Late Summer Harvest

LATE SUMMER HARVEST     

September must be a very healthy month. Fresh vegetables and fruit are at their peak. There is such a huge range available that you should be able to reach your five a day needs by lunch time and a few extras at teatime as the bonus.

If you managed to catch the sun when it appeared briefly last month you might just have a wee tan, and the garden is providing some gentle exercise, removing the last of the weeds, a bit of pruning and the harvest tasks.

As the harvest is gathered there will be plenty of waste for the compost heap. However any diseased leaves (blackspot, rust, mildew), or roots (clubroot) should not be composted, though I still use mine. I grow my sweet peas along a fence in the same place every year and build up the fertility with compost as they are gross feeders. They also appreciate a deep fertile soil that is well drained, so in late autumn I open up a deep trench, put all my diseased plant material in it and turn it over. Sweet peas are in a different group from roses and brassicas so will not be affected by these problems, but remember the disease spores can travel down a slope in the winter rains so consider where you site your sweet peas.

Onions grow best in very fertile well drained soil and need plenty of 

sunshine to grow and ripen, so this should not be a good year for them as there has been a distinct lack of sun and an awful lot more rain than we need. Yet my onions have never been better. I put this success down to good soil and the right choice of variety. One £2 packet of seed of onion Hytech gave me a crop of 150 large round onions that are reputed to store well. They are now lifted and will be dried out in the sun. When the foliage has gone brown I will rope them for easy storing hanging up in the garage.

Sweet corn is another crop that needs warmth. Normally I would get about seventy cobs from sixty plants grown from one packet of seed. I got the excellent plants, but just as soon as they got growing the gales came. They have never really recovered. Growth is reasonable but the plants are totally disorientated. Only a few male flowers appeared at the same time as the female silky tassels grew from the top of the cobs. Other male flowers appeared two weeks later by which time the female tassels had withered, so pollination was very patchy and I will only get about a dozen decent cobs. There will be nothing for the freezer.

Beetroot germinated and grew very quickly. Thinnings were removed as young baby beet, but those remaining have not grown into the normal larger sized beet. It seems this will be the year for baby beet. Last year I left my main crops of large beetroot in the ground where the early snowfall provided a cold blanket which protected them from hard frosts. They kept perfectly till the end of February.

Beetroot is a very healthy vegetable which we use a lot of to make soup and eat fresh in salads after boiling and dressing in a sauce made from soya sauce, balsamic vinegar, honey and seasoning.

Beans have had a mixed year. Broad beans were good, but I chose a dwarf variety, The Sutton which did not crop very heavily. However I have sown another late batch, now in flower so I hope to get two crops this year. It makes a heavenly soup. French and runner beans have been slow to grow and cropping has been light. There has not been the usual heavy crops for the freezer.

Courgettes and pumpkins both suffered from the gales but are now growing strongly. They have lost too much time and with a poor summer the harvest will not need a wheelbarrow to cart them off the allotment. My winter soups will be well rationed, but they both brilliant.

However many other allotment holders who had kept their plants protected under glass till after the gales have had fantastic crops. Next year I will not be so early to get them planted.

Swiss chard has again grown very well this year and the variety Bright Lights has a wide range of attractive colours with red, yellow pink, white as well as green stems. This leafy vegetable is very high in vitamins and minerals, dietary fibre and proteins. It is used in stir fries, salads when very young and soups.

Healthy fruit has been in abundance this year, with most now either consumed fresh or in the freezer. Autumn Bliss raspberry is very late and I am still waiting for my first serious picking.

My new perpetual strawberry, Malling Opal has been a huge disappointment. A row of ten plants only produced one runner. The fruit is hard, ripens unevenly, has no great flavour, and it is not a heavy cropper. It is supposed to crop till the end of October, but unless we get a late summer the fruit is hardly worth picking. This variety was bred in Kent so maybe it is just not suitable for Scottish conditions.

Blueberries lost a lot of foliage in the gales so the fruit is smaller than normal, but the crop is still quite heavy. These berries are similar to my saskatoons but it is a real advantage having them in fruit when the Saskatoon picking has finished.

The chokeberries, Aronia melanocarpa Viking is now in full cropping. Some will be used for jam, some for compote and summer puddings and a batch for making a strong red dessert wine. Hopefully this will be at its best in three years, but I will need to sample some round about Christmas just to make sure it is maturing ok. The fruit is a bit astringent so is not normally eaten fresh, but can be juiced or processed into many products. The very dark fruits are quite high in vitamin C and it has one of the highest levels recorded of the antioxidant anthocyanin.

Hopefully my wine will be a true health giving tonic.

Rhubarb may have got hammered by the gales as the large leaves were a sitting target, so there was no early crops, but they soon recovered and have been growing very strongly. We are now taking off our final picking for the freezer, so the plants can build up a healthy crown to see them over winter. As well as rhubarb crumble and pie it makes a lovely jam if mixed with dried figs.

Winter crops will provide the fresh vegetables right through the winter so will not need to be stored or frozen. Leeks, swedes, cabbage, cauliflower, kale and Brussels sprouts are all putting on good growth, though some have been attacked by caterpillars, pigeons, rootfly maggots and clubroot. You do not get your green healthy winter vegetables easy.

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Plants for a healthy living

PLANTS FOR A HEALTHY LIVING

The active gardener can derive immense benefits to a healthy life style from his garden.

The exercise value alone can be significant but add in the fresh air and sunshine, the home grown fruit and vegetables free from pesticides and then the visual pleasures of flowers and scents and you have a great start to a healthy life.

Home grown produce will be free from the harmful pesticides and herbicides used as routine on commercial crops. Crops grown in UK come under very strict control ensuring that only safe and approved pesticides are used, but imported crops from all over the world do not have the same regulations and controls as we have here, so food health is a gamble. If you grow your own food crops you reduce the need to buy imported foods.

Even a small garden or allotment can provide a small family with most of their annual needs in fruit and vegetables and cut flower for the house with good cultivations and careful planning.

The Scottish diet gets a bad press, however, a lot of effort goes into promoting healthier foods and into encouraging people to cut back on the high fat fast foods, junk food, and fry ups in favour of  eating  more fruit, vegetables, nuts and grains.

The availability of cheap instant food has allowed people to take the easy option with the minimum of cooking. However in time, we may well revert to a healthier diet as promotion runs at full tilt with good and entertaining cookery programmes on TV on a daily basis.

I was one of the lucky ones. My father came from rural Poland where there were precious little shops so people grew their own produce. He always had the garden filled with fruit and vegetables and had an allotment all his life. I got to appreciate the taste of fresh fruit and vegetables at an early age. However, there was always a bit of wicked temptations in youth. It was normal on a night out to have six pints followed by a donar kebab, but with my healthy background I only had five pints and a single fish, nae chips. Well, you have to start somewhere.

The Problems

The human lifestyle has evolved a lot faster than our bodies’ ability to keep up with the changes. A lot of our food is refined, processed, treated with chemicals, and supermarkets have taken over as our main suppliers. Their concern is profits, not healthy food.

Our diet is responsible for the massive increase in poor health from heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer and hypertension.

Everyone knows the answer, but it is not easy to change the old habits of excessive drinking, smoking, junk food, too much TV/computer and not nearly enough exercise.

It is very hard to leave the car at home, and not watch those very interesting TV programmes, but with a wee bit of Scottish determination and will power we can make a few changes.

The body does need some fats to function properly, so the occasional chip is good for us, and a wee nip or glass of red wine every so often, purely for our medicinal needs will keep us in good form.
It’s all about moderation.

Then if you can combine more exercise into your routine your on the right track. After an hour at the gym I was ready for my shower, but my daughter wanted an extra fifteen minutes. She had been counting calories and knew that it would take fifteen minutes of lost calories to burn off the large slice of gateaux she had waiting at home as her reward.

The Foods

As I have always had a garden it has been easy to integrate plenty of fruit and vegetables into my daily diet, especially from early summer onwards.

Forced rhubarb started the season stewed and added to my morning muesli or in puddings and crumbles.

My muesli has added sultanas, dates and many nuts, so I am well on my way to achieving my daily five portions of fruit and vegetables. Later on fresh picked berries are added over the summer and autumn months. Frozen berries are used for a mixed fruit compote which complements, breakfast and desserts.

Lunch and dinner may well be a salad with home grown lettuce, tomatoes, and radish or a cooked meal with cabbage, turnip, onions, garlic, sweet corn, beans, beetroot or whatever is in season.

Preparation of foods is important to get the best out of them. Do not wash food excessively otherwise some vitamins existing on the surface may be lost. Go easy on the creams and yoghurts with fresh fruit as the calcium in these can lock up some of the beneficial vitamins and minerals.

The Superfoods

It is beneficial for healthy eating to include as wide a variety of foods as possible as they all have different levels of nutrients, and several are known to be very high in antioxidants and specific vitamins and minerals.

Superfood status is given to those possessing the greatest levels of a particular feature, or having a wide range of health benefits.

My garden will always have the following essential crops.

The chokeberry, Aronia melanocarpa comes at the top of my list. It has the highest level of vitamin C and anthocyanins, an antioxidant that gives the berry its black colour, than any other plant. Antioxidants are very beneficial to sufferers of some cancers, heart disease, ulcers and many other conditions.

Blackcurrants come close behind with very high levels of vitamin C, then saskatoons and blueberries.

Rhubarb is a must have plant that can be used all year round with forced, fresh and frozen sticks. This was covered in last weeks feature.

Garlic is used in cooking numerous dishes to impart its attractive pungent flavour, but as a health food, it is said to help sufferers of heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and some cancers.

Cabbage and all the other brassicas including Brussels sprouts, broccoli and kale are available all year round. They also have high levels of vitamin C, dietary fibre and multiple nutrients useful against heart diseases, cancer and inflammation.

Kale is especially nutritious with powerful antioxidant properties.

Beetroot is delicious in soups and savouries and is very high in antioxidants, magnesium, sodium, potassium and vitamin C. It is important for cardiovascular health, and has been shown to lower blood pressure.

Demand for allotments shows that the message is getting through for the need for a healthier lifestyle, but in Scotland we still need more people to jump on the bandwagon.

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Festive Thoughts

FESTIVE THOUGHTS

The Christmas week was never a time to be thinking about jobs around the garden.  The mind is occupied with getting those last Christmas presents, stocking up with plenty of food and some quality liquid cheer. Selecting a nice wee dram is now a lot easier with excellent advice from Brian of Amber Lights on the previous page. Then of course there is the social side to organize as family and friends get together.

This year winter arrived very early, so there is a good chance for a white Christmas if it is still on any ones wish list.

The allotment

My allotment activities have been about capturing snow scenes with the camera for winter landscape paintings. I was instructed to bring back some leeks now that they have been sweetened up with a bit of cold weather, but I just could not find them under a drift of snow two feet deep. Hopefully by the time you read this there will have been a wee thaw and my leeks will appear.

However this year I tried Brussels sprouts variety, Wellington. They have been terrific with large hard buttons and very sweet to taste. Just a pity they are so tall as they were still visible above the drifting snow and an easy target for our ever present resident flock of hungry pigeons.

The severe winter weather was well predicted so it gave us ample opportunity to gather a couple of large savoy cabbage Traviata, some Swedes and beetroot.

I am hoping my beetroot will be quite happy with a couple of feet of snow protecting it from the frosts. After a few hours of continually clearing snow from the drive it is very welcoming to see a plate of hot home made beetroot soup on the dinner table. Our best recipe uses fresh beetroot roughly grated with some onion, garlic, carrot and a potato. It is cooked with chicken stock, olive oil and some sugar, then served with a swirl of yoghurt or sour cream, and some lightly toasted garlic bread. It soon warms you up.

Outdoor plants

The deep snow has buried my coloured stemmed border, but the yellow winter Jasmine continues to flower through frost and snow. Christmas rose, Hellebores are wanting to flower, but are buried under deep snow.

The golden berried rowan Sorbus Joseph Rock has been spectacular with large bunches of bright yellow berries topped with snow standing out against the clear blue winter sky. At first the black birds were not too fussy about eating them until a flock of twenty waxwings found them and within three days the berries were gone. These are winter migrants from Scandinavia who swarm here in huge numbers when their own supply of berries is finished. They love rowans, pyracantha, hawthorns   and cotoneasters and will quickly strip them in a short burst of frenzied eating.

Feed the birds

Birds and wildlife are just as much part of the garden’s attraction as plants and they are particularly welcome in winter when most of the garden is at rest. Every garden will have their own resident robin and blackie, but it is nice to see the range extended with a wren, blue tit, great tit, coal tit, chaffy and occasionally a greenfinch and bullfinch. The latter may be a very attractive bird, but he can be a proper vandal when he picks off flowers and buds in spring with no intention of eating them.

My bird feeders go out when I think their own natural food supply is getting hard to find. This year frost and snow have come a bit early so birds go looking for some human help on bird tables. Fortunately there is a wide range of bird food available. I supplement this with some bread, old bramley apples from store that are not keeping too well, bacon fat and keep the bird bath replenished with fresh water.

Indoor plants

It has become a festive tradition to have a good colourful pot plant to decorate the living room during the Christmas period.

Poinsettias are very popular, easy to grow and will be quite long lasting as long as you don’t over water them. Give them plenty light, keep them warm but not near radiators. In its natural environment it will grow into a small tree, but for the house plant trade they are kept young and treated with growth retardants so you receive a compact plant full of coloured bracts. Thus once they are finished it is not worth keeping them for another year unless you are happy with a taller plant and are prepared to give them special growing conditions.

Once the coloured bracts are finished, adopt a drier water regime to encourage dormancy to give the plant a rest. Restart growth in late spring, repot if necessary with good free draining compost, and cut back the plant to a few inches. Once growth starts give a fortnightly feed and in summer grow the plant outdoors in a sunny spot. Keep growths pinched back to allow up to five shoots per plant and cut back any shoot that gets too big. Poinsettias require short day treatment to bring them into flower.

Thus from early October for the next ten weeks they will need to be kept in the dark for at least fourteen hours every day. Black them out from 5pm to 8am. Once the bracts begin to show colour bring them gradually into the light and continue to water and feed.

Christmas cactus is also a favourite that I find very reliable and quite easy, but again it has its needs. They come in a range of colours from red, pink, mauve and white. Mine have now finished their flowering so they will be allowed to go quite dry but not shriveled and kept in a light cool but frost free spot. They can be cut back at this time and the cuttings used to grow more plants. Once growth starts in summer restart watering and feeding to encourage growth. However this growth needs to ripen to encourage flower buds so I start to dry them off again in September. This helps to initiate flower buds which will appear in early winter. As soon as the flowers show, usually in November,  restart watering and bring them into the warmth.

The plants should last for very many years, and often they will provide two shows per year.

Last of the grapes

Although 2010 will go down in my diary as yet again another very wet year, there was enough sunshine to ripen up most of my grape vines. I have three varieties in the greenhouse and a very large outdoor vine, Vitis vinifera Brant covering a west and a south facing walls.

My earliest variety, Flame is in the cold greenhouse. It is a red seedless grape which has some fruit   ready at the end of August and continues till the end of October. It is very sweet and juicy but as with all seedless varieties some of the grapes can be small. It is the grape seeds that produce the growth hormones needed to swell up the fruit. Commercially, growers solve this problem by applying several sprays of gibberellic acid growth hormone. The first spray in spring causes the bunches to grow bigger thus spacing out the trusses with less overcrowding. The next spray at flowering causes some of the flowers to fall off reducing the need for thinning. Further sprays later on encourage berry growth so the end product is large seedless grapes well spaced out so they will not be troubled by diseases.

My organically grown, gibberellic acid free grapes, may be smaller, but they are still delicious.

I planted a white seedless variety called Perlette last winter so hopefully it will fruit in 2011.

My Black Hamburg greenhouse grape starts to fruit in mid September and I have now just finished off the last of then in early December. These have seeds so each grape is quite large and sweet and very juicy. It is easy to grow and is very reliable.

The outdoor Brant fruits from September to mid October, but our local Blackie is quite fond of them so as soon as I see a bit of damage they get harvested and made into juice. This will keep for two weeks in the fridge but can also be frozen in plastic bottles. The grapes are quite sweet so the juice does not need sugar.

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Flaming June did happen this year

FLAMING JUNE DID HAPPEN THIS YEAR

The summer returned this year after three years of cool and wet weather following a very long and cold winter. That is the kind of normal weather I remember from childhood to youth, before global warming appeared and weather pattern became guesswork.

The garden plants have responded with strong healthy growth, a lot less pest and diseases, flowers in profusion and fruit crops to come, full of potential.

Some outdoor fuchsias never made it through the winter, hebes were lost as well as my Leptospermum Red Damask, however Fuchsia Mrs. Popple has sprouted from the base and will have its first flowers by the time you read this, despite the attention of the greenfly and frog hoppers, (cuckoo spit).

Always give apparently dead plants plenty of time after a hard winter to recover before you dig them out. Some years ago I had a 15 foot tall Cordyline australis the Torbay palm, that died after a very hard frost. It was cut back to ground level, but then 18 months later five new shoots appeared and it sprang back into life. A lesson was learnt. Eucalyptus can also be a bit tender when young though my twelve year old specimen has never looked better.

Robinia frisia, the false acacia, an excellent small tree with golden leaves suitable for domestic gardens lost a few branches but soon recovered. It needs good drainage at its feet to survive the winter, otherwise die back of shoots get infected with the coral spot fungus which can then spread to healthy wood.

This year it was the turn of my date palm, Phoenix canariensis, to die back to ground level after successfully growing outdoors in a sunny border for six years as a specimen dot plant in the middle of a flower bed. It got chopped back to ground level but I see it is trying to make a recovery.

The Flower Garden

Glorious colour abounds in herbaceous borders, rose beds, climbing roses, flowering shrubs and in tubs, hanging baskets and borders with summer bedding plants.

Dead heading to remove seed heads is a constant task with Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Himalayan blue poppies, Iceland poppies, and winter pansies who wont stop flowering. I have never known them to continue for so long so I keep feeding and watering them.

Seeds gathered from the Meconopsis, Himalayan blue poppy, and the Iceland Poppies will be sown this month. I hope the Iceland poppies will germinate fairly soon as they are to grow on for flowering next spring, but the Meconopsis will probably not germinate till next spring. Keep both of them moist, shaded and cool to assist good germination.

My bed of geraniums grown from cuttings every year is a mass of colour, but my other summer bedding plant the tuberous begonias have yet to put out their first flowers. They are looking very strong. I purchased a tray of fifty mixed double non stop tuberous begonias about 15 years ago. They flower reliably every summer then get dried off, and overwintered in a box in the garage,

They never let you down.

Excellent value for money.

The Fruit Garden

A funny year for fruit. I have been too busy on other activities, painting flowers, and running art classes, so I never got around to netting my strawberries to keep the birds from eating them. I never lost a single berry, yet the local blackie took a liking to my red currant bushes so these got the strawberry net for protection. I have not needed to net red currants for the last four years. Birds left them alone, but not this year.

The net has also been erected over my saskatoon patch as they are so favoured by the birds that they will even attempt to tunnel underneath the net if it is not buried around the edges.

The saskatoons, Amelanchier alnifolia, should be ready for picking mid July probably at the same time as my red currants, black currants and gooseberries.

This year I only have Autumn Bliss raspberries as my row of Glen Ample got infected by a root rot fungus which wiped them out. I think it was phytophthora but cannot be certain.

There replacement variety Cascade Delight will not bear any fruit till next year, (hopefully)

Apple trees are quite heavy with crop, but the natural June drop did some thinning for me. I then did a little bit more to space apples out so I get larger fruit.

My variety Fiesta has adopted a biennial fruiting attitude with only five apples on a young tree that gave me over forty last year.

I will cover fruit crops in greater depth next week.

The Scottish Crops Research Institute will be holding an event for those in the fruit industry on Thursday 15^th July at Invergowrie to showcase developments and trends in their breeding and research programmes. This cutting edge technology eventually filters down to gardener level as we benefit from the release of new fruit varieties with enhanced cropping potential, better flavour, more disease resistance, stronger vigour and acclimatised to Scottish growing condition.

The Allotment

Two rows of Beetroot Bolthardy germinated very well so they required a thinning to leave them about an inch apart. These will grow into lovely baby beet size before a further thinning to four to six inches for the main crop. Last year our beetroot was left in the ground unprotected until winter digging time in January and was still excellent. The cold winter did not do any harm. We use beetroot for soups mixed with potato, onion and a wee bit of orange rind, then finished off on the plate with some yoghurt or sour cream swirled into the surface. It is brilliant and most likely very healthy.

Leeks are another vegetable that are very easy and rewarding as they keep you supplied with fresh vegetables right through the winter till March, or April in a long cold winter.

I plant mine out in rows twelve inches apart in the traditional style on good ground manured or composted in winter. Take out a shallow furrow and dibble in holes about four to six inches apart. Lift the young seedlings when about eight inches tall and top and tail them before dropping them in the dibber holes. Water them in and leave them alone.

Fresh vegetables are now being harvested for the table regularly. Lettuce. radish, spring onions and now the first courgettes and Swiss chard leaves. The former makes fantastic soup and the latter brilliant as a stir fry ingredient but dont use much oil.

The social side of allotment gardening brings people together at this time of year to swap spare vegetable plants, tomato plants, courgettes, pumpkins, leeks and other new types worthy of a trial, and when its too hot to garden there are always plenty of sunny patios to sit down and relax on.

The Cold Greenhouse

As the heatwave continues most plants that had greenhouse protection have been moved outside leaving the grapes and tomatoes and four pots of Cape gooseberries which continue to grow very strongly. At this moment I still have space for them, but if they get much bigger they will need to go out somewhere.

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