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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Cut Flowers

GROW YOUR OWN CUT FLOWERS    

 I love to see an attractive garden with a show of flowers in some part in every month of the year. This is quite possible with a wee bit of knowledge of plants and some careful planning. However the garden is part of the home so many of the flowers end up in a vase, table decoration or grown in a pot for a colourful windowsill.

This is where I am often very unpopular as many people feel that flowers are for picking. They certainly do brighten up the home, but at the expense of my outdoor displays, so I have always set aside a part of my garden or allotment specifically to grow cut flower for the house. This saves the loss to my outdoor flower beds.

The range of plants suitable for cut flowers is immense and can cover every month in the year. Suitable flowers can be tall like gladioli for a bold impressive vase or small like pansies for a table decoration in a small bowl using oasis to keep them moist. The vase or bowl is often enhanced with some greenery using foliage from plants not necessarily linked to the cut flower.

Flowers by the season

Spring belongs to the flowering bulbs of daffodils, narcissus, tulips and iris.

In summer there is plenty to choose from with roses, carnations, gladioli, sweet peas, dahlias, lilies and chrysanthemums.

Autumn cut flowers include the later chrysanthemums that may need some protection, Michaelmas daisies, and again roses that just keep flowering if they can get a bit of warm sunshine.

In winter we might begin to struggle a bit for a wide range, but shrubs such as Viburnum fragrans can help us out for table decorations, and some plants such as perpetual carnations given some greenhouse conditions will fill the gap. A good table decoration for Christmas can be made with a few red carnations in oasis surrounded with yellow jasmine. Freesias are very welcome in winter, but need a glasshouse for protection. Late blooming chrysanthemums can be grown in pots or wire baskets outdoors then brought inside under glass to complete their flowering up till Christmas.

Herbaceous and annuals

Many herbaceous plants are tall and strong and will last well when used for cut flower. Flag iris are my favourite as the flowers are bright, bold and scented. Pyrethrum and Doronicums are for the early season and phlox, Japanese anemone and michaelmas daisies for late summer.

Good annual plants grown from seeds include snapdragons, larkspur, helichrysum, cornflower, sweet William and the scented stocks.

Bulbs and corms

Daffodils, narcissus and tulips can usually be found a spot out of the way under some shrubs or even under a fruiting bramble. Their seasons work well together. I grow my alliums and lilies under the shrubs of my coloured stemmed winter border and my Azalea beds where they all live in a happy association.
Many Daffodil and tulip bulbs start off in pots in late summer to be forced outdoors then brought under glass to complete their flowering. If the pots are small they are fine indoors, but sometimes the flowers are cut if the pots are too big.

Freesias can either be used as pot grown or cut flower started as seed or small bulbs. They will need a glasshouse but the blooms make excellent cut flowers with a heady scent.

Favourites

Roses have a long season with National Trust a deep red with perfectly formed heads, but unfortunately no scent. Ingrid Bergman, another red, is vigorous, produces many flowers and is scented. Margaret Merril is a white with pink blush and scented, as is Pure Bliss a pale pink rose. Golden Celebration is a good yellow strong grower with scent. 
Chrysanthemums have a wide range of colours available and may be grown as sprays or as single blooms on a stem. Sprays are easy to grow and require no disbudding, but decorative, incurves and reflex blooms need summer disbudding to leave the centre bud to develop into a large flower. I grow mine in a two foot wide bed and support the flowers with six inch mesh fencing wire held firm between four posts. As the plants grow the wire is raised up the end posts. You can plant out the bed as one plant in each six inch square mesh and grow the flower on one stem
without stopping the main shoot. This will make it flower earlier than one which is stopped and branched.
Carnations are long lasting and many have a deep clove scent. Grow them in a bed or single row and support the flowers with canes. Border carnations and pinks are grown outdoors for summer flowering, but perpetual flowering carnations can be flowered all year round in a glasshouse.
Dahlias are excellent as a cut flower but take up a lot of space. If you grow them for a garden display there is usually plenty of flowers for a good show and cut flowers. There is a wide range of colours and types though
decoratives and cactus are best for cut flower.
Gladioli are great value and very easy to grow. I add a few new colours every year, but save the corms from year to year. After autumn cleaning of lifted corms I select out all the biggest bulbils and sow them in a broad row to grow into new corms. Many flower in their second year.
Sweet Peas are very versatile. They can be grown up a six foot net, on a tall fence or traditionally in a double row supported with six foot canes. For a garden display they are best grown from seed in autumn or early spring, tipped after two to four leaves then after planting out left to grow unchecked. For larger blooms for cut flower grow then on a single stem tied to a cane and pinch out all tendrils and sideshoots. Sweet peas grow best a well prepared double dug trench, manured in both spits. Give a dressing of fertiliser before planting and more feeding in mid summer.

Always cut off all seed pods as they sap the strength of the plant at the expense of flowers.

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A bed of Roses

 A BED OF ROSES    

If your garden was very small and you could only grow a few plants, there is a good chance that a rose would be selected. They have perfect flowers, scent, are easy to grow with a wee bit of knowledge and can last for years.

Last February I covered some basic thoughts on roses as a pleasant way to brighten up the long cold winter.

Previous articles can be seen on my gardening blog at scottishartistandhisgarden.blogspot.com

We are now in mid summer, according to the calendar I believe, and the roses are back in full flower again for the second flush. The first flush had a lot of promise and was quite brilliant for a week or so, but it is hard to put on a fantastic show in a Scottish monsoon.

It certainly sorts out the favourites, and tests their ability to survive blackspot.

I have been fairly ruthless in grubbing out anything that is prone to disease, though it is hard to lose some of your favourites. Margaret Merril is a gorgeous white with terrific scent, but does get a bit of blackspot. She is too good to lose so I resort to some chemical spraying, (Systhane containing Myclobutanil) whenever there is a couple of dry days in between showers.

Types of roses

Demand for roses has kept the breeders busy for years. We now have every colour we need and a rose for every situation. They can be planted in beds as bushes, borders as taller shrubs grown with minimal pruning, as climbers and ramblers along fences, pergolas or trained up walls, and for the very small garden there is a wide choice of patio roses. These may be small, but they are perfectly formed.

Breeders must now turn there attention to bringing back more scent in new roses. Scent was a low priority in the rush to extend a new range of colours, but now people have patios and spend time relaxing around the garden, scent is a must have. The other breeders priority must now be to create a plant with health and vigour. If the changing climate is to be milder and wetter, this will favour the build up and spread of diseases, and as most effective chemicals have been withdrawn, the gardener has no means of combating disease. The only answer left is to dig out any plants prone to disease and only grow resistant types. This does mean the loss of many past favourites such as Golden Showers, Blue Moon and the old English shrub rose L D Braithwaite which had lovely deep red flowers.

Favourite bush and shrub roses

This is always a personal thing as everyone has their own favourites and as roses last for years it is not always feasible to keep trying new varieties.

National Trust is my best red rose with perfectly shaped flowers held upright on strong healthy shoots. However it has no scent, but E H Morse has great scent and excellent deep red flowers. Another great red rose is the very vigorous and highly scented Ingrid Bergman.

Julie Goodyear is my best yellow with Arthur Bell nearly just as good, but Julie has the vigour and more flowers. Graham Thomas, a tall shrub, has taken over from Golden Showers as my yellow climber, as it is not defoliated with blackspot. I am very sorry to lose Golden Showers, as it had brilliant deep golden flowers, and was very prolific but with climate change and withdrawal of chemicals it could not survive blackspot attacks.

Great pink roses are numerous from Silver Lining to Perfecta (a very old but reliable variety), then for scent the deep carmine Wendy Cussons is hard to beat. For the perfect bloom choose Myriam if you can find it. Dearest is a great pink floribunda. Pink shrub rose favourites include Lavender Lassie, Ispahan and Wisley.

Iceberg was always my favourite white floribunda and Margaret Merril a brilliant scented white hybrid tea.

Picadilly is hard to beat as a bicolour and has healthy disease free foliage and Rose Gaujard a lovely pink/white bicolour

New roses are prolific, so todays favourites will quickly be replaced by another, but it is always good to try out something new.

Favourite Climbers

My best red climbing rose at present is Dublin Bay, but it has no scent. Climbing Ena Harkness is a terrific red with well formed and scented hybrid tea shaped flowers. As a bush rose its failing was always a weak head which hung down. This trait is a distinct advantage in a climbing rose as you can look up into the full blooms.

Gertrude Jekyll has to be my best pink with very scented flowers with the Old English rose shape.

Climbing Iceberg is a great white, but suffers mildew too much, so it will never compete with the very old favourite Mme Alfred Carrier. This is very vigorous and needs a lot of space to grow. This noisette rose was bred in France and introduced in 1879 and is still in great demand.

Summer cultivation

Dead heading once flowers have finished is essential for appearance as well as preventing the bushes from spending their energy producing seeds at the expense of flowers.

Keep the soil weed free and give a mulch of compost in spring to conserve moisture.

Use a good pesticide and fungicide to prevent any build up of greenfly or diseases. All of these chemicals available at garden centres are now very safe and environmentally friendly.

The pesticides previously available to control all the garden problems are now all off the shelf.

Climbing roses usually benefit from some summer pruning to cut back flowered shoots to a strong bud that will grow and give some late flowers. There is usually a lot of weak and blind shoots that can be removed to allow more light and air into the centre to ripen up remaining shoots.

Tie in any straggling shoots so they do not get broken.

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A Blaze of Colour

 A BLAZE OF COLOUR    

There is just enough warmth and sunshine, in between showers, to bring the best out of the flowers.

Although everything has its season, and some may be short lived, if you grow a wide range of plants, there is always some part of the garden looking fantastic just about all year round. At this time of year we are spoilt for choice. The Shasta daisies have been allowed to spread over a few square metres as they are excellent ground cover. They started off a few years ago as a small box of six plants, but soon multiplied in our alluvial soil. They have now finished flowering but the show continues with the Shirley poppies sown adjacent. They really respond to the warmth of sunshine when it appears for a few hours every three to four days. Still, with an ample supply of rainfall in between, we no longer need to bother getting the garden hose out.

Summer flowers everywhere

 

The hanging baskets are a blaze of colour with petunias, nemesia, geraniums, Impatiens and lobelia, and tubs and pots have a similar mixture but in different colours.

The main flower bed of Nonstop tuberous begonias just seems to get better each day.

Roses have had their first main flush and are now getting ready for the second flush, but mildew keeps having a go at them. However my huge climbing rose Mme Alfred Carrier continues into her second flush with numerous large white scented blooms. It grows up a trellis fence but I try to keep its height down to about twelve feet, though I know it wants to grow at least twice that height.

If you have a large spare sunny spot and something for it to hang on to this rose will reward you immensely. It may get a wee bit of blackspot, but never too severe.

Gladioli are now in full bloom on my allotment giving it some welcome splash of colour as well as providing ample cut flower for the house. Sweet peas from the allotment add both colour and scent for the house.

The time has come for Anemone Honorine Jobert to take centre stage as the clumps and display get bigger each year.  It really is very eye catching and a favourite for sun, semi shade or even shade and is very reliable and easy to grow.

Fruit

Save Now

My gooseberries survived the hard winter, spring gales, early summer thunderstorms, a plague of sawfly caterpillars and the heavy crop was monitored daily with a wee bit of sampling to see how sweet the fruit was before I picked them. Then I noticed the crop slowly disappear over a few days before I could pick the ripe ones. City Road Allotments have a resident family of foxes only ever seen by those few hardy souls who can always be found at dawn when the sun rises. I know of no other pest who would devour my gooseberries before they are fully ripe. They could not reach the lower ones because of the thorns, but did manage to eat half of the berries still on the bush. I thought foxes ate chickens, not gooseberries, and why can’t they have a go at the pigeons while they perch on the cabbages having a picnic.

However although they were very partial to Invicta, a large golden sweet juicy berry, quite delicious I recall from last year, even though the bush is thick with vicious thorns, they did not bother my other red gooseberry on trial for disease resistance. It is a mildew resistant thornless type so easy to harvest, but apparently not tasty enough for foxes. Scientists at James Hutton should look at this one again for flavour.

Autumn raspberries are late this year, and only just started to crop. Berries are not very sweet as they need more sunshine to increase sugar content. Summer raspberries that have finished fruiting can be pruned any time now by removing the old fruiting canes but leaving this years canes which will fruit next year.

Strawberries that have finished fruiting can be tidied up. Cut off the old leaves down to the top of the crown, and remove them together with any straw used to protect the fruit from soil splashing. Only allow the strawberry crop to fruit for three years, and then replace it with new runners saved from the old rows, or buy in new plants during winter.

The strawberry net has been removed to cover the blueberry patch as birds love these just as much as saskatoons which are now finished. Blueberries are now colouring up just nicely, but the crop is not as heavy as last year as the spring gales done them no favour at all.

The compost heap will be getting a fair bit of material as the summer harvest is well under way, so help it to rot down by giving it at least one turning. This is one dirty, unpleasant and hard task so a wee bit of muttering and swearing is permissible and does help the breakdown process to work faster.

Bramble Helen has now started to crop providing fruit for compote, jam and the freezer. So far the fox has not noticed these.

Vegetables

It is very hard to stay one step ahead of nature. The wet years have allowed clubroot to become a major problem with brassicas. We can no longer get Calomel dust and as the spores remain active for up to twelve years, the normal four year rotation has little affect. We can lime the ground ahead of planting, even dust some more into the planting holes and grow the plants in pots during the early stages. This gives a bigger more robust plant a good chance to fight off any attack.

I lost most of my spring planted cauliflower All Year Round to clubroot, so I was determined to give my summer crop a better chance. They all got potted up and regular feeding so I was quite proud of my two rows looking so strong after planting. Nets protected them from pigeons, and I don’t think the fox likes caulis. A week later I was horrified to find half of them wilting. Digging a few of them up, it was not clubroot, but the cabbage rootfly maggots.

We try hard but nature wins in the end.

Next year we must seriously look at pest and disease resistant varieties, though that often means at the expense of flavour.

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