Month: February 2023

Garden Club Talks. Cut Flowers

/ karen / 23 Comments

A warm welcome to all new readers who’ve attended my garden club, or U3A talks. Here’s a selection of photos from my talks to accompany the plant lists. I’m available in the East Midlands area for talks. If you’ve enjoyed one of my talks, please pass my details on to neighbouring clubs and societies. I give a donation to charity with each talk. My e mail is k.gimson@btinternet.com.

Echinacea White Swan grown from seed. Plants also come from Miles Nursery, Hoby, Leicestershire.

I’ve been a garden designer for 25 years. Pollinators- bees and butterflies- are always a priority when choosing plants.

I highly recommend Jean Vernon for advice on helping bumble bees and solitary bees. I reviewed her best-selling book here: https://bramblegarden.com/2022/06/14/attracting-garden-pollinators-by-jean-vernon/.

Here’s where I grow my plants. I have a second hand 20ft Alton Cedar greenhouse which cost £260 30 years ago. I’ve painted it black and made matching staging. Alongside is a 20ft poly tunnel. We bought the hoops from a nursery closing down. The metal hoops cost £20 on condition we took down a 40ft tunnel and cleared the site. It took us a day to take it down and a week to install the poly tunnel at home. The new plastic covering cost about £140. You can just see the potting shed which replaced one made from pallets which lasted 20 years! This one is made from recycled wood and 1920s window frames which came from a house in the village having double glazing fitted. The roof is black onduline which is fairly cheap and easy to build with. My luxury, having saved money on second hand items, is an electricity supply to the potting shed and greenhouse. At the moment the greenhouse is heated to just above freezing. Orange and lemon trees thrive there.

In front of the greenhouse there’s 10 beds with 2x2ft slab paths between. The beds are about 1.2m wide by 3m long . Vegetables and flowers are mixed together. One bed contains wild flowers. Two beds have hazel A-frames made from hazel rods. These rods come from farm suppliers and are used as binders for hedge laying. They are fairly cheap and last three years if repaired every spring. Natural string is used to tie them together, so at the end of their life, the whole lot can be shredded and composted.

Sweet peas are sown in October and February and planted out in April. Down the centre of the A- frames are gladioli and lilies. Perennial argyranthemums and annual Ammi are interplanted and calendula set at the front. The frame supports all the flowers and no further staking is needed, which saves time.

I grow new varieties and heritage types. Above is a new one called Wiltshire Ripple from Mr Fothergill’s. Highly fragrant and with long stems ideal for cut flowers. Try their new Suffolk Punch sweet pea, launched this year to support the Suffolk Punch Trust which is helping to conserve this heritage working horse breed.

Here’s a posy with dark blue sweet peas, Ammi, argyranthemums and lavender Hidcote. There’s always mint and rosemary in all my arrangements for the gorgeous scent. The grey foliage is Seneccio Vira Vira from Coton Manor Nursery.

Here’s the argyranthemums made into a mossy wreath with ivy, Ammi and Blue Boy cornflowers.

My wreaths end up on the 1920s summerhouse which is on a turntable to follow the sun.

Here’s a rose wreath with highly-scented Constance Spry, David Austin’s first rose, and Mme Isaac Periere, a heritage rose dating back to 1841.

Inside the potting shed. The wreath is made from a metal frame covered in moss. 10cm lengths of Ivy are poked into the moss all around the outside and inside of the ring. Roses and stems of elderflower are added on top. These will last a week if sprayed with water every day.

These roses are new from Whartons. They are a home-florists’ range for cut flowers. This one is Timeless Cream. Highly scented, with few thorns, long stems and it also repeat-flowers through summer to autumn. You can find out more about British rose growers from Roses UK which promotes the industry and spreads the word about new and heritage roses. http://www.rosesuk.com/

It goes well with carnation Bridal Star, white Antirrhinum Royal Bride, Ammi, and cosmos Psyche White. Blue gladioli (Pheasant Acre Plants) mint and Agapanthus Fireworks (Wyvale Nurseries) compete the posy.

Cosmos Psyche White. Mr Fothergill’s seed. Started in February and planted out end of May. Flowers from June to November.

Agapanthus Fireworks, a new variety which flowers all summer.

Calendula, a seedling from Touch of Red. Mr Fothergill’s seed.

If you’ve attended one of my talks, I hope you’ve enjoyed this reminder of some of the flowers mentioned. Your leader will e mail a comprehensive plant list, and I look forward to returning next year with a different talk on another gardening subject.

Recipes from Garden News Magazine this week

/ karen / 10 Comments

Updating you on my potato-growing plans:

Seed potatoes arrived promptly through the post in a paper sack from Potato House.
These are the varieties I selected. Some for containers and some for the open ground.
The potatoes were in a good condition, fresh, solid, with no mould, and an ideal size for chitting.
I set them out in a seed tray with paper strips between the varieties and labels at one end.

Seed potatoes have been placed in a bright, cool, frost free place to chit. Chitting just means to start them into growth. Small shoots will grow from the eyes, which have been placed upwards. When the shoots are 2cm the potatoes will be planted in containers on top of 20cm of compost. As the leaves grow, handfuls of compost will be added to cover them, until the leaves pop out of the top of the containers. I’ll water sparingly until the containers are half full of compost – by which time the potatoes will be growing strongly. Too much water in the early stages causes the potatoes to rot. When the leaves emerge out of the top, watering will be stepped up to make the tubers grow.

I’ll be harvesting these in about 100 days for earlies, and 120 days for main crop potatoes.

There’s nothing like the taste of newly-harvested potatoes, fresh from the garden. It’s a money-saving project, but also grown for the flavour. Only a few varieties are usually offered in the shops, and yet there are hundreds of varieties to choose from to grow.
Some potatoes I grew last year, showing the shoots starting to grow. Usually three shoots are allowed to develop. The rest are rubbed off so they produce larger -sized potatoes.
Leek and potato pies.

Here’s the link for the recipe: https://bramblegarden.com/2019/01/17/leek-and-potato-pies-veg-from-the-garden/

Potato and cashew nut savoury bakes
Love these two-tone white and pink potatoes.
Charlotte potatoes, just washed and ready to steam. No need to scrape new potatoes. The skin contains lots of vitamins and minerals.


I love the colours of Violetta and Shetland Black.
Before Christmas, I bought some ready-to-eat potatoes from Potato House UK as a try-before-you-grow scheme. It was fabulous to try different varieties before committing time and space to growing them at home.

I wrote about it here: https://bramblegarden.com/2022/12/14/try-before-you-grow-potatoes/

What plans have you got for growing potatoes this summer? It’s exciting to think about spring and summer harvests after such a long, cold grey winter isn’t it.

Potato House have kindly given me a code to offer to readers of bramblegarden. This is an offer independent from my blog, and Potato House will be responsible for all discussions regarding orders.

Amy from Potato House writes: Here is a 10% code for your readers for seed potatoes for orders over £15

BRAMBLE
T&C 10% Voucher valid till 31/4/23 for SEED orders over £15, includes all 6 tuber, 1 kg nets. Excludes 10kg, 25kg sacks, gift cards, patio sets, grow bags and our To Eat range. Coupon cannot be used in conjunction with other coupons. One discount per email. Usual discounts still apply. Usual web T&C apply.

Forcing Rhubarb- hints and tips and recipes from BBC Radio Leicester Gardening

/ karen / Leave a comment
Photo Glenn Facer

For listeners of today’s BBC Radio Leicester gardening. Here’s what I was talking about today. This advice comes from Glenn Facer, who has worked in the gardens at Chatsworth House for 33 years. Glenn has been growing fruit and vegetables in the kitchen garden for 14 years and grows produce for the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. Glenn supplies the family in the main house and also the restaurants, cafes and hotels on the estate.

Glenn Facer working at Chatsworth

Glenn says: “I force the rhubarb by lifting small clumps off the rows out on the beds from November until about the end of march, leaving the roots on top of the ground to be frosted for a few days. This aids the forcing process.

Rhubarb dug out ready to be forced
Forced rhubarb has sweet and tasty, pale stems

In dustbins, I place a layer of compost in the bottom and place the clumps on top, filling round with more compost but not covering the crown. Then lightly water and replace the lid to exclude light.

The dustbins are placed in a heated glasshouse for a quicker crop, but can be placed in a cold greenhouse or shed. They are usually ready to harvest in about 3 to 4 weeks time.

I usually dispose of the crowns after forcing, as they are worn out and would take a while to crop again.

The varieties I use are Victoria , Timperley Early and Champagne.”

Forced rhubarb from the Chatsworth gardens. photos Glenn Facer

 

Recipes we talked about on the radio. These were published in the Garden News Magazine in 2022. I write a column each week focussing on what I’m growing and how I’m using the produce in the kitchen.

Smoothy recipe:

1/2 cup cooked, cooled rhubarb

1 teaspoon sugar ( optional) or maple syrup or honey

1.5 cups plain yoghurt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon fresh grated ginger

Or pinch of dried ginger

Add icecream to serve (optional)

Cut the rhubarb into 2cm pieces. Wash and place in a saucepan with just the water clinging to the stems. Cook until soft. Add the sugar or sugar substitutes if using. Cool. Add the other ingredients and whizz in a food processor. Adjust the taste/ consistency by adding milk/cream/ or a scoop of vanilla ice cream according to taste.

Enjoy!