Plot #59 Update: June 2018

June 30, 2018

Looking good, despite the temperatures in the high 20s.

Right, we’ll take it as read that it’s too damn hot and drier than a teetotaller’s liquor cabinet. Otherwise, things aren’t looking too bad down on Plot #59. As long as we can keep on top of the irrigation requirements, we ought to be able to keep everything alive long enough for the temperatures to dip again to a point where the plants can be happy again.

Here’s what we’ve got in the ground at the moment:

Alliums

Our onion patch is doing fine, despite the heat. The red onions are autumn-planted sets, and they’re quite a bit larger than the white onions, which are spring-planted sets. A few of the whites tried to bolt, but I’ve been keeping up with the watering and so far most of them have behaved themselves. Another couple of weeks and I’ll be lifting them to dry and store.

This is a mixed patch of shallots, elephant garlic and cluster-planted white onions. I can never remember whether you’re supposed to remove the elephant garlic scapes or not so this year I’ve gone half-and-half. I’ll compare bulb-size when I lift them to see if there’s any noticeable effect.

And this is our newly-dibbed leek bed. Two varities this year: ‘Pandora’ and ‘Elefant’. I did grow a tray of ‘Musselburgh’ seedlings as well, but I’ve donated those to the allotment plot at work, to make up for a poor germination result this year.

Courgettes and Squash

I think I’ve finally got the hang of courgette (summer squash) plant spacing. After a few years of crowded, sprawling, lanky stems, this year’s plants – a good two feet apart – seem to be growing in nice, neat, large clusters of foliage. First harvest tomorrow, all being well.

Likewise trailing squash. This year I’ve created soil ridges around three metres in length and have planted a single squash plant at either end. Each is mounded around with soil to create a water reservoir, meaning I can soak each plant knowing the water will go right to the roots, where it’s needed most. As they grow, they’ll trail along the top of the ridge and can be tied in to short cane pegs if needed. Varieties planted (so far): ‘Blue Hungarian’, ‘Australian Butter’, ‘Crown Prince’, ‘Rouge Vif d’Etemps’, ‘North Georgia Candy Roaster’ and ‘Knucklehead’.

I’m also growing a few climbing squash up plastic mesh supported by canes: three ‘Black Futsu’ and one ‘Uchiki Kuri’.

Sweetcorn

This years I’m growing the James Wong recommended ‘Mirai White F1’. They’ve been in the ground since the start of June and seem to be thriving so far.

Peas

Jo and I built the usual pea-harp growing frame and planted out two rows of maincrop (‘Telephone’ and ‘Carlin’, above) and two rows of mangetout (below) in the middle of May. The plants have been growing strongly ever since and the mangetout have just started cropping this past week. Fresh, crunchy, tasty, a lovely addition to any salad.

You might just be able to pick out some of the pods in the picture above. We’re growing yellow ‘Golden Sweet’ and purple ‘Shiraz’ again. The yellows are a bit more vigorous than the purples, so you end up with a rather lovely split level colour effect. And lots of tasty pods, of course.

I’m also growing ‘Timperley Wonder’ in large square tubs at home. They’re podding up nicely, but I’m seed-saving them for Garden Organic’s Heritage Seed Library, so they ain’t for eating (not this year, at least).

Potatoes

The one good thing about all this hot, dry weather is it’s kept the blight -which thrives in warm and damp conditions – under control. Normally on our site it’s a race to get your spuds in and cropping as early as possible, before the inevitable pestilence descends and you end up cutting back the haulms and hoping for the best, any time from mid-June onwards. Two years ago I was cutting back on July 1st and I think last year was even earlier than that.

However, there is a down-side. Without moisture to swell the tubers, this year’s yield is likely to be poor. Above is the total harvest from two plants that I dug up a week or so back. Not exactly spectacular. I finally caved yesterday and gave the potato plants a drink – watering without a rose on the can, pouring very carefully to the base of each plant so as to avoid splashing the foliage – which will hopefully help a little. I’ll leave them another week, then see what’s what.

Brassicas

We planted out a couple of rows of early cabbage – ‘Golden Acre’ and ‘Jersey Wakefield’ – under mesh tunnel protection and they seem to be doing just fine. Likewise a row of six ‘Brendan F1’ Brussels sprout plants, which are already shoving their tunnel up and off as they reach fro the sky. I ‘ll have to switch to an enviromesh cover for those soon, to try to keep the cabbage white larvae off ’em.

And just to show what hardy plants cabbages are, the above is a row of savoy cabbage that I planted out in Autumn 2017. I’ve been picking leaves from them to use as spring greens for weeks now, and apart from a downpour a few weeks ago, they’re not under any sort of protection and haven’t been watered since the last regular rain we had back in April, but they keep on growing. They also make good decoys for the cabbage white, keeping them off the younger plants, with any luck.

Soft Fruit

The one section of the plot not too badly affected by the lack of water is the soft fruit plantation. Our two large and one massive gooseberry bushes have put on kilos and kilos of fruit; we’re struggling to pick, wash and freeze it quickly enough. Delicious they are, too, soft and sharp-sweet, right off the bush.

Our blackcurrants have been typically prolific this year. The currants are smaller than they have been in past years, but that seems to have concentrated the flavour. I’m freezing those as well and am looking forward to making blackcurrant jam – the king of jams – when things have calmed down a bit.

Our Japanese Wineberry plant has grown massively this year – its third on-site – and looks set to produce a glut of fruit in the next few weeks. If you haven’t tried the fruit from this prickly monster it’s well worth tracking down. Raspberry-like, but with a winegum sweetness. Incredibly easy to pick as well. When ripe the berries almost fall off the bush as soon as you look at them.

Also waiting in the wings: redcurrants (not quite ripe yet), whitecurrants (hard to tell, but likewise not quite done, I think) and raspberries. I made time to thin the canes properly a week or so ago, so hopefully they’ll be much easier to harvest than they were last year.

Well, that’s it for now. If you’ve posted a similar plot update recently, or just want to let me know how your own plot is coming along, leave a link in the comments below and I’ll take a look-see.

Please Feel Free to Share:

All Go

by Darren T

June 10, 2018

Yeah, so, that was a busy few months. From sitting on my horticultural hands, wondering whether Spring would ever arrive, to a shift in weather from cold, wet and grey March to a dull-but-workable April. At long last it was sowing time, followed by pricking out and potting up time, with a whole lot of greenhouse-based catching up to do. And then the blazing heat of an incredibly dry May – that shows no sign of abating in June – bringing the added time-sink of almost daily irrigation requirements, both at home and on Plots #59 and #79.

Plus: a building job at home – a new porch / conservatory, to house the ever-expanding cactus and succulent collection – and then the biggie: a major change at work as our head gardener left for a new job at Haddon Hall, with all the upheaval (and extra hours on my part) that has entailed.

All of which has left me with no mental energy for blogging, and barely any for tweeting. But with a relaxing break – a few days down in the beautiful Wye Valley, with visits to Powis Castle and Garden, Westbury Court Garden and Dyffryn Gardens to refresh and inspire, I’m feeling the urge to get going again and chuck some new content out into the blogosphere from time to time. I’m sure regular readers (you know who are, both of you, and thank you for stopping by) will be delighted.

More soon, all being well.

Please Feel Free to Share:

Checking and Re-Potting Over-Wintered Dahlias

by Darren T

March 28, 2018

Dahlia ‘Esther Chamberlain’, a personal favourite

A timely reminder from Monty on last week’s episode of Gardener’s World sent me down to the greenhouse yesterday afternoon to check on our stock of over-wintered Dahlia tubers.

Dahlias are perennial plants that over-winter by storing sugars in large tubers below ground. But these tubers aren’t particularly frost-hardy or water-proof, so they do require protection to get them through the wet British winter. So they were dug up, dried out and potted up in spent compost last November, just after the first frosts killed off the foliage.

They’ll soon (hopefully) be bursting into new growth, which makes now the ideal time to check them over and make sure they’ve survived their winter hibernation intact. Here’s how:

1. Quick Visual Check

Tip out your tuber, compost and all, for a quick once-over.

Start by tipping the Dahlia tuber clusters out of their storage tubs, and have a look for any obviously rotten, shrivelled or split tubers. Remove those, either by very carefully cutting them away with a sharp knife, snipping with secateurs, or gently twisting the affected tuber, which carries less risk of accidentally damaging healthy tubers.

2. Manually Check Every Tuber

Give every tuber a firm squeeze to check for non-obvious softening, or outright rotting.

It’s important to check every singly tuber in the cluster, in case there’s one that looks fine but is actually rotten beneath its skin. Give every tuber a squeeze to make sure it’s firm and healthy, once again removing any of them that aren’t.

If a tuber is rotten you’ll quickly know about it, so don’t squeeze too hard…

You’ll soon find out if a tuber is rotten. Luckily, squishy tubers don’t seem to smell all that bad, but there’s always a risk of squirtage, so don’t squeeze them too hard…

3. Clean Up and Re-Pot

Remove the rotten or damaged tuber sections and re-pot the remaining plant.

Once you’ve cut, snipped or twisted off any dead or diseased material, you should be left with a clump of healthy tubers, attached to a section of stem. At this point, you can also divide large clusters of tubers. Sometimes they split and separate during the checking and cleaning process. Otherwise, a bit of gently pulling might reveal a faulty line that you can take advantage of.

As long as the section you break off includes one or more storage tubers and a section of the stem / growth node part of the plant, then you should be be able to pot it up and grow on a whole new Dahlia plant from it. We started off with five or six bought-in tubers and over the past couple of years have increased our stock to around two dozen plants.

Re-pot each tuber into a mixture of spent and fresh compost. You can use all-fresh compost, which isn’t a bad idea if you’re planning on keeping the Dahlias in pots year-round, but I’ve found found that if you’re planning on planting them out when all risk of frost has passed then a 50:50 mix of spent – you can re-use the over-wintering compost – and fresh is fine. Once the plants go into the ground they’ll be able to draw on the nutrients in the soil.

Hopefully your efforts will be rewarded with a glorious display of dazzling Dahlias from mid-summer right through to Autumn!

Please Feel Free to Share:

Is it Spring Yet?

by Darren T

March 26, 2018

Well, what a couple of months we’ve had. After an incredibly mild January, February and March have pulled a double shift on winter weather duty, chucking pretty much the full repertoire of sleet, snow, hail and frost at us, quite frequently all at once. All of which has meant our January plans haven’t moved on as far as we would have liked, but it is what it is: the first thing you learn as a gardener is that you can’t control the weather, you just have to work around it.

That didn’t stop work progressing on Plot #79, our new orchard plot. Orchard-buddy Mike and I covered the plot in heavy duty weed membrane back in December, before planting out 20 trees – stakes, ties and all – in January. We started the job in breezy sunshine and finished it in freezing rain, but we’re now the proud custodians of 11 heritage apples, 4 heritage pears, and one each of quince, greengage, plum, damson and medlar. I’ll write up a more detailed progress report and post that separately.

Plot #79, work very much in progress

I also found enough dry(ish) weather at the end of January to prep the slab base for our new shed, which we ordered yesterday. It’ll be with us in 3-4 weeks and that will allow us to finally move all the junk out of the greenhouse and use that as proper growing space instead. Cucumbers, y’say? I think so.

Last week was the first reasonably fine, dry spell we’ve had for a while, and I was able to get on with some of those infrastructure and clearance jobs, that I was really hoping to do much earlier in the year, on our main plot #59. Another half dozen recycled concrete slabs laid along the central path, another couple of square metres of the remaining midden mound – a previous tenant’s rubbish dumb, right in the middle of our plot – dug over and a few more kilos of broken glass, metal, pottery, brick, plastic (you name it) picked out and set aside, ready to dump in the annual site skip. Nothing glamorous, but essential work that’s better done than pending.

Another forkful of assorted crap from the midden mound

Jo and I also spent a few hours yesterday planting out onion sets, sprouted shallots and over-wintered broad beans – I know the weather is due to turn a bit colder again this week, but it’s only a short snap, and the plants need to be in the ground rather than the greenhouse – so they’re providing a bit more green amidst the see of brown earth and wood-chip. I noticed that the gooseberry and jostaberry leaf buds are just starting to break, the rhubarb as well, which is always a good sign that things are finally getting underway.

After a winter in the greenhouse, these broad beans should be glad to get their roots into some fresh soil.

Josteberries and gooseberries are among the earliest fruit leaf buds to show signs of life.

This week’s forecast of a short burst of cold, wet weather aside, I think we can say it nearly, almost feels like Spring is here. At long last.

Please Feel Free to Share:

Gallery: Signs of Life

by Darren T

January 18, 2018

In common with much of the rest of the country, we’ve had a burst of proper wintry weather for the past few days: snow, sleet, hail, high winds and rain, usually all within the space of an hour.

Despite the inclement conditions, our back garden is showing signs of precious life. Spurred into action by a mild December, most likely, and probably regretting it just a little now, but clinging on regardless.

Here are a few snaps I took yesterday afternoon, in-between the worst of the showers:

It’s Hama(mellis x intermedia ‘Diane’) time!

That’s our brand new Witch Hazel. We opted for the ‘Diane’ cultivar because we’re planning on planting a Cornus mas in the same area, which has similar-looking flowers in yellow rather than Diane’s deeper reds. Hopefully they’ll coincide at some point and provide a nice contrast to one another.

Helleborus nigra are amongst the earliest winter flowering plants to put on a display.

We rather enjoy this lovely Helleborus nigra hybrid with its picotee petal edging.

We’re not sure whether this is one of the hellebore hybrids that we bought from Ashwood Nurseries a couple of years back, or one of our own hybridised seedlings. Jo has been collecting the latter from beneath their parent plants and carefully potting them up and nurturing them along. Either way, it’s particularly lovely, with that delicate purple rim on the white flowers.

I suspect this Primula (vulgaris?) had a bit of a shock when the hail came down…

One newly-planted section of our back garden is liberally scattered with primroses. This one tentatively flowered during the mild December and seems to be weathering the worst that January can throw at it since.

Yeah… can’t actually remember what we planted here. Should have made a better site-plan…

This Tulipa (?) and Digitalis clump seems to be doing well despite the ice and snow.

A fair fer bulbs and other plants started putting on fresh growth a few weeks ago. Let’s hope they’re not too badly frosted and knocked-back by the recent drop in temperatures.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The Science of Digging – How to Reduce Injury Risk

by Darren T

January 10, 2018

Here’s an item that allotmenteers might be interested in. Researchers at the University of Coventry, in partnership with the RHS, have published the results of a study into the damaging effects of bad digging practice, along with a few suggestions as to how to improve your posture and technique to help reduce the risk of back and shoulder damage.

Using the University’s 3-D motion capture technology lab, the team assessed the impact of various digging methods in terms of musculoskeletal damage risk. In the researchers’ words: “A novel method of determining joint angles, joint torques, and contact forces, using three-dimensional motion capture and musculoskeletal modeling, was applied to the movements of a sample of workers, engaged in the horticultural task of digging, to determine if objective biomechanical data could be correlated with a subjective visual assessment to predict risk of injury.”

The general conclusion – which was also mentioned in a short article on BBC Breakfast on Monday – is that good posture and practice involves standing as close to the spade as you can, bending with your knees rather than your back, and using smooth, regular actions (top row, below). Bad technique involves stretching and reaching with the spade, bending the back and using jerky, irregular actions (bottom row).

Image via HortTechnology online.

The full study has been published in the journal HortTechnology. One thing I noticed was that the 15 subjects that participated in the study were asked to use the same spade throughout. Which makes sense from the point of view of comparing two digging methods, of course, but it would have been interesting to see if there was any difference between the standard ‘digging spade’ used and a long-handled spade or shovel, which I’m a big fan of. The latter allows for a more upright posture, provides more leverage during the digging action, and seems to encourage more leg and shoulder work, rather than back-twisting, which the study highlights as a particular danger. But that’s just my experience, and a motion-capture study might prove me wrong.

Of course, if you really want to minimise the risk of musculoskeletal damage, you could adopt Charles Dowding‘s no-dig methods and save yourself a lot of back-ache that way.

Please Feel Free to Share:

Introducing Plot #79, Orchard-in-Progress

by Darren T

January 4, 2018

This is what it’s all going to be about…

For at least the past four years, Langley Allotments Plot #79 – the one opposite ours across the road – has been a derelict eyesore. When we first took on our plot, Plot #79 was an overgrown mess of trees and bushes with a collapsed greenhouse and not much else going for it. It’s right in the middle of site, on one of the roads through to the car park at the lower end. It’s also a rough triangle shape, on a fairly steep slope, with a dug-out gulley down the middle, where a previous tenant had attempted to put in a stream.

Here’s a bit of two-year-old Google Maps imagery to illustrate the general shape of things:

A couple of years out of date, but not much had changed since…

Even after the committee paid to have the trees and shrubs ripped out, and the knee-high weeds regularly strimmed, nobody had shown the slightest interest in renting it. Then an idea started to form in my head, which I voiced to the Secretary this time last year: “Wouldn’t it be good if someone really took hold of that plot and turned it into, I dunno, some kind of community orchard or something…”

It turned out I wasn’t the only one who had been having similar thoughts. Fellow plot-holders Christine – who has the plot on the far side of #79 and had also previously rented a strip down the side of the new plot to grow fruit bushes – and Mike, whose plot is on the far side of hers, were both keen to do something similar. And so we had a word with the committee, and a plan was born…

Stage One: Clear The Site

Here’s what the plot looked like before we started:

Looking down and across the plot from the top-left corner, with Christine’s fruit bushes on the left.

Looking back down and across from the top-right corner.

Looking up from the bottom corner towards the road.

Mike and I were up for this part of the job, and last November we set to with a will. Of course, it turned out to be much more easily said than done. Aside from the topographical challenges mentioned above, as soon as we started digging we discovered that the plot was absolutely full of all sorts of junk.

Beneath a reasonably thick top-layer of mulched plant material – legacy of successive years’ worth of strimming, re-growth and more strimming – we discovered the remains of the old plot. Including more than one concrete slab path, buried under soil. There was also a lot – and I do mean a lot of plastic sheeting, in various forms ranging from sheet tarpaulin to patchwork quilts of individual compost sacks.

We also had that gulley to deal with: said former tenant had dug a channel and a couple of deeper pools, outlined with sand, then used what looked like a boiler insulation jacket (!) as a bottom layer, covered that with overlapping sheet plastic – rather than butyl rubber – and then lined it with assorted cobblestones. They’d probably spent a fair bit of time wondering why the water kept leaking out of the pool, too.

It took us the best part of six days’ worth of pretty hard slog to lift the slabs, clear the cobbles, drag out the plastic sheeting and pick out as much general plastic litter, broken glass and metal junk as we could. Mike made about six trips in his van to get rid of the bulk of it, and some we stacked down the bottom of the site where the skip will be at Easter, when we’ll load it all up and get rid.

And then there was the perennial weed to tackle. Every time we ripped out another section of plastic, we found a mass of bindweed stem, horsetail runners, or both. That’s the thing about plastic sheeting: it’s good as a temporary measure to kill surface growth by blocking light, but after that the perennials will start using it as a handy shelter, sending their stems questing horizontally between soil and sheeting until they find a chink of light to grow up into.

We also shifted a couple of tonnes of soil around, filling the gully back in and levelling off some of the larger hummocks as we went. Which really annoyed the fox who’d been attempting to dig holes in the soft sand of the gulley’s sides:

Fantastic or not, Foxy was going to have to find somewhere else to live.

We burned a lot of the weed and any other wood that we found when it was dry enough, and Mike was able to run his rotivator over the surface a couple of times. By the time rain stopped play in early December – and hasn’t really let up much since then, apart from allowing us to sneak in one or two more sessions – we’d done pretty well.

From the top-left corner again, and looking much better already.

Another look from the top-right corner, with most of the surface weed and rubbish gone.

A big improvement after about six days’ hard slog with forks, barrows, buckets and rotivator.

There’s still a lot to do, starting with an epic litter pick to get rid of as much of the freshly-unearthed rubbish that’s now lying around on the surface. Then we’ll need to double-check we haven’t left any slab in the ground (we found another buried path right at the edge of Christine’s fruit section and started digging that out before we stopped for winter) and rake the whole lot over to check for sub-surface junk. Then we might be ready to move on to…

Stage Two: Cover It Up

The committee have very kindly agreed to fund the purchase of enough heavy-duty weed membrane to cover the whole plot, through which we’ll plant the trees. Mike’s going to get in touch with a few local tree surgeons to see if we can source enough woodchip to cover everything in a good, thick layer (we reckon 14 tonnes ought to be just enough). And then we’ll be ready to the most important – and enjoyable – phase of the project:

Stage Three: Plant an Orchard

I’ve been in touch with an active member of the Northern Fruit Group who lives in Manchester. He regularly grafts a selection of heritage apple, plum and pear trees, and we’ll hopefully be buying our initial stock of assorted young trees from him. We might have to heel them in on a spare bit of one of our plots until we’re ready for them, but with any luck it won’t be too long before we can get the beginnings of an orchard into the ground.

We’re planning to start with around twenty one or two year old trees to begin with, on dwarfing rootstock, which will hopefully grow into reasonably-sized bush / standard trees. We’ll also be re-laying the path along the long diagonal edge, which is in a shocking state, and hope to erect a post-and-wire fence along it, which we’ll use as a support for a number of diagonal-cordons as well. Eventually, our orchard should consist of between 40 and 60 trees, if all goes according to plan.

I’ll post further updates as and when I have news and photos to share.

Please Feel Free to Share:

Allotment Planning Notes, Winter 2018 Edition

by Darren T

January 2, 2018

A brief taste of proper winter amidst the rain, rain and more rain of December 2017.

Depending on the weather, December and January can seem like a long, long slog through some of the bleakest, wettest, least productive days of the year. But they also offers an opportunity that no allotment holder should pass up on: with no massed ranks of vegetation and no jobs much more pressing than a spot of pot-washing and plant label scrubbing, right now you have the chance to walk the ground when you can really see the site properly and get to grip with the shape, the structure, the bones of your plot.

Now is a great time to examine, assess and think ahead. The joyful, chaotic frenzy of Spring’s seed sowing, pricking out, potting on and planting up is still a good three or four months away. That’s around twelve weeks in which to plan and execute any essential maintenance work, infrastructure improvements or upgrades that your plot needs. Weather allowing, of course, but if all you do is continue to hibernate through to the end of March then that’s a lot of opportunity to toll your sleeves up and get stuck in that you will have missed.

Four years into our tenancy of Plot #59 down at Langley Allotments, and there’s still plenty of room for improvement. A slow couple of years – due to a house move and then the complete re-development of our back garden – has meant that we’re not as far ahead of our stated goals for 2016 or 2017 as we’d like to be.

Here’s a photographic meander up the central path of Plot #59, to give you a general idea of the state of the place. As you can see, it’s far from perfect-looking at the moment, although there’s been such a huge improvement from the early days (check out some of the pics I posted here) that Jo and I can’t help but be proud of all we have actually managed to achieve.

From the front, the plot looks pretty good, if a little seasonally-bare.

Looking up diagonally across the plot, from the front left corner.

Looking up diagonally across the plot, from the front right corner.

The middle of the plot still has a section of midden to dig out and lots of junk to clear.

Coming up past the remaining brassicas on the right and the green manure on the left.

Right at the back of the plot, with a patch dug over for a shed, and some rough ground to clear and level off.

But the past is past and it’s time to look to the future. This year I’m aiming to treat the allotment much more like a part-time job than a hobby or pass-time. The aim – again, weather allowing – is to put in three good (three hours plus) sessions a week, plus weekends, and evenings too, when the evenings are warm enough for me to venture out after tea. Jo works full-time and so will be joining me for weekends and the odd evening or two as well.

So, here are the major goals for the first quarter of the year, taking us from the end of winter through into the early days of Spring and that glorious rush to get growing.

Dig out and prepare a concrete slab base for a small shed / tool store. Buy and install said shed.
Finish as much of the central path – concrete slab again, using any slabs that are salvageable from our forthcoming driveway overhaul at home – as possible, as well as the floral planting beds either side.
Level off and roughly pave the area around the compost bins, greenhouse and shed-to-be at the back of the plot.
Finish any more bed preparation that I haven’t completed yet – I’ve already set up a couple of no-dig beds that I hope to make good use of later in the year.
Prepare a full sowing, propagation and planting plan for the year, and carry out my annual seed audit.
Chit spuds.

Of course, in addition to the above, Jo and I have also decided to completely re-develop our front garden as well as the back (although we’ll be getting landscapers in for that one, rather than attempting to do the work ourselves) and we still have plenty to do on the back garden as well.

Plus, I’ve taken on a second plot at Langley with two fellow tenants (more on that in another post, soon). There’s also chance I might be studying for an RHS Level 3 qualification (although that might end up on hold for a year). I’d like to do some more volunteering this year; maybe at RHS Bridgewater, maybe at another venue (details pending). And of course there’s my hugely enjoyable part-time job at Ordsall Hall, which accounts for the best part of at least two days per week.

So, yeah, feel free to check back in April to see if it’s been a case of Mission Accomplished or ‘best laid plans’…

Wish us luck!

Please Feel Free to Share:

Road Trip! Garden Organic and the Heritage Seed Library

by Darren T

December 5, 2017

Last week, my colleagues on the gardening team at Ordsall Hall and Gardens and I hopped on trams and trains down to Ryton, on the outskirts of Coventry, to visit the headquarters of the UK’s organic gardening movement, Garden Organic.

We were there to meet the team who do the incredibly important work of managing and running the Heritage Seed Library; a repository of heritage, heirloom and orphaned seed varieties that are no longer grown commercially and therefore at risk of disappearing from circulation.

The HSL’s manager, Katrina, very kindly spent a couple of hours showing us around their seed collection and processing facilities, storage areas and growing spaces and it was all rather fascinating. I’ve been an HSL member for a couple of years, including a stint this year as a Variety Champion for French Bean ‘Black Valentine’, and we grow and save seed on the HSL’s behalf at Ordsall Hall and Gardens. So it was a real treat to see how the operation is run, and get a taste of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes. Huge thanks to Katrina for taking the time out of her busy day to show us around.

Here are a couple of shots of some of the HSL’s seed-winnowing gear. I seem to remember that this vicious-looking contraption, with a sliding panel on top to move those spikes back and forth, is for threshing and breaking open tough seed pods:

You do not want to get your hands trapped in here…

A little more towards the technical end of the scale, here’s an auto-winnower, which works by dropping seed into one chamber, and blowing the separated chaff into another:

A serious bit of kit for the serious job of separating the seed from the chaff.

But most of the HSL’s work is done by hand – either by the staff or their legion of loyal volunteers – such as the measuring of finer seed into packets for distribution to members, using this rack of short lengths of pipe of assorted guages:

A clever and cost-effective way of kitting yourself out with a seed measure for every occasion.

And here’s what it’s all about: packets of seeds ready to distribute to the Heritage Seed Library members, for growing, saving and of course, eating the resulting crops:

Seeds! So many lovely seeds ready to go out to the membership. (Need, got, got, need, need, need…)

We also enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the organic show gardens. Perhaps a chilly November day, with the sun dipping rapidly towards the horizon, wasn’t the best time to see the gardens at their glorious best, but there was still plenty of interest in the low-maintenance and therapeutic gardens, the veg growing area, and my favourite area, the heritage orchard:

Various ornamental grasses add height and structure to the low-maintenance border and look great at this time of year.

GO’s accessible and peaceful space for therapeutic gardening.

I snapped this shot on the way back to the office, so I’m not sure if they’re crab apples or Cornus mas, but it’s a lovely splash of colour either way.

This kale (‘Sutherland’?) is doing wonderfully well inside its bubble-wrap greenhouse.

I forgot to check, but I think this gnarly old specimen is a heritage pear variety.

These lovely old apple trees look superb, even without their leaves or fruit.

This younger apple tree has been well-mulched with grass-cuttings.

All in all, it was a fascinating visit to an incredibly important project. Without the work of the Heritage Seed Library, a great many varieties of seed would have been permanently lost. True, not every heritage seed variety automatically deserves to be grown. Some varieties have fallen out of favour because they’ve gradually lost vigour, or have just been superseded or supplanted by better, stronger cultivars – often off-shoots of the originals – which seed companies will naturally prefer.

But in an age of increasing agricultural monoculture, vanishing wildlife and dwindling variety in the shops, it’s supremely important to keep our options open, and our genetic seed stocks as diverse as possible. Katrina told us of a couple of cultivars that the HSL no longer makes available because they became so popular they were re-stocked by commercial seed breeders and are now available in all the major seed catalogues. That, of course, is a major win for the HSL, although they’ll always keep a small batch of seed in reserve – frozen, if necessary – just in case the situation changes back again.

How to Join Garden Organic and the Heritage Seed Library

Now is the perfect time of year to join Garden Organic and take part in the Heritage Seed Library project as a grower, or even a Variety Champion. The new seed catalogue has just been sent out to members (I put my 2018 order in this morning) and it contains a gloriously wide range of heritage and heirloom veggies to choose from. The price of HSL membership is £51 per year, for which you get a full membership of Garden Organic – including their bi-annual newsletter and discounts at their online shop – and a chance to request up to six varieties of seed from the HSL list, plus a lucky dip variety (which has a quite high chance of being Calalloo…) if you’re so inclined.

I’ve been a member for two years now and am looking forward to my third; I’ve grown some fascinating cultivars – runner bean ‘Blackpod’ and pea ‘Kent Blue’ being particular favourites so far – and have enjoyed adding a wider range of vegetables to the harvests from Plot #59. I highly recommend taking out a membership, or buying one for a friend or family member, and doing your bit to help preserve vital heritage seed stocks for future generations.

Please Feel Free to Share:

Yacón Harvest, Part One

by Darren T

November 14, 2017

Last week we had a couple of frosty nights and down on Plot #59 I spotted that our Yacón plants were feeling the effects:

When the temperature drops and the foliage dies, it’s time to check for Yacón tubers.

With the frost starting to kill off the leaves and stems, and not much more photosynthesis in prospect, that meant the tubers would probably be as large as they were likely to grow. So I trimmed back the top growth and carefully up-ended the first of three pots to see what, if anything, the plant had produced. I was very happy indeed to find the following:

That’s not a bad yield at all for a single plant and a first attempt.

A few years ago, veg pioneer Mark Diacono wrote a piece on growing, harvesting and cooking Yacón for The Guardian, which explains what happens next. The larger, ‘storage’ tubers are detached from the plant and left for a couple of weeks to sweeten. The smaller, Jerusalem artichoke-like ‘growth’ tubers are the essential part of the crown that needs to be packed in moist, spent compost and stored in a cool, dark place over the winter. It’s the same sort of procedure as you might use to store a Dahlia crown.

They’re very easy to tell apart, as you can see:

The Yacon develops two kinds of tubers; edible ‘storage’ and next year’s ‘growth’ tubers.

With the large tubers detached and sweetening, and the crown carefully packed away for winter, the next stage will be to cook ’em, eat ’em and see if Jo and I actually like ’em or not. (I did try a small piece raw on the spot and it was rather like a juicy radish / sweet chestnut, so I’m probably a fan already). Then then there are two more tubs to come. Apparently the large tubers store really well, so either we’ll be eating them for weeks and months to come, or my colleagues on the Ordsall Hall gardening team will be getting a few more Yacón tubers to try than they’ve been led to expect.

How about you? Have you grown Yacón before? Do you have any top tips for storing crowns or cooking the tubers? Please do let me know, via the comments.