Autumn Clean Up

AUTUMN TIDY UP      

Gardeners, farmers and growers all need to pay close attention to the weather to determine the best times to carry out tasks. Soil cultivation, weed control, planting and sowing all need the right conditions and 2011 has proved that we can get it wrong very frequently. There has been no normality about this years weather, but I remember last years autumn was so wet and the winter so early that there was no chance to get the winter digging completed by Christmas. So this year I thought I would make an early start with the autumn clean up, land cultivations and other autumn seasonal tasks.

The end of summer in the garden for me is marked by putting my sun lounger into storage, normally in the middle of September. This year it had been so little used that it went into storage at the beginning of the month. How many people expected the summer to arrive at the end of September and run into October. However, it is brilliant to be enjoying lunch on the patio in warm sunshine and still marvel at the last of the flowers still determined to bloom while they can, and I can casually plan my autumn clean up.

Planting and sowing

Spring cabbage April was sown a few weeks ago and after struggling through attacks of slugs, caterpillars, vine weevils and pigeons are now ready for planting out. They will need to be strong as they will face more attacks from rootfly maggots, more pigeons and clubroot. However the net will protect them from pigeons and I have collars to go around the stems to prevent rootflies from laying eggs next to them and hopefully my rotation will keep them a fair distance from any clubroot infected areas.

Land left vacant after harvesting sweet corn, salads, French beans, broad beans and my early strawberries will be green manured with a sowing of clovers. I had previously used mustard as it is fast and effective, but is also prone to clubroot so not good for a healthy rotation.

Saskatoon berries harvested in early August were crushed and washed to extract the seed and remove the flesh which contains germination inhibiting hormones, then placed in the fridge for six weeks. I usually place the seed between two sheets of moist kitchen roll to prevent them drying out, and keep checking them for moisture levels and botrytis. They have now been sown in cellular trays and placed outdoors in a cool shaded spot for the winter. I will protect them from mice and birds.

Harvesting and storing

Onion Hytech harvested a few weeks ago has dried out just nicely so I have now roped them for easy storing in the garage. I am amazed that my one packet of seed produced so many quite large onions in a very wet and cool summer.

Apples are being harvested as they ripen. Discovery and Oslin have both been picked and consumed as they need to be eaten fresh. Red Devil have been picked and stored in a cool airy garage, but my Fiesta, Red Falstaff and Bramley are still hanging on so there is no rush to pick them.

My Pear tree has been grafted with two new varieties (Beurre Hardy and the Christie) though I left one branch of Comice and one of Conference to draw up the sap which helps the grafts to grow. Comice was wiped out by scab in the wet weather and Conference foliage was shredded in the gales. The tree decided it could not afford to ripen my lovely crop so the fruit all fell off.

Weeds and leaves and compost

This is the last chance to tackle the weeds before winter. Annual weeds, eg groundsel can be composted before it sets seeds, but bin any perennial weeds.

Leaves have started to fall very early. This is not an early autumn but more the result of bad weather conditions earlier in the season. Many trees such as Whitebeam have lost all their leaves without any autumn colour. All these leaves can be composted. My mature eucalyptus tree has been shedding leaves all summer, but still managed plenty of regrowth, so hopefully it will be strong enough to face the winter.

Straggly shrubs and roses

This is a good time to prune or tie in those shrubs that have grown straggly. Many climbing roses have put on excellent growth which will ripen and flower next year so get them tied in before the winter winds begin. Pruned shoots can be shredded and composted.

Lawns and paths

As the grass growth begins to slow down in October it is a good time to start any lawn renovation work to keep it in good health. A nice level well maintained lawn is an asset that enhances the appearance of beds, borders, trees and houses, but for an area where kids can play in and even make their daisy chains, it does not need a high level of attention as long as it is not liable to flooding.

However if you wish the golf fairway to bowling green standard you can achieve that effect with a wee bit of work to create a free draining, close mown, (in stripes) healthy but not too vigorous, deep green sward, free from moss, disease and weeds.

Kill out any moss with a dressing of lawn sand or water on a week solution of sulphate of iron, (one heaped dessert spoon per two gallon can). I also use this to kill moss on tarmac drives or other paths. The dead moss will turn black, then after a few weeks rake out the dead moss with a springbok rake. The moss can go on the compost heap. Now aerate the lawn by spiking with a hollow tine aerator or a garden fork pushing holes four inches deep every six inches or so. These two tasks are quite hard work, but keep going. Now put on a top dressing and brush it into the holes. This is also hard work but both you and the lawn will recover and be better next year. The top dressing will have a slow release fertiliser to feed the grass throughout the winter.

You will most likely need a wee malt whisky.

Next year in spring check for weeds and spray as necessary. If the lawn is strong and healthy you should not be troubled by diseases such as red thread, fusarium patch or fairy rings.

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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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Back to the Land

 BACK TO THE LAND   

Allotment life was supposed to be about living the dream. A place for quiet recreation, fresh air, sunshine, an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables, then after a wee bit of horticultural exercise and graft, we relax on the patio by our sheds enjoying the scent from the flower border while we have a wee refreshment.

There has not been a lot of leisure time on the land this year. The season has not been in our favour, at least not in the north east of Scotland. The summer did try to appear on more than a couple of occasions, but was rapidly followed by cool and wet conditions.

Those plants of a more tender nature, beans, courgettes, pumpkins, sweet corn and Cape gooseberries have not had a chance.

However, our native weeds have not been deterred and hoeing just seemed to transplant them rather than eradicate them. Still, we plod on as there is always a job to do and hope that sometime soon the sun will return and plant growth will be back to normal. 

Vegetables

Onions are looking really strong this year. The ground had a lot of compost dug in and had been green manured with an early mustard crop. The onions were sown at home on a windowsill in cellular trays then hardened off in my cold greenhouse. The plants germinated in groups of one to four plants per cell, then each cell clump was planted out six to nine inches apart. This close spacing has not held back the onion size. The wet season has caused a few plants to suffer white rot, but these diseased plants were removed as soon as they appeared.

Beetroot, lettuce, radish and spring onions have all grown well and continue to crop with repeated sowings.

Sweet corn is very poor with only half the plants putting up a flowering spike.

Pumpkins and courgettes have been in a state of shock for weeks, though the French beans have now decided to grow.

Cabbage, cauliflower, sprouts and kale have been very mixed. I lost most of the first two through some very serious clubroot fungus, but the others seem to resist it and are putting on excellent growth. Turnips and Swedes are also growing very well in the wet season.

Broad beans have now been harvested, but I am trying another sowing to see if I can catch a late crop. I am also cutting the old plants down to a few inches of ground level to see if they will regrow and give me another crop. Sometimes you get lucky.

Fruit

Red currants are now in the demijohn, and black currants in the freezer. Some will be for jam, some for compote and some for wine. The bushes can now be pruned. Red currants get side shoots shortened by a third to encourage spurs on the main shoots and blackcurrants get one third to a quarter of older fruited wood removed. You can usually find a strong one year old shoot that you leave as it will produce the best fruit next year.

Bramble Helen is now in full cropping as is the gooseberries and saskatoons. They are all bearing heavy crops and do not seem to be affected by this years weather. It is the beginning of the Saskatoon pie season, though there is plenty for eating fresh off the bush, jam, compote and wine.

Flowers

This is a time for planning ahead for the next spring flowering display. Wallflower seedlings are now ready for transplanting into rows a foot apart so they can grow on and make a bigger plant for flower beds in October. They get dibbled in at four inch spacings. If you want really good plants you have to grow your own from seed as garden centres will only supply smaller plants in boxes.

However pansies, polyanthus, primroses, myosotis, daisies and Iceland poppies can either be home grown or bought from local garden centres as the plants are usually smaller and easily produced.

Pests, diseases and weed control

The weather affects these just as much as us. Caterpillars have had a great time and greenflies and blackflies had a slow start but are now at epidemic levels. You can only go so far with picking these off. However there are still some chemicals available that will do the job without harming the environment.

Mildew is now a big problem as the chemicals available to the amateur gardener are very weak and continual wet weather means the sprays get washed off before they get a chance to work.

Weed control is at the same stage. Glyphosate is available, quite environmentally friendly and an excellent herbicide, but needs at least two to three days of dry weather to work effectively.

The formulation available to the amateur gardener is about a quarter of the strength of the commercial product used by farmers, growers and local authorities.

Allotment Open Day

The City Road Allotments are having an open day to let the public see our plots.

Refreshments are available and there will be many plants for sale, fresh vegetables, home baking, jams and tablet. Open on Sunday 7^th August 2011 from 10. 30am to 2.30pm

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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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