Wednesday 16 March 2011

Spring at Last


SPRING AT LAST

The end of February and early March brought a very welcome period of sunshine and dry weather not seen since last October. The urge to get outdoors into the garden was very strong especially as there is a mountainous backlog of tasks seeking attention. The long lasting blanket of snow which fell in November and December but did eventually melt a couple of months later was followed by cold wet real dreich weather that put any thoughts of gardening on the back burner.
That was yesterday and now today the sun is shining, the ground is drying up and gardening can begin at full speed.

Complete the winter pruning

The warmth of the sun has been sufficient to start the sap rising on my fruit trees as buds begin to swell, so pruning had to be completed before dormancy breaks. However if you have any tree which is showing too much vigour at the expense of fruiting delay pruning till just after bud burst as the shock will help it to reverse that trend.
I do not spur prune my fruit trees, but carry out a minimum of replacement pruning to remove some old wood and encourage a balance of young wood and mature fruiting wood which will fruit for several years before it gets replaced.
Apples, pears, my peach tree and my newly planted cherry tree Cherokee all got pruned. I will grow the cherry as a fan trained dwarf tree against a south facing fence, so the strong main shoot got cut back to two feet and side shoots shortened by a third. Two shoots growing at the front and back got spurred as they are unwanted in a fan trained shape.
Although I love my very early Arbroath Pippin apples, they do not keep, and as you can only eat so many, I will cut some branches back to stumps and graft some new varieties onto them in late March to early April.
I will also replace most of my Comice pear with other stronger disease resistant varieties which don’t get wiped out with scab in our wet summers. Grafting is very easy and rewarding as the new grafts grow on the older tree very readily as long as a few basic principles are followed. One main principle is that the new shoot, called the scion, should be dormant when grafting, but the tree has to be growing with the sap flowing to lubricate the inside of the bark so it separates easy from the trunk without tearing. I cut my scions in February to early March then heal them in a north facing cool border to hold them back. It always seems to work just fine.
I will cover grafting next week, so if you wish to make a family tree or try out another variety get your scions ready now.
Good apples in our area are Fiesta, Red Falstaff, Scrumptious, Discovery and Red Devil.
Summer and autumn raspberries, black, red and white currants, brambles and gooseberries should all be pruned before growth starts.
I will be doing my first pruning of my six year old Saskatoon bushes to open up the centres allowing more light in and encourage some younger shoots to grow from the base.
My ornamental exotic Cordyline australis did not survive the winter to it got chopped down to ground level. I will leave it for a year or two to see if it regrows from the base.

The fruit garden

Last week I removed a lot of runners from my early strawberry variety Mae to make two new rows. As there was plenty runners I complete each row as a double row at six inches apart and the runners spaced at six inches. This will increase the cropping significantly.
To get even earlier crops I put a polythene tunnel over an existing row of Mae. This will fruit two weeks ahead of the others. It is easy to make your own tunnels very cheaply and they can last for years. My tunnels are made from 4 foot wide polythene (150 gauge) held over wire hoops (high tensile 8 gauge galvanised wire) and secured with polypropylene binder twine.  The wire hoops are about 5 feet long. Allow a 9 inch leg to insert into the ground then bend the wire round a broom handle to create a loop on the outside for tying the twine to. I dig the polythene into the ground at each end of the row to secure it, the tie it down with the binder twine at each hoop spaced about 3 feet apart along the row.
You can buy the materials online at www.lbsgardenwarehouse.co.uk
This is the last chance to spray your peach tree with a copper fungicide, or Dithane to control peach leaf curl which can devastate the tree if untreated.

Early vegetables

Tomato Alicante and my favourite cherry type Sweet Million germinated successfully so have now been pricked out into cellular trays. They are to grow for a few weeks on the south facing living room window sill until warmer weather arrives and I can transfer them to my cold greenhouse. They will then get potted up again before planting into growbags.
Broad beans have now been sown as one seed per cell in a cellular seed tray. These are kept at home in the warmth under a table to germinate, and then they will be transferred to the cold greenhouse. They are pretty tough hardy plants so the cooler regime will not harm them. They will be one of the first to move out of the greenhouse together with my geraniums to make way for other plants. Geraniums are also quite hardy and can take a degree of frost, as long as they have been hardened off properly and the frost is not severe or prolonged.
Back on the allotment low polythene tunnels are perfect for an early batch of lettuce, radish and spring onions, but put it in place on prepared soil for at least one week to warm up the soil. There is nothing to beat those early first salads, picked fresh and onto the plate within hours.

The first flowers

Those first few days of bright sunshine was perfect to open up the spring flowering crocus to add to the aconites, snowdrops and my dazzling white hellebore.
My winter border of coloured stemmed shrubs, (Cornus Westonbirt, Kerria japonica, Salix britzensis and the Japanese maple Acer Sangokaku) has been flooded with drifts of crocus and snowdrops. It is an amazing site at present at its best for the season. The show of coloured winter stems will remain effective for another couple of weeks before they get pruned down to the base.
Under my carpet of crocus in this border I have planted tulips for flowering in May and scented lilies which flower in mid summer.
I am hoping that we do not suffer any late frosts as my first flowering shrub, Rhododendron praecox is beginning to open up. This lilac early dwarf Rhododendron is spectacular for at least two weeks provided it does not get frosted.

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Wednesday 9 March 2011

Danger in the Garden


POISONOUS PLANTS

Last week I ran over those plants to grow for a healthy lifestyle including superfoods as well as seasonal fruit and vegetables to maintain peak health all year round. The garden and allotment has the capabilities of providing us with delicious and very nutritional foods, but on the other side of the fence lurks an extremely dangerous place for the unwary.
Life on this planet has evolved as one species feeds on another, whether it is at virus level, fungus, bacteria, animal or plant. To hang onto life for as long as possible plants animals and even microbes have all developed some means of resisting becoming someone’s next meal ticket. Microbes play the numbers game with an ability to grow and mutate at an alarming speed. Animals have developed an ability for camouflage, or can run at great speed, or have horns, claws and teeth, poisonous fangs or just great strength.
Plants can’t run, shout, fight, have no claws or teeth, but they have just as much a desire for survival so, as well as thorns, they have developed a massive array of poisons in roots, bark, leaves, stems, seeds and flowers to deter predators from eating them.
We are all mostly familiar with the obvious ones such as laburnum seeds, foxgloves and giant hogweed, and we have all been stung by nettles, but when I started to look into other garden plants that could be added to the poisonous list, it amazed me that there was so many.

Danger lurks in every garden

Poisonous plants are very common in most gardens, e.g. rhododendrons, narcissi and aconites. Council parks, and shopping centres are also landscaped with a wide range of poisonous plants including laurel, snowberry, azaleas and yew trees.
Even in the home we grow hyacinths, poinsettias and oleanders which all contain toxins.
Now just in case anyone is feeling a bit off, and before you chop down the rhododendrons can we keep the dangers in perspective!
Most poisonous plants are so bitter or foul tasting that they would not normally be eaten, and some require very large quantities to be ingested before reaching a critical dose.
Apples are one of the most popular fruits, and many people just swallow the seeds. The seeds contain cyanogenic glycosides, a cyanide compound that could be fatal in high enough concentrations.  However we would need to consume massive amounts of apples and crushing the seeds before we swallow them. Some of this toxin is broken down in our digestive processes quite naturally. Other fruits in the same group also possess similar poisons in the seeds and kernels such as cherries and apricots.
The leaves of rhubarb are very toxic containing oxalic acid, but nobody would ever want to eat them, so there is little problem.
Then there is the humble spud, a member of the solanaceae family, which has some very poisonous relatives such as the deadly nightshade and datura, also known as Angel Trumpets. Tomatoes, peppers and tobacco also belong to this group, and are known to possess a wide range of alkaloids which can be addictively desirable e.g. tobacco, or fatal e.g. belladonna and datura containing tropane.
Although the potato is a staple food, the leaves, stems, seeds and those tubers that have turned green on exposure to light all contain the toxin glycoalkaloid solanine. This toxin is also present in tomato leaves, stems and unripe fruits.

Fatal Flowers

Angel Trumpets, Datura stramonium is used in summer beds and borders. It has large highly scented trumpet flowers that are at their best at night. Every part of the plant is toxic. South American native Indians use it as a drug because of its hypnotic and hallucinogenic affects. In the wrong dose this exotic plant can be fatal. Monkshood, a pretty blue perennial plant is so toxic it has been used in the past to poison enemy water supplies, arrow heads and kill wolves and bears.
Rhododendrons, aconites, narcissi, foxgloves, autumn crocus, daphne, delphinium, and calla lily are all toxic if ingested.
The toxic house plants include hyacinths, poinsettias and dumb cane which can cause immobility of the mouth and tongue, great difficulty in breathing and asphyxiation.
Toxic weeds include hemlock containing alkaloids, deadly nightshade which contains the alkaloid atropine and giant hogweed whose sap is phototoxic and can cause a severe rash and blisters.

Toxic Trees

Apart from laburnum whose seeds are particularly poisonous, most other harmful trees mainly affect farm animals. Beech, chestnut and especially oak can have an accumulative poisonous affect if normal grazing meadows are poor and trees are nearby. Some animals can become addicted to acorns or young fresh leaves in spring which are all high in tannic acid. Small quantities are fine but eating these in quantities should be positively discouraged.
The yew tree
The most toxic tree in UK has to be the yew tree. Its toxins have protected it so well from foraging predators that it can last for hundreds of years. It can also regrow from basal suckers so the original tree could have originated up to 4000 years ago. The yew was revered as a sacred tree by Greeks, Romans, North American Indians and in UK by the Celts and Druids. It was associated with immortality, rebirth, protection from evil and access to the underworld.
The growth is very slow so it produces a very fine grain making it perfect for tools, spears and hunting bows. Its extensive use in the middle ages for the long bow caused its demise as a dominant woodland tree across Europe. As every part of the tree is extremely poisonous, except the fleshy aril around the seed, it was used to add poison to the tips of arrows.
The Druids would plant them in circles to protect sacred ground and monks would use them to mark and protect the routes of their pilgrimages. Many very old yews survive in churchyards as the sacred ground is protected.
The oldest tree in Europe is the Fortingall yew near Loch Tay at over 3000 years old.
The stems, leaves and seeds contain the toxic alkaloid taxine.
Several suicides have been reported by people eating the leaves. On the positive side taxol extracted from the leaves can be used as an anti cancer treatment as it stops cell mutation. Extracts from the fleshy aril around the seeds can be used as a diuretic and laxative.

The above list is only a small sample of a long list of garden plants with toxic properties. Never take any risk with some berry that may look quite attractive and edible. Sometimes even a small amount may not be fatal, but could cause skin rashes, sickness, and heart palpitations.


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Thursday 3 March 2011

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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Wednesday 23 February 2011

Rhubarb, The next Superfood


RHUBARB – THE NEXT SUPERFOOD

Rhubarb is finding a new lease of life in the modern world. Its popularity has waxed and waned over the years, but its value for medical purposes is extremely high so it is undergoing scientific research all over the world for a host of uses. It is also valued for its culinary uses in stews, jams, crumbles, compote and chutneys. It is a very healthy food being high in anti-oxidants, calcium and potassium and as scientists are finding out it releases high levels of polyphenols when baked and stewed, and these may have a beneficial effect against some cancers.
These are early days as research is ongoing, but it does seem that our humble rhubarb may well become a very important superfood, and just as important is the fact that it does make a delicious jam, an exotic stew and a crumble to die for.

History

Rhubarb has been in use for thousands of years though mainly as a medicinal drug. The Chinese dried the roots, which are cathartic and astringent, for use as a laxative and other ailments.
Other rhubarb species were found in Mongolia, Tibet and Siberia, but did not possess the same medicinal properties as the Chinese species. The Greeks and Romans imported it from China for   medicinal uses, then in the thirteenth century the explorer Marco Polo brought it back to Britain from China as it was highly valued as a drug.
It was not until the early nineteenth century that it was used for culinary purposes. A south London nurseryman and strawberry grower was looking for ways to use the new imported product sugar. Rhubarb stems were a waste byproduct from the rhubarb drug trade, but he discovered that they could make a delicious sweet tart just as popular as his strawberry tarts. He found a new market and the rhubarb we now know took off.
It was very easy to grow so soon became very popular in every garden as a readily available food
known as the poor mans fruit amongst the working classes.
In 1817 in the Chelsea Physic Gardens some roots were accidentally covered over with soil. Several weeks later they discovered the tender bright red blanched stems that had a superior flavour to the outdoor rhubarb, and so an industry in forcing rhubarb started initially around London.
Later a new rhubarb industry emerged in Yorkshire known as the rhubarb triangle from Leeds and Wakefield to Bradford. They had the best clay soils, a woollen industry to supply shoddy, an organic manure, a coal industry to supply cheap heating for the forcing sheds and a road and rail network to get the product to markets quickly. They also claim the superior flavour comes from their Yorkshire water, just as our whisky industry in Scotland relies on our pure highland burns.
During the last war its popularity faded as sugar imports were very restricted, but as countries recovered, it had a brief resurgence until cheap travel allowed the import of fresh new tropical fruit from all over the world. Rhubarb just could not compete.
However we are now turning full circle as food hygienists discover just how healthy rhubarb is. Almost every allotment plot holder now has his patch of rhubarb and demand is very strong as people are now very keen to live a healthy lifestyle.

Research

Rhubarb roots and stems are high in anthraquinones, especially emodin and rhein, with both cathartic and laxative properties, and cooked stems have high levels of polyphenols, an anti cancer chemical. The roots also contain stilbenoid compounds useful in lowering blood sugar levels.
Research with rhubarb properties is covering gastric cancer, leukaemia, improvements to blood clotting, and reducing hypertension during pregnancy.
The high fibre content may help some people with high cholesterol levels. Some extracts appear to have anti-inflammatory and anti-allergy affects.
However the leaves are very toxic as they contain oxalic acid, so must never be eaten, but are perfect on the compost heap.
Ongoing worldwide research is covering a vast area of medical problems.

Cultivation

Rhubarb grows best on well drained but moisture retentive clay soils that have been well manured and deeply cultivated. They love moisture, heavy feeding and regular picking to encourage new leaves to continue to form. In mid summer any glut can be cut and stored in the freezer.
Crowns with two or three buds are planted out in winter about three feet apart in well prepared soil.  They are usually planted in odd shady corners but actually grow better in full sun. Do not pick off any leaves in the first year. They will then grow and crop for up to five years before needing dug up, split up and replanted.
Timperley Early is the earliest variety, Stockbridge Arrow and Queen Victoria follow on and then Cawood Delight is a late but with the best deep red stems.

Forcing

It is easy to extend the season by forcing some roots every year. Rhubarb needs a cold dormant period in winter to rest, so dig up mature roots after  three to five years old in mid to late winter and place them somewhere in warm darkness. Keep them moist, but don’t water the stems otherwise they could rot. I use a space adjacent to my new compost heap which is warm, but another excellent spot is under the greenhouse staging with light excluded with black polythene. Sticks are ready for picking in four to six weeks. Always twist and pull them, do not cut them off.
When the crop is finished put the old crowns on the compost heap as they will be spent.

Cooking

Rhubarb crumble, pies and tarts are most peoples favourite and stewed rhubarb with custard is heavenly, but these are well established so need no further mention.
However try rhubarb and fig jam. It is fantastic and so different from the normal traditional jams.
Then extend the recipes with a compote of rhubarb and blackcurrants or rhubarb and strawberries in the ratio of three times rhubarb to one portion of blackcurrants or strawberries. This compote can be used with breakfast muesli, or with desserts in custards, yoghurt or as a sauce with a dessert sponge, cake or tart.

End