check over apples in store

paths, and give the compost heap another turn as it is now overloaded with fallen leaves. In inclement weather we can be in the garage sorting out and checking stored produce, cleaning pots and seed trays, or in the greenhouse cleaning up and preparing the borders for next year’s tomatoes. Pruning of the grape vine is left till mid December to January, and the prunings will be just fine for a batch of cuttings for some new plants.

Outdoor jobs

The dormant season is a perfect time for pruning fruit bushes, fruit trees and roses. However the pruning will vary for each one as flower and fruit for some is on older wood on spurs, some on last years shoots and some on shoots growing the same year.

Apples and pears fruit best on young spurs formed on shoots a couple of years old as well as older shoots so try to achieve a balance of both young shoots as well as older branches. Trees grown as fans

Dry off gladioli corms

on walls or grown as cordons or stepover trees get spur pruned where summer pruning is done to reduce shoot vigour then further pruned in winter to a couple of buds to form spurs.

Plums are best left alone in winter otherwise they are liable to infection of silver leaf disease. Prune them in summer.

Figs grown on walls as fans are kept in check by removing vigorous shoots growing too far away from the wall, and only a bit of minimal pruning to keep a good shape.

Summer fruiting raspberries have all the previous years fruiting

Rose pruning

canes removed and the new canes tied in. Autumn fruiting raspberries have everything cut down to the ground as they fruit on wood grown in the same year.

Saskatoons need some height management to make netting easy to erect. I try to keep the height down to less than six feet by removing a few tall shoots right down to the ground.

Blackcurrants fruit on one year old wood best so remove some older wood every year.

Gooseberries and redcurrants both fruit on spurs so cut back young shoots in summer before fruiting then cut them back further in winter to control vigour and encourage fruiting.

Roses flower best on young shoots so look for shoots growing near the base and take off about half. Remove weak shoots and older wood if it can be replaced with a young shoot.

Other winter tasks

Pot up Amaryllis bulbs

Now most of the leaves have dropped we can rake them up and add them to the compost heap.

Continue digging, adding in manure or compost and leaving the soil surface rough to allow winter weathering so the soil breaks down easily to a fine tilth in spring for seed sowing and planting. No rush to dig over areas sown down with green manures as these will be fine for a few more months.

Lift gladioli and chrysanthemums that have now finished flowering. Box up the chrysanthemums and keep growing slowly in the greenhouse, but dry off the gladioli corms for storing indoors.

Check fruit and vegetables in store and remove any with signs of brown rots.

Wheres ma seeds

Pot up Amaryllis bulbs kept dry over summer and start them back into growth on a warm windowsill.

Wee jobs to do this week

Put out bird table and feeders now that berries are getting scarcer, especially after the autumn gales that were so severe that many plants lost their fruit as it got blasted off the trees and shrubs. Feeders are best hung from tree branches on strong string so mice cannot reach them. Keep the feeders clean and also put out a shallow container for water to drink and splash in to keep clean.