THE GARDENERS WEATHER

                                                         Gardeners Weather

To achieve consistently good crop yields of fruit and vegetables and a glorious display of flowers we learn good gardening techniques for each type of plant, use the best varieties, and make sure our soil is fertile, well drained and weed free. The battle

Anna picking figs

against pests and diseases is a continuous one that we must not allow to get out of control. However no matter how much time and effort we give to cultivation of our plants it is the weather that finally

Outdoor grape Rondo

determines our success rate, as we have little control when it throws extremes at us which seems to get more frequent as time goes on. Thunderstorms with lightening in Scotland used to be a rare event, but not this year.

Temperature

It seems that global warming has arrived in Scotland, and although we all love to see more of the sun, gardening has been a struggle both in 2018 and 2019 as temperatures rise way above normal for days on end. However we can take advantage of this warmer weather to indulge in growing a few of the more exotic crops. Sweet potatoes and a whole range of Chinese salads are becoming popular but success rates vary with climate. Figs outdoors in Scotland are now very successful and most grape varieties will also perform brilliantly, but to get grapes to produce good bunches of sweet juicy grapes is a huge challenge. Some dessert varieties fail to produce many grapes, and then we need a warm dry autumn to get them to ripen. The variety Brant is very

Pumpkins ripening up

successful but the grape bunches are quite small. The search for the right variety continues. Outdoor cherries are now becoming very popular, and those that produce very large fruit are a bonus as they

Tomatoes growing outdoors

are too big for marauding blackbirds beaks. Our mild winters are now quite frequent so leaving beetroot outdoors over winter is quite safe.  However on the negative side of mild winters, many pests come through unscathed and ready to multiply and go on a feeding frenzy every time our backs are turned. Plagues of slugs, snails and caterpillars have devastated cabbages, cauliflower, sprouts, kale, potatoes, dwarf French beans and greenfly have been feeding shoulder to shoulder on roses. Mild winters have also reduced the fruiting potential of those fruit bushes such as blackcurrants and saskatoons that need periods of cold temperatures over winter to initiate fruit buds. My best crop of saskatoons came after the cold winter of 2010. The warmer climate is allowing us to grow Eucalyptus, Cordylines, date palms, Agapanthus and outdoor fuchsias successfully.

Rainfall

Cordyline australis in flower

Last year we all basked in a long sunny and dry summer so the garden hose was always out as drought conditions prevailed. This year it has been even hotter but rainfall has never been lacking. This has been great for plant growth, and all crops, bushes and flowers are all a lot taller than normal. Roses have grown so tall that many needed staking to prevent them falling over. Autumn raspberries are having similar problems as many are about seven feet tall. This is not such a good thing when we get extremes of winds in gale strength blowing over tall plants and shredding anything with large leaves. Early on this year we got a warm spell but without any rain so mildew and blackspot on roses infected all the leaves and reduced the impact of flowers. It was made all the worse as greenfly smothered any young shoots before the diseases reached them.

Weed control this year has been a major problem as weeds just love the warm wet weather and hoeing is difficult as the weeds are often just transplanted rather than shrivelled up in the hot sun.

Pansy and wallflower seedlings

But up at City Road allotments plot holders have been busy getting their gardens tidied up ahead of our participation in the Dundee Doors Open Event on the weekend of 14 and 15 September 2019.

Wee jobs to do this week

Prick out pansy and wallflower seedlings sown in mid August and now well established in seed

boxes. They will grow strongly at this stage and make a sturdy plant for planting out in tubs, hanging baskets and borders. The pansies associate well with dwarf early tulips planted between them but the wallflower prefer the taller triumph or Darwin Hybrid tulips planted between them.

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LATE SUMMER TASKS

LATE SUMMER TASKS

Apples with brown rot and wasps

It is always easy to find a wee job in the garden, even after all the main tasks have been completed. Crops have been sown, planted, had all summer to grow and harvesting is well under way, then as the summer returns after the August thunderstorms we think this could be a nice time to relax on the sun lounger. Lying back enjoying a few moments of peace you let your mind wander, but then it prompts you with a wee reminder of a few outstanding jobs. Now that so many crops have been gathered in there is land empty which is ideal for some late season crops of lettuce, radish, spring onions, rocket and their might be just enough time to grow some beetroot. No need to dig over the ground as the soil is just fine, then after removing any weeds, giving it a rake over and a wee dusting of fertiliser. Sow a few rows of salads and head back to the sun lounger. On the way back I notice that the early and mid season strawberries have finished so old leaves need cutting back, straw removed to the compost heap, remove a few weeds that appeared when no-one was looking, and shift those runaway runners back in line as they will fruit next year.

Onions getting dried off in the sun

More land has become empty as potatoes get harvested. Potatoes made a great start in spring as weather was on their side. Good planting conditions, plenty warm sunny days and just enough rain to keep them growing, but then the jet stream changed course and nothing was quite the same. Warm days continued but it was accompanied by a lot more rain than we needed. Potatoes were not happy and leaves started to wither combined with attacks from slugs and snails who were having a great time. I started to lift first early Casa Blanca, but stopped to lift second early Charlotte as it had lost all its leaves. Meanwhile Mayan Gold leaves shrivelled up so they got lifted. Maris Piper at present is still in the ground, but having a bad year. On the positive side the Casa Blanca gave a great crop of very clean perfect salad spuds.

Onions started of the year looking fantastic, but as the August rains continued unabated the dreaded white rot appeared and began to work its way along the rows. It was time to lift and dry off before any more bulbs get affected. They are now drying off in the sun ahead of storing for winter.

Cauliflowers came out in sympathy with the potatoes. No

Potato Casa Blanca ready for storing

sign of clubroot or rootfly and nets kept the pigeons away but slugs, snails and caterpillars had a party, and the wet weather did not help curd formation. I only got one cauliflower from a dozen plants. More land got cleared and ready for another autumn crop. Peas and broad beans grew fast early on so harvesting was brought forward with good yields, but then there was even more land going spare.

Good time to sow green manure crops of tares, clover, rye and even field beans. These crops will get dug in during winter and add a huge amount of humus to the soil as well as opening it up and adding nitrogen with those that have the nitrogen fixing bacteria on the roots.

Pansies and wallflower that flowered from spring to early summer had plenty of seed heads that got kept for sowing in August. The pansies will flower next spring but time will tell if the wallflower can grow big enough from now till October to produce a decent spring bedding plant.

The warm but wet summer has not been good for the greenhouse grapes as botrytis is trying to take hold in bunches that are swelling up, and the wasps have found my sweet Seigerrebe grapes so need controlling before word gets back and even more arrive to do battle with the gardener.

Anna with Iris Dusky Challenger

Now all the wee jobs have been sorted I can get back to that sun lounger for some well earned relaxation. As I enjoy these odd moments without a care I suddenly realise this is the last chance to do a thorough garden clean up before the leaves start to fall and that compost heap needs turning.

Wee jobs to do this week

Cut back flag iris Dusky Challenger, delphiniums, oriental poppies and other herbaceous plants that flowered in mid summer but are now dying back and a wee bit untidy. This is also a good time to lift and split up the iris and replant in fresh soil. Remember to keep the plants at same depth as previous as they do not like deep planting.

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LATE SUMMER FLOWERS

LATE SUMMER FLOWERS

After last year’s brilliant summer we gardeners were hoping for a repeat performance just like with the hot summer of 1975 followed by 1976 which was even better. We are getting plenty good temperatures, (a record breaking hot spell) but the continual rain coming in thunderstorms is way over the top. This year the garden hose is gathering dust lying in a corner. Early summer gave the flowers a great start, as we had warmth, and

Oriental lily Brasilia

just enough water to keep them happy. However there is always the negative side in gardening where mildews, rust, rose blackspot, slugs, snails and greenfly thinking the garden belonged to them. Roses struggled the most as disease attacked the leaves, but bedding plants just loved it. Hanging baskets looked great with geraniums, petunias, French marigolds and Impatiens all in great form, though geraniums almost flowered themselves to death as they ran to seed and growth got held back. Hopefully they will recover once normality resumes with the late summer weather. That jet stream has a lot to answer for.

Oriental lilies loved the weather, though gales blew a few over. However these were cut and brought indoors and we had a fortnight of their glorious scent through out the house. Every year I

Verbena

have bought in another fifty or so and now they are quite eye catching in large drifts where ever I find a dry sunny spot. They are quite happy with spring bulbs at their feet so I get the snowdrops, crocus, then tulips and grape hyacinths in display over the spring months before the Oriental poppies need the space.

Annual flowers of Godetia, Candytuft and a variety of Poppies have all naturalised over different parts of the garden and as long as nothing else is suffering we just let them get on with it. The Californian poppies as well as poppy Ladybird have been terrific and this year a new Poppy Ladybird appeared with larger than normal flowers, so seed is being kept from it for next year. Seed is also being saved from pansies and wallflower Golden Monarch which both have been fantastic up at City Road allotments. The show has been so good that several plot holders are now dead heading the pansies to

Summer hanging basket

keep them flowering and at the same time providing fresh seed for young plants for flowering next year.

Fuchsia Mrs Popple never lets us down so new plants from cuttings were planted in the new flower border at City Road allotments and continues to flower well into autumn. This flower border is also planted up with lilies, Houttuynia, Cistus and Lamium White Nancy as well as numerous bush roses all from cuttings. The border has been great this year, but hopefully next year it will be even better as plants mature, and with more spring bulb planting.

Dahlias, gladioli and Chrysanthemums are now all in full flower, but growing conditions have been so good that staking and tying has been problematic as they are all so much bigger than normal. There have been plenty of flowers for the house, though I need to keep some vases for my oriental lilies for their scent.

Verbena and Osteospermum however have just grown normally but with a greater show of flowers

Osteospermum

than in previous years.

Hydrangea Charme had a poor display last year and was getting ready for the chop, but we relented and gave it another year, but with a severe verbal warning. Must have given it a fright, as it has been great this year, so it lives to flower a few more years.
Calluna H E Beale is always a show stopping heather towards the end of August and is well budded up at present. It has grown really well in the hot clammy moist summer climate.

Wee jobs to do this week

Botrytis on Seigerrebe grapes

Check over grapes in the greenhouse and remove any showing signs of botrytis rot before it spreads. Remove some leaves to let sunshine penetrate the ripening bunches and keep the doors and windows open as much as possible to improve air circulation and keep temperatures down. This is a bad year for botrytis with high temperatures and too much rainfall.

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EXPERIMENTS IN THE GARDEN

EXPERIMENTS IN THE GARDEN

Apple Pearl grafted onto a James Grieve tree

My interest in gardening started in childhood encouraged by keen gardeners in the family, so it was natural to choose it for a career as well as a hobby. For some folk it is climbing the long list of Scottish Munroe’s, or swimming across the River Tay to Fife, but my challenges were more down to earth as I experimented with plants in the garden.

Grafted pears now growing

The first challenge was to have some part of the garden looking its best with flowers and colour all year round. In spring its bulbs and spring bedding, then as they begin to fade the rhododendrons and azaleas flower, then onto a huge array of summer bedding plants, roses, and herbaceous plants. In autumn we have the harvest season with apples, pears and plums as well as harvesting my huge bright orange pumpkins. However all this time vegetables are being grown and harvested to keep the kitchen supplied all year round where possible. Interest in winter comes from the colour stemmed border of Cornus, Kerria and maple, then before spring arrives the snowdrops appear, quickly followed by the aconites then the whole circle begins again.

Avalon Pride the last peach

I wanted to grow many apples and pears but there was only space for three trees, so to grow all my favourite varieties I had to learn to graft. This gave me trees with at least six varieties on each tree. Grafting sounds difficult, but it is very easy and satisfying once you look up techniques and the success rates are near 100%.

I grew up with raspberries and strawberries as a young berry picker, but now the challenge is to have fruit over the whole summer by choosing early, mid season and late varieties with a row of early strawberries brought on a fortnight early with protection of low polythene tunnels.

Snowdrops in December

Breeders are always bringing out new varieties of every type of plant, so I always buy a few to try them out. Strawberry Colossus turned out to be a complete waste of space with just a few small berries. It got dug out after a couple of years. Blackberry Rhuben advertised as huge fruits produced on new canes in the same year. Mine didn’t flower till November so hardly any time to produce fruit, and the few that did fruit were less than half the size claimed in the catalogue. It got dug out.

With talk of global warming I thought I would try some exotics, so I purchased a peach tree, Peregrine, but it got massacred with disease, so it got replaced with disease resistant Avalon Pride. For the first three years I only got one peach year, then in 2019 there was none, so tree has now been removed to make way for my next experiments to find a grape to grow outdoors in Scotland.

Outdoor grape trial at City Road

I have tried quite a few and had some success but only with grapes for wine use. I have yet to find a seedless variety for dessert use, but I keep trying. Up at City Road Allotments we have planted several against our south facing shed. These will be grown as single stem cordons with summer and winter pruning so they do not take over the front of the shed.

Saskatoons in fruit

Trials were successful with my outdoor fig, Brown Turkey which is a real beauty that never lets me down producing well over a hundred figs every year. Growing Saskatoon fruit bushes is my other great success story. They are in great demand from other gardeners, but as yet no-one in UK is growing them for the fresh fruit market or as bushes to sell to the public.

This year I am trying a range of cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse. They are all very vigorous reaching the top of the greenhouse long before my large fruited Alicante. However most only got five trusses, though Sungold had seven trusses with excellent flavour and texture. Supersweet 100 was not an early cropper but trusses all had over 100 tomatoes on them. Rapunzel had large fruit but poor texture and flavour. Sugarglass was my heaviest cropper but lost points for flavour and texture. Cherry Baby had the smallest fruit but with the best flavour. Trusses had well over 100 fruits, but most of them fell off before the fruits grew.

Pumpkins growing strongly

Wee jobs to do this week

Cut back summer growth extensions on pumpkins once each plant has made two or three decent fruits. Pumpkins just love this hot wet summer and will try to take over the whole garden.

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SUMMER HARVESTS

SUMMER HARVESTS

We will always remember the summer of 2018 with its long hot and dry spell, but 2019 seems to be even hotter, but with plenty thunder storms so there was never any shortage of water. Plant growth has responded to this great growing weather. My bush roses normally reach five feet tall, but this year I am seeing them at six to seven feet tall and a real

Sophie and Anna topping and tailing gooseberries

nuisance with strong winds so staking and tying has been necessary to stop them blowing over. Flowering has been a bit erratic as the warm dry spring allowed a severe dose of mildew and black

Beetroot Cylindra

spot to spread and greenfly infestations have been in plague proportions. There has been plenty of ladybirds, but not enough to halt their spread, so spraying had to be done to stop them for a few weeks. Sweet peas have been brilliant this year, but needed constant dead heading and picking bunches for the house.

Broad beans grew very rapidly and ripened earlier than normal, so it was an early start to the harvesting season. Family members over on holiday get roped into the harvesting and processing tasks all summer long. The broad beans get picked in one go preferably in the morning, then after lunch we all gather around the patio and shell the beans. By evening, they get blanched and then we begin the task of separating the beans

Rose Myriam

from their skins, before bagging up for the freezer.

Peas were ready to pick at the same time, so another family day was spent picking, shelling then bagging up for the freezer, other than those for immediate use. Then just before my visitors departed volunteers were sought for the Invicta gooseberry picking. The bushes have been so packed with gooseberries that all the shoots were trailing on the ground with weight of crop so straw was needed underneath them to prevent soil splashing during heavy rainfall. Family again got together around the table for a night of music, wine (adults only) and topping and tailing the gooseberries.

Hot muggy weather seems to have brought on more crops, so it was the turn of blackcurrant Big Ben to get picked followed a week later for picking Ben Conan.

Strawberry Florence

Freezer is now well stocked, but Saskatoon picking has not yet started as the crop is a fortnight behind normal picking from mid July onwards, but this year it will be from early August. The bushes are absolutely laden down with berries. In between major crop harvesting there was plenty raspberries, strawberries and Bramble Helen to pick every three days apart, and autumn fruiting raspberry Polka is making an early start.

Harvesting on the vegetable patch is well under way. Potato Casa Blanca lifting was started in early June, but before the whole row was lifted I had to harvest Mayan Gold which seemed to suffer an odd disease that caused the leaves to die back. This variety is also liable to boil away to soup in the pot so I will not be growing it again.

Beetroot and turnips have had a mixed year so far. Beetroot is always a great cropper and keeps well outdoors in our mild winters, but all my Golden ball turnips ran to seed. Think I will stick to Purple Top Milan in future which is always reliable, though our freaky weather may have some bearing on matters. It’s been a great year for

Good crop of blackcurrants

salads. Lettuce has never been better, but greenfly infestations are not very welcome and spraying a bad idea as picking has been constant. I tried a few rows in between a block of chrysanthemums. I got plenty of lettuce before the chrysanthemums needed the space.  Onions, like all the other vegetables have made strong growth and are swelling up just fine, though the wet hot atmosphere has caused a severe infection of white rot fungus.

In the greenhouse grape vines and tomatoes are fighting for space. Tomatoes have now all had the tops removed after five or six trusses as they have all reached the roof and grapes are all hanging in great profusion. I know it’s a bit late but the massive bunches will need some thinning of the fruits.

Wee jobs to do this week

As summer harvests continue and land gets cleared of crops such as peas, onions, broad beans and early potatoes, put this spare ground to good use. This is a good time to sow salads (lettuce, radish, spring onions and rocket) for late summer and autumn use. Some varieties of lettuce are winter hardy and can give useful fresh greens over the winter months and into spring.

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ORCHIDS

ORCHIDS

Cattleya sincorana

Fifty years ago orchids were rarely seen outside stately homes with large gardens and greenhouses. I don’t recall seeing them during my five year gardening apprenticeship training, though we were given notes on their culture. Orchids were expensive to purchase so they remained fairly rare, but life moves on and growers and breeders saw a huge opportunity, so before long new varieties appeared on the market and using meristem culture they could be propagated in very large numbers quite cheaply. Today they now appear everywhere for sale from garden centres to supermarkets at very affordable prices. The Phalaenopsis seems to be the most popular, but then the flowers come in a range of colours, with stems full of blooms can last for months, and they are very easy to grow. However you must avoid keeping them in sunlight (they prefer dappled shade or full shade) and never leave them sitting in water. A sunny bathroom is perfect where the

Cattleya Saturn

aerial roots can get plenty of atmospheric moisture, though in our Scottish climate they will be happy on a sunny windowsill during the winter months. In their natural environment they grow by clinging to tree trunks in tropical forests where there is plenty of warmth and rainfall with perfect drainage, and nutrients washed down the trunk from bird droppings and rotting leaves absorbed by the aerial roots hang down the side of the plant. The woodland canopy, mostly evergreen, affords dappled light and protection from strong sunlight. Orchids can be found all

White phalaenopsis acrylic painting

over the world growing wild in damp moist and peaty soils. I saw drifts of thousands growing in Glen Nevis and they even reached weed status growing in industrial developments in Livingston New Town.

Growing orchids in the home

Wild orchid

The Phalaenopsis type are usually quite reliable and very rewarding when it repeats the flowering every year, so makes the best one to start with. They will come in pots with ample holes for drainage and planted in special orchid compost. This is often a mixture of bark chips, coarse graded peat, charcoal to keep the mixture sweet, nutrients and trace elements. This should be sufficient to keep the plant happy for two to four years before repotting is necessary depending on type. It is best to repot in spring as growth commences. I purchased one in full flower last August at the City Road Allotments open day and it continued to flower well beyond Christmas. Once flowering is over allow the plant some dormancy by keeping it in a cooler spot, and water less often, but do not let it dry out and do not feed at this stage or repot. Orchids are not heavy feeders so just give them an orchid feed once every two to four weeks while they are growing.

Paphiopedilum orchid

Phalaenopsis can flower most of the year with six or up to twenty or more flowers on one spike. Keep the stem staked otherwise it hangs over and could pull over the whole plant.

Cymbidiums are very popular and another good one to start with as they are very adaptable. They flower in autumn to spring producing many spikes with up to twenty flowers each lasting up to ten weeks. The plants can grow quite large and are happy in a cool room. They require more frequent repotting because of their strong growth.

Paphiopedilum orchids are terrestrial, not epiphytic so there are no aerial roots or pseudobulbs. They grow from rhizomes just below ground level and produce medium sized flower stems with just one or a few flowers. They like to be kept lightly shaded. Propagate by division in spring and repot every second year in the smallest pot available.

Salads for autumn and winter

Cattleyas  are epiphytes that are very flamboyant with large colourful flowers which are often highly perfumed. Both Cattleyas and Phalaenopsis have been used extensively by artists as the subject for flower paintings with great impact.

Wee jobs to do this week

Take advantage of small areas of land becoming available as mid summer crops get harvested allowing sowings of lettuce, radish, spring onions and rocket and even some Chinese cabbage. These will give salads for late autumn use. Early potatoes, peas, broad beans, cabbage and cauliflower and soon onions will all get lifted to release some land though some onions are having a hard time with the warm but wet weather and white rot is gaining the upper hand.

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SUMMER IN THE GARDEN

SUMMER IN THE GARDEN

Mid summer can be a great time to relax in the garden and just watch the fruit, vegetables and flowers grow. This year has seen all types of weather thrown at us. One minute we have the hose out watering dry soil, and then we have to run for shelter as the thunderstorms descend upon us. Strong winds keep blowing plants over unless they are

Young gardeners picking peas

well secured, then we get days with clear skies and temperatures so hot we have to sit in the shade. These can be great times and that old Scottish joke about missing the summer because we went in for a haircut no longer applies. Garden plants are at their best in mid summer but this is the time when the judges appear for those of us who have entered the Dundee City council Garden and allotment competition, so there is no time to relax on the sun lounger sipping a wee glass of Saskatoon wine. Weeds must be totally eradicated, pests and diseases eliminated, fences straitened up, and all plants standing to attention with flowers facing the front as the judges approach. Some plants such as the Cornus kousa Miss Satomi have been at their best for a whole month, roses and poppies have never been better, and all my new grafts with Concord and Beth on my family pear tree are now growing.

However there are still crops to pick such as peas, blackcurrants, salads, gooseberries, turnips, first

Two shaws of Casa Blanca

early potato Casa Blanca and the first of my cauliflowers is ready, so harvesting becomes a family outing and the kids get involved picking peas, strawberries and raspberries. High temperatures in July has brought forward the broad beans so they will soon be needing to get picked.

Up at City Road Allotments plot holders are all very busy as we have entered the best allotment site competition after our success last year. We got top prize and money received was spent on new plant containers to brighten up the front of our community sheds. We have also created a new flower border at the entrance and encouraged those plot holders adjacent to City Road to plant up a flower border so folk passing along City Road can see a very attractive allotment site. In years past too many

Dave's flower border along City Road

allotment sites were partly run down, full of weeds, with broken fences and many derelict sheds. Today this has all changed as folk coming in from all sections of the community are keen to grow fresh produce, and enjoy the exercise, plenty of sunshine and fresh air and a great community with plenty events to bring folk together. We have plot holders from all over the globe bringing in crops from far away. We open up our site every Saturday and Sunday just before lunch so the public can drop in and wander around to see how we grow crops. Good community spirit is aided with surplus produce put in a basket outside our gates so folk passing by can help themselves to free fresh fruit and vegetables. We also participate in the Dundee Open Doors event and our good gardening plot holders take parties around the site to show them the best we have to offer, but it is our annual Open Day event which draws in the greatest response as folk come in from all over Dundee, and this year it is on Sunday 28^th July

Cornus kousa Miss Satomi

from 11am to 3pm. As well as growing more flowers to brighten up our site we have also planted up an outdoor grape vine experiment along our south facing sheds with a half dozen different varieties to see which grapes will be best for growing outdoors in Scotland. Visitors can also see some very successful fig trees, chokeberries and saskatoons, then drop into our café for home made produce, fresh fruit and vegetables, jams, and tablet to purchase and numerous garden plants for sale. We also have established a communal wild garden with a bug hotel which is great for kids interested in outdoor life.

Wee jobs to do this week

Summer hanging basket

Tubs and hanging baskets get changed twice a year to show spring flowers up till the end of May then replaced with summer flowers to continue the display till autumn. Geraniums, begonias, petunias, lobelia and French marigolds just love to grow and flower in the hot summer weather, but as soil is limited they need a good feed with liquid fertiliser every fortnight. Keep dead heading spent flowers and check for greenfly that seem to like the petunias and slugs that just love both French and African Marigolds.

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START OF THE BERRY SEASON

START OF THE BERRY SEASON

I just love it when the first strawberries ripen and the berry picking season begins. Memories of berry picking are still very strong although I am going back sixty years or more, but they were great times, as we got a few shillings to spend and there was always a pound or so of berries followed us home so

Anna making pots of jam

mother could make us some jam. It was an early rise at 6am then a cycle from St. Marys to the berry fields at Longforgan with me mate, so we could pick each side of the raspberry dreel, though I

Black currant Big Ben

preferred picking strawberries as I always made more money. As kids we noticed that there was always more berries on the east side of the rows which nearly always ran north to south. Later on as the wee kid got wiser this was put down to the prevailing winds coming from the west encouraging the fruiting shoots to lean to the east.

Bramble Helen

Today, life on my allotment berry field has come down a bit on scale, but the picking season goes on a lot longer. It starts with my early strawberry Christine and sometimes Mae another good early, but brought on a fortnight earlier with extra warmth and protection under a low polythene tunnel. Then the mid season varieties Elsanta and Honeoye ripen followed by the late varieties Symphony and Florence and taking us into early autumn the perpetual Flamenco is outstanding. However to get the best out of the strawberries they need to be netted against birds, use slug pellets to control slugs and snails which seem to be around in packs this year, and to stop soil splashing onto the fruit the rows need straw laying up the rows.

Chokeberry Aronia Viking

Raspberry picking kicks of in early July if the weather is in your favour, but now we have good autumn fruiting varieties like Autumn Treasure and Polka, so we can enjoy fresh berries well into autumn. Anna has her work cut out finding ways to use our heavy crops with compotes, summer puddings, jams and eating fresh within a couple of days from picking. Raspberry maggots are still a real pain on both the raspberries as well as the blackberries, so an insecticide spray is needed at the sign of the first pink fruit then ten days later.

Gooseberry Invicta

Blackcurrant Big Ben has been the first to ripen in early July and both this variety and my Ben Conan are laden down with huge crops bending branches down to the ground so it has been necessary to lay straw down to stop soil splashing onto the fruit. Gooseberries are also showing very heavy crops so they also needed straw laid underneath the branches. Gooseberries are added to summer puddings, stewed for compote to add to breakfast cereals, great for mint and gooseberry jelly and brilliant in chutney, but my favourite use of the surplus is in my dessert wines. The redcurrant crop has a similar use in the kitchen but also for my home brew wines.

Redcurrant

I think it must be seeing the result of last years fantastic summer which ripened up all the wood and now everything is cropping like never before. Chokeberries (Aronia Viking), saskatoons and blueberries are all laden down with very heavy crops this year. These will all keep me supplied in fresh berries right through summer into autumn but surplus berries in the freezer keeps can be used 

Saskatoons

all year round. Chokeberries (Aronias) and saskatoons are both destined for fruit wine production as they both make fantastic wines, though I lay mine down for three years to mature to get the best flavour from them. Saskatoons mixed with rhubarb makes brilliant jam. This combination works as the saskatoons are quite sweet so the rhubarb balances it as it is more acidic.

Fig bushes are following the same pattern with huge crop potential as I left the small fruit buds on over winter as with our recent mild winters they seem to survive and give me an early crop.

Wee jobs to do this week

Sweet William

Many early flowering herbaceous border plants such as oriental poppies, peonies, lupins and bearded iris are now finished so they can be cut back to leave more room for later flowering plants such as day lilies, oriental lilies, Agapanthus and delphiniums, though the latter are now also beginning to go past their best. Any space left can be planted up with a few bedding plants such as African marigolds, geraniums and Sweet William to keep the border attractive through summer.

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