SPRING PLANTING AND SOWING

SPRING PLANTING AND SOWING

The mild winter has given way to an early warm spring, but do we forge ahead with the sowing and planting to take advantage of the unusual mild spell, or to we tread carefully knowing that a late frost or cold snap is just as likely to happen and set back all the early promise. I have no answer to this unpredictable weather pattern. It just depends on how much your personality allows you to gamble. However there are huge rewards if the gamble pays off, so I will continue to test global warming.

I got caught out last year when my advanced plants were enjoying the mild spring then along came some very severe gales and shredded the young leaves off plants all over the garden. Every year is different so I have hope that this year may not be the year with severe gales. Fingers crossed.

Begin the planting

Broad beans were raised in the living room under a table then after a good germination, put into my cold greenhouse and are now ready to plant out on my allotment. We still have some of last years bean crop in the freezer and is used for a superb soup, so a good crop in 2012 is essential. Beans are gross feeders so appreciate well composted soil prepared in the autumn. I plant mine out in a double row spaced out at nine inches apart with the rows also nine inches apart.

Sweet peas were also germinated in the living room then transferred to a sunny windowsill for a month before going out to the cold greenhouse. They were tipped at two leaves, then branched out to form quite sturdy plants which are now ready for planting. Sweet peas need very fertile soil so I always double dig a trench for them with compost added to both the lower spit and the upper spit.

I grow mine up a wire mesh fence six foot high for visual impact but still take many bunches of cut flower.

If you really want exhibition quality blooms then you must remove all weaker sideshoots from the branched plant just leaving the strongest shoot. This is then trained up a six foot cane as a single cordon with all sideshoots and tendrils removed.  The growing point is continually secured against the cane with a sweet pea ring. Weekly feeding will ensure strong blooms.

Start the sowing

Early salad crops can now be sown with lettuce, radish, spring onion and beetroot if you have a sheltered spot. It is still a bit early for beetroot, but if the mild weather continues you could get lucky and get some nice early baby beet. I will try some early carrots under fleece tunnels to bring them on early and hope to avoid the attentions of the carrot fly.

Pottering around

It is very pleasant to wander around the garden enjoying the warm spring weather which brings out the best of the spring flowering bulbs. You can always relax on a chair on the patio, but then you see a wee job needing attention, and you are back in casual work mode. Just as I was enjoying the flowers of the Kerria japonica I realised the rest of the coloured stem border (cornus and salix) needed cutting back to ground level to encourage fresh young shoots with the brightest colour.

Mild weather has brought out the flowers of my peach tree which need hand pollinating as there is not too many bees around at present. They are looking very good this year, so if I am lucky maybe both me and Anna will each get a peach this year.

I saw my first rose buds on my climbing roses, but then on closer inspection I noticed they had a fair covering of greenfly, so I need to get the sprayer out and give the aphids a wee fright.

Greenfly are also fond of winter pansies so always check them and add them to the spray programme.

Fruit tree grafting

I will be doing an apple tree grafting demonstration on the City Road allotment site on Sunday 1^st April from 11am. Anyone interested in seeing how to graft fruit trees is very welcome to come along. It is not difficult and the success rate is quite high and very rewarding.

Plant of the week

Forsythia is one of the earliest deciduous shrubs to flower putting on a dazzling display of golden blossom in late March. It is very easy to grow and mixes well with Fosteriana tulip Red Emperor. Plant explorers found it in the Far East a couple of hundred years ago.

Lynwood is one of the best varieties.

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Colourful Annuals are Easy

COLOURFUL ANNUALS ARE EASY

Most gardens at some time always have some bare areas needing something to brighten them up. Although this winter was very mild, the previous two winters really sorted out a lot of not too hardy plants leaving bare patches which need replanting or continual weeding. Annuals can be used to add some summer colour and interest to these areas. They are also invaluable in the new garden as freshly planted permanent planting may yet be a few years away from filling up their space leaving a lot of bare ground.

Annuals do not need rich soil and may flower better if the ground is quite poor, though to get good germination and establishment it is worthwhile ensuring the soil surface is well prepared adding some well rotted compost or old used growbags into the top few inches. Do not use any fertiliser otherwise you may get lush growth at the expense of flowers.

Some annuals are so colourful that it is well worth setting aside a special border to grow them in every year. They will flower best in full sun on well drained soil even if it is a bit dry so long as they have enough moisture to get them established.

Sowing and planting

Seed sowing can be started at the end of March to mid April direct onto the ground where they are to grow. If you only have a small patch of ground then just broadcast the seeds lightly and rake them in. However if your border is a fair size and you are growing a range of annuals it may be better to mark out drifts with builders sand then sow each type in rows in its own patch. When these grow to a few inches they can be thinned and transplanted to where ever they are needed. This method also makes weeding a lot easier. It gives a more natural appearance when planting up drifts if the different plant types overlap. Some types such as Livingston daisies and Osteospermums can be sown in plug trays and grown on for a few weeks before planting out. They will need to be kept well watered until they get growing.

My favourite selection

Many half hardy bedding plants such as petunias, marigolds and geraniums are treated as annuals, but these are best for traditional beds, tubs and hanging baskets, so I am concentrating on the hardy annuals usually sown direct onto the ground or raised for a few weeks in plug trays.

You can also buy a wide selection cheaply from your garden centre as plug plants to try out something new.

Top of my list has always been the Shirley poppies as they are very easy to grow, very colourful and often find themselves the subject of a painting. Californian poppies and poppy Ladybird are also firm favourites. The best fully double pink poppy is varieties of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum which arrived as a stray weed in my garden but put on such a fantastic show that I saved seed for future years.

Godetia, Livingston daisies, osteospermums and candytuft are very showy at the front of borders and clarkia, cosmos, cornflower, larkspur and amaranthus better at the back.

If you have young kids around grow some statice or helichrysum (everlasting flowers) at the front as they love to feel the rustling flower petals.

Calendula and nasturtiums are easy and give a great show, but keep them dead headed as if left unattended they can become very invasive in the following years as the seed remains viable for years and germinates readily.

Nigella (Love in a mist) is another favourite with soft blue flowers.

Plant of the week

Daffodils are the largest and boldest members of the narcissus family flowering from February to April as the traditional herald of spring. Golden Harvest and King Alfred are the two most popular trumpet varieties, but Mount Hood is a brilliant white with a great perfume. The range also includes doubles, the highly scented Jonquils, paperwhites, miniatures and numerous others.

They naturalise very easily so are often mass planted in drifts in grassed areas, deciduous woodlands and shrub borders and will fit in perfectly in herbaceous borders. Once planted they will flower reliably every year. They make excellent cut flower and their scent can be heavenly. Grow them in tubs and pots to flower early then planted in the garden once the foliage has died down.

Painting of the Month

Chinese Beauty is a large acrylic painting on canvas showing a close friend Hongmei Li dressed in a Tang dynasty gown. Hongmei spent some time with us in Scotland while studying for her PHD trying to identify an unknown nematode devastating the Chinese pine forests. She was also a very keen photographer and brought with her a small portfolio of fantastic photos of herself in traditional costume taken in a studio in China. Several paintings of Hongmei followed, so she had memories of her wonderful time spent at her Scottish home in Dundee to take back to China.

She was my only Chinese model and a great friend.

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TASTY TOMATOES

TASTY TOMATOES

Home grown tomatoes take skill and patience from sowing to harvesting but the rewards of tasting a fully ripe tomato whether a cherry type, beefsteak or my favourite Alicante make it all very worthwhile. The crops from an unheated cold greenhouse may not be ready till mid summer, unless the weather is in your favour, but the wait is always worthwhile when you can savour that first tomato ripened on your own vine. The supermarkets prefer to buy in tomatoes just turning colour as they are still very firm and travel well without damage, but at a great loss to flavour. Out of season tomatoes get a lot less sun and are virtually devoid of flavour, only suitable for cooking.

Come mid summer when we get a glut of our cherry tomatoes, they ripen faster than we can eat them, but they are so sweet that they are perfect for snacking on in between meals, and young kids just love them. No summer salad is complete without some freshly picked ripe tomato.

Uses

Eat them fresh at every opportunity, but summer gluts allow us to have them fried with our cooked breakfast, the beefsteak types are perfect for stuffing, and gluts of courgettes and other summer vegetables can combine together for the ratatouille. Summer gluts of fresh tomatoes will make a gorgeous tomato soup which can also be frozen for use when the season is over. Tomatoes will also freeze very well as whole fruits, and then they can be skinned easily for use after thawing.

Varieties

Selection of varieties depends on where they are to be grown and your own personal favourites. Tomatoes can now be used in tubs and hanging baskets using tumbler and dwarf bush varieties and traditional types can be red, yellow or orange and come as large fruits, (Shirley and Alicante), huge fruits (beafsteaks), small fruits (plum varieties and Gardeners Delight) and very small such as the cherry types. My favourite has always been Sweet Million as it is very sweet and produces long trusses with loads of fruit on them.

Propagation and growing

I sow my seed at the end of February, but grow them on a sunny windowsill until the unheated greenhouse warms up a bit. However, sometimes the electric fan heater gets turned on if an unexpected cold snap occurs. If you have a heated greenhouse, or if it is lined with bubble polythene to conserve heat, then go for a January sowing. This should then bring cropping forward considerably. Sow thinly in seed trays in warm conditions then prick out into small individual pots when they are big enough to handle. They need plenty of warmth and light to keep them sturdy, but do not feed them at this stage.

Plant out when the first flower truss appears into growbags, pots, borders and nowadays there is a return to the use of strawbales as a growing medium.

Put a support system in place if growing them as cordons.

Start feeding half strength when the first truss has set, then progressively go to full strength. Give a feed every second watering. Tomato fertiliser is high in potassium which helps fruiting, so sometimes in late summer it is a good idea to give a high nitrogen feed to maintain good growth.

Remove sideshoots as they appear and keep the stems well supported. Stop the growing point after the fourth to sixth truss depending on weather. In a poor year the cold greenhouse only ripens up four trusses, but a good summer will allow at least six.

Tomatoes love plenty of water so do not ever let them go dry, especially when you are away on holiday.

Pests and diseases

Blossom end rot is mainly a problem with careless watering when the trusses get wet or if the soil has gone too dry. Botrytis and potato blight are a problem in a cold wet summer like last year, but it helps to keep the greenhouse well ventilated to prevent any build up of condensation.

Keep an eye out for greenfly, whitefly or red spider and spray with whatever is available from your garden centre. They are not normally a big problem.

Plant of the week  

Anemone blanda is a very easy to grow plant producing a carpet of blue daisy flowers in early March. When it appears you know spring is here. You only need a few plants to get started as it multiplies very easily from seed or splitting up the dormant rhizomes in mid summer. However it does not get invasive as it is easily controlled. It will grow in full sun or partial shade and likes a well drained moist soil which has had plenty of compost added in the past. It is perfect for deciduous woodland that gets sun ahead of the canopy and there is plenty leafmold in the top few inches. It is the perfect partner for cyclamen hederifolium which comes into growth as the Anemone dies down, then it dies down in early spring when the anemone needs the light.

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EVERY GARDEN NEEDS AN APPLE TREE

EVERY GARDEN NEEDS AN APPLE TREE

Apple trees are extremely good value as a garden plant. They are not too difficult to grow, but will provide a decent challenge to your gardening skills. Information on growing them is easy to find and getting the right varieties for your area has most likely been sorted out by someone who has then published his findings on the internet in a gardening blog or website.

Modern dwarfing rootstocks and a wide variety of tree types mean that most gardens no matter how small can find space for at least one tree.

Then with a wee bit more technical information it is possible to graft another one or two varieties onto your tree to assist cross pollination and give a heavier crop with more fruit varieties, which in turn helps to extend the cropping season.

We now have knowledge of modern varieties plus a resurgence of interest in older heritage varieties from the past so we can grow really delicious fruit that has true apple flavour very hard to find on a supermarket shelf. These dessert apples can be picked fresh from August till October with a range of varieties then stored in an airy cool place for several more months.

Cooking apples store even better and have so many uses in the kitchen and wine cellar that they should be compulsory in every garden where healthy living is high on the agenda.

The taste of a freshly picked Discovery apple allowed to fully ripen on the tree is pure bliss.

However I start my season even earlier with the Oslin (Arbroath Pippin) which is a golden coloured fruit with a very unique flavour but unfortunately is not a keeper so only grow enough that you and your family and friends can eat in its short season straight off the tree.

I covered a fair bit about apples for this locality last October, which is still easy to find in my gardening blog at scottishartistandhisgarden.blogspot.com

Bramley, a fantastic cooking apple

I love growing apples to pick and eat fully ripe straight off the tree, but when it comes a cooking variety there is nothing to touch the Bramley. The variety is quite vigorous, has disease free foliage, and is a very reliable cropper producing large fruit which store happily till March in a cool garage.

Commercially in controlled storage it becomes available all year round.

The fruit has numerous uses with the obvious crumbles, pies and apple sauce, but also chopped up as a stir fry ingredient, then again chopped up and added to the pan for a cooked breakfast of bacon, egg, tomato, mushroom and apple adding that hint of sweetness. Then there is apple jelly, or stewed and added to compote, chopped and added to curries, and baked in their own skin. In the years when you get a glut it is perfect for both cider and a beautiful apple wine. My first brewings may not yet be ready, (only 6 months old) but tastings so far have been very promising.

Bramley has just the right balance of sweetness, acidity, flavour and tang. It has been around for a long time as there has been nothing to beat it.

It has a very interesting history which fortunately has been well recorded.

It started life when a young girl, Mary Ann Brailsford sowed some pips in her garden in Nottinghamshire in 1809. One tree turned out to be quite outstanding. Many years later in 1846 a local butcher, Mathew Bramley bought the cottage and garden complete with this apple tree. Word about this amazing apple tree spread and ten years later local nurseryman Henry Merryweather asked if he could take cuttings to sell the apple tree. Mathew only agreed providing it could be named after him as Bramley’s Seedling.

Henry Merryweather then propagated it by grafting and started to exhibit the fruit at shows.

The fruit was highly commended by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1876, and then ten years later received a first class certificate in Manchester at the Royal Jubilee Exhibition of Apples. It continued to receive awards at numerous shows in England.

In 1900 disaster struck the original tree when violent storms blew it down. However it managed to survive and is still alive and growing today and still producing fruit.

During the early 1900’s Bramley was extensively planted as a main food source during World War 1 and continues to be widely grown in England as the main culinary variety of popular choice in a £50 million industry. Commercially it is grown in England, but domestically in the Scottish garden it is proving to be the perfect cooking apple. I still have a tray of my Bramley in use for March.

Plant of the week

Rhododendron praecox is my choice for this week. This is one of the earliest Rhododendrons to flower, (botanically “praecox” means early or premature) creating a dazzling display of bright lilac flowers in late February to mid March depending on the weather at this time of year. It only grows about two to three feet tall and likes a well drained moist soil in sun or partial shade. It benefits from a heavy dressing of well rotted leaf mold, bark chips or pine needles worked into the top nine inches of soil before planting. It does not have deep roots so make sure it never dries out in a dry summer just in case such an event occurs, as life is full of surprises.

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