HARVEST SOME HEALTHY CROPS

                                          HARVEST SOME HEALTHY CROPS

Life under lockdown has been a new way to see modern day living with plenty time to look at what we are doing now compared to life before the pandemic. Folk living in flats without a garden or an allotment have my full sympathy. However those with gardens and allotments and plenty of time on their hands are seeing a new way to live.

Summer garden produce

As lockdown has closed so many restaurants, shops, and pubs and it has not been so easy to go out for a meal, or even get a takeaway. Junk food is harder to find and that is no a bad thing. Folk are now growing more of their own fruit and vegetables with their kids involved from seed sowing to planting then on to harvesting. Getting them to do a bit of

weeding is a harder task!!! The adults just love to see fresh fruit and vegetables harvested and ready to eat in the same day, and totally chemical free. Just a pity there may be a few small slugs on the lettuce and the odd greenfly hiding in the kale, and you soon learn how to find those wee maggots in the raspberries, and the odd caterpillar in the cauliflower.

Blueberries

We all have more time now to practise new cooking skills especially as plenty magazines have numerous recipes to try out. Folk are slowly learning that a more healthy lifestyle has many benefits and as we grow our own food we get plenty exercise, and allotment life is quite sociable as we can still chatter from a distance over the garden fence. Plot holders today are from all over the world including China, Philippines, Japan so we learn how to grow exotic crops as well as our tried and tested potatoes, cabbages, peas and turnips. People are now looking at health benefits of fruit and vegetables as well as taste. Most plot holders have no problem getting their five fruits and vegetables a day, and many including myself are often on ten a day if you include a good salad. Some of my favourite foods with ample health benefits will include some of the following.

Spring rhubarb

Black fruits such as grapes, blackcurrants, chokeberry, blueberries and saskatoons are all high in vitamin C and antioxidants, especially the chokeberry, but as the fruit is a wee bit astringent it is best cooked in compote, sauces or in jams and also makes a very tasty and healthy red wine.

Rhubarb was for a long time the poor man’s fruit, but now it is being recognized as very healthy,

being high in anti-oxidants, and the minerals calcium and potassium. It is also very tasty in tarts, crumbles, and stewed. Nearly every allotment plot will have a clump of rhubarb.

Strawberries are high in fibre, vitamins C and K and the minerals manganese and potassium, and figs are similar but also have vitamin A and B and the minerals zinc and copper. Using a range of varieties and polythene tunnels to give an early crop I can enjoy strawberries from May till

October, though last year the wet weather rotted most of my late crop. Fingers crossed for this year.

Swiss chard

Beetroot and chard are very high in antioxidants, magnesium, sodium, potassium and vitamin C. The leaves and stems are rich in calcium, iron and the vitamins A and C. The juice of beetroots is used by athletes as a health drink and although traditionally we always pickled them, they can also be used in risotto, chutney, spiced beetroot, and my favourite beetroot soup.

Tomatoes contain vitamins A, C and E, some B vitamins and vitamin K, and this year I will enjoy the cherry tomato Sungold and the red cherry Super Sweet 100.

Peppers are very high in Vitamin C, vitamin A, and most of the vitamin B range, as well as the

minerals potassium, magnesium and iron, and if you can get used to some of the hotter varieties

research has indicated these have an amazing range of health benefits including a healthy heart, stomach, reduce migraines and joint pains, and help to prevent colds, flu and some allergies.

Wee jobs to do this week

Californian poppies

Tidy up herbaceous borders where early flowering bulbs (snowdrops, aconites, crocus daffodils and tulips) planted for an early display between drifts of plants have now finished and withered leaves can be removed. Oriental poppies and peonies have now also finished and dying leaves can be cut back. Any bare soil can be planted up with summer bedding plants such as geraniums or annuals such as Californian poppies, godetia, cornflower and Candytuft.

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GOOD GROWING WEATHER SOMETIMES

                                     GOOD GROWING WEATHER SOMETIMES

Gardeners and farmers have one thing in common. We just love to moan about the weather. Nearly all our crop failures can be weather related. After last years long wet spell it was hard to believe the long dry sunny weather from the beginning of April lasted up to the middle of June.

Anna cooking the jam

Plants just loved it as long as I got the hose out nearly every day. I kept checking the local weather forecasts who kept promising us some rain, but it never arrived in Dundee. Growth was lush on all crops, and flowers were plentiful from the spring crocus, daffodils and tulips, azaleas, rhododendrons and now the geraniums are flowering themselves to death. The dry weather prevented most annual weeds from getting a start. Life was brilliant as the gardener was in paradise. Thoughts of the coronavirus problems were far from our minds, but nothing is perfect. The great weather also suited greenfly so plagues arrived on my roses, garden pinks, oriental lilies and in the greenhouse they had a go at my peppers and basil. On the allotment it was the cut worms, leather jackets and cabbage root fly that had a picnic among my cabbage, kale, sprouts and cauliflowers. However the sunny weather brought on my strawberries so Anna was able to start her jam making. Nets had to be used on all my strawberries as the blackbird likes to run up the row taking small bites from several berries. Why cant they just eat one whole one. Just when I was beginning to like our glorious summer, the forecasters told us there was gales coming. This time they were right. Along came the winds from the north. Young autumn raspberry

Courgettes now in flower

canes got shredded and blown over. The supports just could not hold them. The wind was so severe it dessicated the foliage on my blueberries, (no fruit this year) then whipped through my pear trees. The entire crop got blown off. Fortunately I hadn’t planted out my pumpkins or courgettes as I put them back in the greenhouse for a couple of days. They have now been planted out and growing very strong with the first flowers now in bloom. Climbing rose

Dublin Bay lost numerous flowers broken off before they got a chance to open up.

Potatoes got planted in mid March, same time as last year, but in April just when the foliage was about a foot high we got a bad frost which blackened the soft leaves. However they survived and I picked my first shaw in early June.

Summer flowers in pots

Potatoes were not big, but then Casa Blanca is a salad potato and these new potatoes are very tasty. That late frost also blackened my early strawberry Christine’s flowers, even although they were under a polythene tunnel, but they still have more flowers being produced and cropping very well from late May. I get a great feeling of satisfaction when I can take home some fresh strawberries, a lettuce, a few spring onions, radish, some rocket and a good

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boiling of new potatoes. Its the beginning of the harvest with plenty more to come. Other vegetables are all growing strongly with no sign of weevils or blackfly on my beans, and no white rot on my onions even though I have had to water them frequently. Sweet corn has established well and now putting on good growth, as this patch had been green manured early on. I am trying Cape

Gooseberries this year hoping our global warming is just what they need. Some are planted

outdoors in a sheltered spot and others potted up and placed against a warm south facing wall.

Two apple trees grafted a few weeks ago are now showing signs of growth on some varieties.

Sweet peas grown up individual canes with sideshoots and tendrills removed are beginning to flower whereas those grown up wire supports for a display have yet to come into flower.

Summer bedding plants in tubs, hanging baskets and borders have responded to the sunny weather and most have their first flowers, but geraniums have never stopped flowering. They are now in first place for impact of colour.

Wee jobs to do this week

Tomatoes now on second truss

Tomatoes in the greenhouse got off to a flying start with plenty sunshine and my watering and feeding. They are now flowering on the third truss. They are grown as single stem cordons twisted up polypropylene twine suspended from roof wires. Side shoots are removed as they appear and with the sunny weather vents are fully open as is the door to give maximum ventilation.

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LONG SUNNY SPELL BRINGS OUT THE FLOWERS

                                LONG SUNNY SPELL BRINGS OUT THE FLOWERS

Although lockdown restrictions are now being relaxed a wee bit and we can now venture out, but not too far, it is still great to return to our place of rest and relaxation amongst the early summer flowers in the garden.

Cistus purpureus

After two months of continuous sunshine and very warm temperatures

towards the end of May and into June the flowers just love it as long as we give them plenty

irrigation. Rain has been non existent apart from one April shower at the end of April, none in May, and a bit more beginning June so with a bit of luck the soil water deficit will be returned to normal and planting can continue without the need to water before and after every planting of vegetables and summer bedding plants. This is a great time for flowers from shrubs, herbaceous, ground cover and the first summer bedding plants and now all the roses are well into their flowering season.

Iris Jeanne Price

Rhododendrons and Azaleas were at their best in May but later varieties are still in great form into June provided they got plenty water during the dry spell. Anna took the opportunity to practise some layering of the best Azalea colours so we can add a few more plants. The lockdown has given us more time to see which plants give the biggest colour impact and others that are not so great, so these will need replacing. Some Phlox subulata, Doronicum and Pulmonaria died out as the dry weather was not to their liking so they will be replaced with a few drought tolerant plants such as the succulent ground hugging Delosperma nubigenum. This is very easy to propagate from cuttings so a batch of plants are now growing in cellular trays. They will be ready to plant in a couple of months. Alliums put on a good display but it was very short lived in the dry weather.

Oriental Poppies

Viburnum mariesii and Cistus purpureus were both looking great but they had to have constant

watering to prevent the flowers flagging. However Lilacs flowered over a long time and my outdoor Fuchsia Mrs Popple has started flowering and will continue till the autumn.

Our small border of herbaceous plants has been a real eye catcher as the bright red Oriental Poppies with huge flowers all came out together. Red Peonies are also in flower apart from pink Doreen, as well as the first bearded iris. My favourites are the deep purple Dusky Challenger and the yellow Jeanne Price. Border pinks are also trying to flower but the unusual sunny weather, which is

normally in their favour, may also be helping an invasion of aphids on both flowering shoots and leaves. There is just too many to kill by rubbing off so the sprayer will be needed.

Pansies still flowering

Greenfly are also a serious problem on the Oriental lilies, roses, both bush, shrub and climbing. The first rose out was the climbers Dublin Bay and Gertrude Jekyll and the first bush was the white scented Margaret Merrill, but spoiled by the greenfly invasion. The last two are both scented with a lovely perfume letting me know I don’t have that coronavirus symptom. Even amongst all the summer flowers it is hard to forget the pandemic is never too far away.

The spring bedding plants of wallflower, tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and crocus are now all finished apart from some polyanthus in a shaded border that are still flowering and my two hanging baskets of winter pansies are still a mass of colour. They may have been replaced but I keep them on the patio as long as they keep flowering, but now it is the turn for the geraniums, begonias, petunias, nemesia and marigolds to provide the colour in summer. At the present moment all the geraniums are bursting into flower as they just love all this sunshine. Lets hope it continues.

Wee jobs to do this week

First pick of strawberries

^th May. So much for two months of continuous sunshine, though the late frost did blacken the first flowers. The local blackbirds just love them so make sure the row is covered with a net. Slugs also enjoy the strawberry so sprinkle a few slug pellets along the rows, and place some straw between the rows to prevent rain splashing soil onto the fruits. Also watch out for mice as they are also fond of a few berries. They eat the seeds around the surface but leave the rest to rot. Enjoy this summer fruit.

Early varieties of Strawberries like Mae and Christine are now ready for picking. My first berries were ready at end of May but last year I was picking on 11

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LOCKDOWN IN THE GARDEN

                                               LOCKDOWN IN THE GARDEN

It has taken a major disaster to let people see the benefits of a garden. Prior to the coronavirus

epidemic, gardens were going out of favour as they involved a wee bit of hard graft, (digging,

Auralia paints her new fence

planting and weeding) and as more and more folk have cars they need somewhere to park them so gardens lost out to hard landscaping of slabs, setts, paving, gravel and tarmac. Today there are also so many leisure activities that gardening was relegated to the lower levels of the popularity table.

Then along comes the virulent virus and social life and many jobs came to a standstill. Now we are all in lockdown, what on earth can we get up to relieve boredom. Those of us with gardens will be fine and even a lot better if we also have an allotment. For folk living in flats and those with

concrete gardens the answer seems to be getting an allotment. Interest in gardening has

Steve and Erica dig up the lawn

mushroomed but there is a problem of access to plants, seeds, compost, pots, etc. as garden centres are all closed. Fortunately everybody is now becoming competent in ordering online so we get our gardening supplies delivered to our home, though hopefully when this goes to print the garden centres will all be open and doing a great trade.

Most gardens are not all that big so there is a limit on just how many garden jobs we can find. I have been amazed. Our City Road Allotments have both a website and a Facebook page.

While on Facebook you get invited to join other garden groups like Allotments Online. There are masses of new entrants into the world of gardening who just have not got a clue, but are very keen to learn. Some folk that just got a plot very overgrown and in a short space of time it was cleaned up and planted with photos provided. Very impressive.

Anne and Frank's Hot Tub

Gardens are going through a period of transformation as folk have all the time in the world, while in lockdown, to think about plans to modernise their gardens. Garden fences are being repaired and

Dino Daly creates his wee garden

painted, paths and steps are being repaired. New greenhouses are being erected as well as sheds, and patios being constructed to allow more enjoyable leisure time. There is a move to get back to nature and kids are very much involved as parents want to show them where food comes from. Up at City Road Allotments Karen is helping young Dino with a natural bug garden and pond with

tadpoles so he can see them grow into frogs which hopefully will help to keep the slugs down.

Luke and mum get ready for the Parkour challenge

Another chap is building a Wendy House for the kids who now are frequent visitors to our site. On

another plot Jane is very much inspired to indulge in her creative poetry sitting blissful amongst the flowers and plants she enjoys growing. On my plot I now have the time to indulge in taking

gardening up one level. This year I am growing sweet peas to exhibition standards having been taught those skills sixty years ago up at Camperdown nursery (now a zoo) where we grew a few hundred for council functions. I never forgot the method. Lockdown has curtailed our allotment committee activities, so there is no longer any plot inspections and vacant plots are not re let but

Jane writes some poetry

volunteers still plant up these vacant plots and we offer produce to passers by with baskets of

vegetables and fruit for free left outside the gate on City Road. Another couple of friends, Frank and Anne decided to install a hot tub in the garden to enjoy a wee bit of lockdown in luxury. Friends over in Glasgow are digging up the lawn to give more space to growing vegetables with help from the kids. Their garden is terraced on several levels with fences. Just the perfect location for young Luke to create a Parkour free running, jumping, climbing trail for charity encouraged by Captain Tom Moore’s very successful charity walk. Luke who is only 7 years old raised £300 for charity.

Wee jobs to do this week

Pumpkins and courgettes just planted

Early June is a good time to plant courgettes and pumpkins. The long spell (six weeks) of sunny dry weather brought on the plants faster than normal so I was ready to plant at the end of May, then along came a couple of days of gales, but I had my plants under fleece so no harm was done. These plants are gross feeders so need fertile soil and plenty of moisture, so if dry weather prevails keep the hose going. Give the plants plenty of room especially the pumpkins as they like to grow.

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BUSY DAYS AROUND THE GREENHOUSE

                                     BUSY DAYS AROUND THE GREENHOUSE

The long dry spell and cool but sunny cloudless days in April and May have not been a problem for plants in the greenhouse. Daily watering is always necessary and keeping the ventilators open

during the day but closing them over night has kept temperatures just right and reduced problem of

condensation. I had lined the greenhouse with bubble polythene sheeting over the winter so the threat of frost was not a problem. The biggest problem was space as plants grown from seed needed pricking out and later potting up.

Planting Sweet Corn Incredible

I have a lot of tuberous begonias which are not very hardy so it was mid May before I got them outdoors to harden off. Marigolds, Nemesia, Angels Trumpets, salads and all the brassicas started life under glass but soon they all got hardened off. Last to go outdoors was my sweet corn, courgettes and pumpkins. After a week outdoors the weather changed. It was a nights rain followed by warm weather so planting was completed in mid May. Cape gooseberries and peppers were however still kept under glass. I will try growing the cape gooseberries outdoors in a sheltered border, and try some in large tubs, but the peppers will get planted out in a border under glass at the foot of my grape

Pepper Jalapeno

vines. The clearance gave me the chance to remove the bubble polythene and let the sun shine in. The tomato border has now been cleared of propagated plants so soil preparations could go ahead. In the past I have grown tomatoes in pots, grow-bags and straw bales but I find those grown in soil have the best flavour, but you need to give them fertile soil. I start by removing about three inches of top soil which gets spread amongst my shrub borders. This is replaced with good top soil from my vegetable patch mixed with potting compost or compost from a couple of growbags. Fertiliser is then spread over the area and the whole lot lightly dug over. This may be a lot of hard work, but the results make it worthwhile, and I can get my daily exercise.

Tomatoes just planted

The area is then watered so it is ready for planting the following day. Last year I did a small trial of cherry tomatoes and this year I am growing the best from these. Alicante is still my main large tomato with Super Sweet 100 my best red cherry and Sungold my best yellow cherry. Tomatoes get planted in two rows in a border 20 inches wide and spacing plants about 14 inches apart. Plants are supported on polypropylene string suspended down from wires across the roof. The plants are twisted around the string as they grow. Growth varies according to weather and six trusses are normal though in a good year I have had eight trusses on some varieties.

Side shoots on grape vines are now putting on growth, so these get pruned to one leaf almost weekly all summer. When I start to feed the tomatoes the vines which are also growing in a border will also get a feed, but maybe not so often.

Pumpkins and courgettes getting hardened off

Greenfly has become a big pest not only under glass but also on all my outdoor roses. Under glass they are all over my Peppers, Basil seedlings and Cape Gooseberries. These get rubbed off, but I may need to get a chemical spray organised if the infestation outdoors is beyond rubbing off. Maybe the recent climate is suiting pests, but up on the allotment the cutworms have been busy chopping off my sprouts at ground level, and I found quite a few leather jackets when planting my sweet corn. Then I noticed about twenty sawfly larvae chewing my gooseberry leaves. This needs a daily check and a spray if they all appear on-masse as they can devour all the leaves in just a few days. Pigeons are another big problem as everything has to get protected under nets. Pea Kelvedon Wonder however is not netted so the pigeons stopped by for a wee feed.

Anna plants up a hanging basket

Wee jobs to do this week

Hanging basket give us the opportunity to add flowers at entrance doorways and patios. I use the normal basket but line it with an old compost bag turned inside out. Add some potting compost then add a few plants around the side by pushing through slits made in the polythene. Add more compost and plant up the top with geraniums, busy lizzies, nemesia, trailing lobelia, petunias or other summer bedding plants. Make sure the hanging brackets are strong and well secured and not too high so they can be watered easily. Add a feed every three weeks or so.

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TROUBLE IN PARADISE

                                                      TROUBLE IN PARADISE

Gardens and allotments are playing a major role in providing a haven of peace and tranquillity as so many folk are in lockdown, and fear that going out may put them at risk of catching the virus so they turn to gardening to calm the mind and get back to nature.

Spraying a few weeds on the tarmac

New Facebook gardening groups appear as folk wish to meet (online) to discuss their new venture and give guidance on how to grow crops. For my daily exercise it is usually a trip to the allotment to get crops growing and help others out with any technical issues over the garden fence (always at a good distance.) Mind you even a few of us well trained gardeners sometimes get it wrong.

Frost damage on potatoes

We have had a few years of mild winters and early spring so sowing and planting dates have been modified to allow for this, assuming it will continue. Last year I was picking strawberries and the first spuds at the end of May, so planned to continue with the good fortune this year. Everything was going great. Strawberries were in flower at beginning of May and all my potatoes had been earthed up with good strong foliage six inches above ground. Then in mid May we got two days of frost. Potato leaves turned black and so did the flowers on my early strawberries. Notes made in diary for 2021. Any way it let me know that

turning to gardening to escape the coronavirus is not all plain sailing.

Greenfly on roses

There are a few problems to look out for and hopefully find a cure. The weather is always a problem, but so are weeds, pests and diseases which are all totally unavoidable. This year has been perfect for weed killing as the long dry sunny spell caused poor germination of weeds which died easily after hoeing in the sunshine.

Pests and diseases are a different problem, but if you provide a good fertile soil this will grow strong plants more able to withstand pestilence. Keep a compost heap with every spent plant, grass cuttings, leaves, kitchen waste, shredded wood and paper. This gets dug in annually to improve the fertility. Grow green manures at every opportunity both early in the season and also after

harvesting. Some early harvested crops like onions, turnips, peas and salads leave plenty time for an autumn crop of clover or tares. Practise deep digging for any permanent crops like fruit trees and bushes and roses. With fruit crops watch out for sawfly larvae on gooseberries, raspberry beetle maggots and rust on raspberries, slugs and mice on strawberries, vine weevils and greenfly on just about everything. Large fruit trees are also prone to infestations of the

Ladybirds sun bathing

rosy leaf curling aphid on plums and blackfly on cherries. Then our feathered friends who are always happy to take food from our bird tables and feeders will quickly devour any unprotected cherry trees, strawberries and they just love saskatoons. Even my astringent chokeberries got lost to marauding blackbirds. Pigeons are a nightmare with peas and all the brassicas, so protection with nets is compulsory, but even under the protection of nets the rootfly maggots will reach your brassicas unless you give them a collar, which is also a favourite spot for slugs. Make sure your nets can keep out the cabbage white

butterfly or you will have a caterpillar infestation. If your soil has been infected by clubroot fungus it will be necessary to only grow those cabbage, cauliflower and swede s that have been bred for resistance. Peas and broad beans are a favourite food for the pea and bean weevil so keep checking for notches eaten out from the edges of leaves. Other pests you are likely to encounter are the carrot fly on your carrots and leaf miner on your beetroot. Onions are fairly healthy but in wet years white rot can be a problem but then it also affects your potatoes with the blight. Roses can also be troubled with rust, mildew and blackspot and greenfly just love the young shoots. I may have left a few problems out, and you may not always get all of the above, but we all love a challenge and it is made all the more worthwhile when we sort out these wee problems.
Who said lockdown was going to be a picnic in paradise.

Wee jobs to do this week

Young salads need thinning

The first salads, turnips, parsnips and beetroot grown from seed has now germinated so begin thinning to leave young plants about an inch apart while removing any week seedlings and weeds.

Later on remove more to leave plants 6 to 9 inches apart to grow on to mature.

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