Gardening-Notes

As we come to the end of the northern hemisphere growing season tomato growers inevitably have green fruits still on the vine, and need to get them off before the severe frosts arrive. But what to so with them? Scanning a few web sites this morning I came across this great blog post on YouGrowGirl.com and thought I’d share it here.

Preserving Green Tomatoes
The tomato season is ending quickly. As of today, I don’t foresee many more ripe tomatoes coming off of the vine. … In an attempt to squeeze a few more ripe fruit from the harvest I’ve been nestling those that are nearly there inside paper bags. … In my experience, not all green tomatoes will ripen by this method. The fruit that is really young and underdeveloped tends to go wrinkly and rot rather than ripening, so I reserve this process for the tomatoes that have a blush of colour and save the darker green fruit for eating fresh and preserving. …..
>> Read the full article here >>

Canning Tomatoes – video

On a similar theme, but this time red ripe tomsatoes, here’s a video from Anthonys Italian Food. I like his style, down to earth and practical, nothing super-sophisticated; just the kind of presentation most of us can take in.

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Well, gardeners have been warned, here in the North of England, that arctic weather is almost upon us. So that means I’ll need to get outside into the garden and do some physical work. I’ve been shrinking from that for the past few weeks since I bent over carelessly, picked up one of my potato growing bags, and wrenched my back. Now, however, I simply must get out out there.

Last year, before we moved from the East Midlands, I lost even some of my hardiest fuchsias in the coldest winter for decades. This year I don’t plan to repeat the experience. And then there are the less hardy varieties in pots. Having moved to a smaller house, being short of conservatory space, and so far not having re-erected the greenhouse that I so painstakingly dismantled and transported north, I’m having to think hard about the best way to overwinter them. When I’ve worked it out I’ll blog again about this.

Vertical Vegetable Gardening

As I explained in a previous post I now only have ground-level earth in the shade of a high wall so decided to experiment with something I never needed to do before. My experience of this first year of “vertical gardening” has been mixed, even against the south-facing wall. No doubt the lack of sunshine in the mid-summer months had a lot to do with it as even the runner beans were poor but I’m not sure that I’ll try it again, at least not to the same degree. We got a few decent tomatoes, some very miniature peppers, and a couple of courgettes, but overall the vertical kitchen garden experiment was not a success apart from the onions in pots which did very nicely. Down at ground level the potatoes in black plastic bags also produced well as usual but I don’t count them as part of the experiment.

Looking forward to Spring

Down in Nottinghamshire I worked out the best time to plant my tulip bulbs. There it was mid-November. I wonder what will be best here. I’m going to try a month earlier, put them in this week, some in pots, some in an area that does get just a little sun late in the day, and see what happens.

In a new environment what can one do but test and see how things go. Ah well, if anything is going to happen out there today I’d better tear myself away from this keyboard.

Tags: Fuchsias, gardening, vertical garden, winter

The question from the old nursery rhyme came to mind as I sat down to write this morning. Since moving to Cumbria I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that gardening up here among the hills in the Eden Valley is not the same as in the low-lands of the Trent Valley. Nor is working chiefly with containers and surrounded by high walls the same as gardening in an open space with wide lawns.

Some of my experiments with veg in pots have worked fairly well. The runner beans have been fine, onions are doing well, and we’ve had a few courgettes from the two plants that I tried growing vertically against a wall. My main problem with these came when I thought they would have been thoroughly watered by the semingly non-stop torrential rain so didn’t venture outside for a week, only to discover later that the pots were standing in a “rain shadow” and were bone dry while almost everything around them was drowning.

Tomatoes have not been a very good story. I put half a dozen plants of different varieties in large pots against what I thought would be a sun-drenched south-facing wall, theoretically exposed to ten hours a day of good warmth and light. The problem has been that the sun thought differently and decided not to shine very often, so they’ve been growing in the cool. Even so, we’ve had a few nice fruits and I’m still hopeful that more will ripen by the end of this month.

I put the fuchsia photo at the top as a reminder that one of the joys has been my small new collection of fuchsia varieties. The photo here was also an experiment, taken with my camera to see whether I could get a good sharp picture. Not as good as with a “proper” camera, but I’m reasonably pleased with it. I’ll write again with some thoughts on photographing garden plants.

Tags: container gardening, Fuchsias, Tomatoes, Veg in pots

Much has happened since November 2009 when I last posted anything here. A long period of illness was followed by a move north from the English East Midlands to Cumbria, just outside the fringes of the Lake District.

Gardening here will be very different. The climate is different, and I’ve moved from large areas of earth to what is, apart from a narrow border in the shade, mostly a collection of pots and other containers against a sunny wall. The shade area will allow me to continue with my enthusiasm for hostas and heucheras. I’m planning also to re-start my fuchsia collection in an area near the house which looks as though it will be ideal for them.

Look out for more as the days pass. I’m back in action.

Tags: container gardening, growing in pots

One of the memories of my early childhood in England just after the second world war is a small patch of earth that I could claim as “mine”, and the tousled greenery of my carefully tended carrots. Grandad was a farmer a long way out in the country, but here at the back of our house in the middle of the town was my very own farm!

As the decades have passed, children in towns have increasingly come to think of their food as coming from a supermarket, ready-wrapped in sterile plastic. Its true origin has largely been hidden. It is therefore gratifying to observe the trend toward including gardening in the activities of early school years.

More and more schools are starting school gardens. Children are learning how to grow a variety of vegetables, and recent research in the USA has shown that as a consequence they are eating more of them – a welcome trend away from the junk-food culture. Long may it continue.

Teaching children gardening, and getting them actively and enthusiastically involved in growing both flowers and vegetables for the kitchen has other educational benefits. It helps with many aspects of the basic science curriculum. The life-cycle of plants of many kinds are actually seen and experienced rather than being merely boring pages in a textbook.

Chemistry is brought to life, and the pseudo-scientific nonsense of “chemical free” growing is countered as kids learn that the garden compost is actually a rich cocktail of complex chemicals, produced by natural processes and containing elements needed for a further round of plant life. They’ll learn also that not all things “natural” are safe; that some plants produce chemical poisons and are not to be eaten, just as others produce chemicals essential to our healthy living.

Simple gardening projects can help teach the skills of planning, measuring and recording. Analysis of the results can include arithmetic and other mathematical methods such as the creation of graphs and charts. Detailed observation of the structure of plants can be translated into art work. Furthermore, in an age of immediate gratification the weeks of waiting between seedtime and harvest teaches patience.

Teaching gardening to children can in these ways and more have major beneficial impacts on their educational development and their learning of basic life-skills. Long may it increase, both at home and at school.

Tags: children gardening

[An earlier version of this article was originally published on our old-style web site in January 2008]

Looking out of the window from my desk I can see the gravel paths that I laid three years ago to make it easier to move around the raised beds of the vegetable garden. In recent months we’ve had our share of wild weather, driving sleet and rain, but there is not now a single patch of mud or even slippery grass on the way from the kitchen door to the greenhouse.

Paths also provide a surface on which to transport garden materials and tools. It is much easier to run a wheelbarrow or trolley along a firm walkway. Putting in good pathways around a garden adds greatly to the months during which we are able to enjoy the garden, and makes it so much easier to get around. The investment of effort and cost brings considerable returns in terms of both convenience and appearance.

Quite apart from ease of access paths can also enhance the appearance of a garden by adding a border that will set off the plants. If suitably designed they can also provide drainage channels to redirect water away from areas that could become waterlogged, thereby damaging plants that don’t like their roots to be drowned, and towards areas where you want the increased moisture levels.

Personally I like gravel paths. It is, of course, possible to be very sophisticated in constructing these with base layers to give solidity, but most of mine were simply dug out as channels three to four inches deep (incidentally supplying a store of top soil for use elsewhere in the garden) stamped firmly down and leveled, covered in a water-permeable but weed-proof membrane and then filled with small gravel pebbles.

Paving slabs can be used for paths, but unlike pebble paths which are easily leveled by raking them over and therefore don’t need a lot of careful preparation, the substrate for paved paths must be thoroughly prepared or it won’t be long before you have them rocking in all directions and needing to be taken up and re-laid. However, when well done they are a long-lasting solution, and if extended to cover a larger area they cut down the grass cutting so disliked by many people and can provide firm base for garden furniture.

Returning to the subject of drainage, remember that large paved areas need somewhere for the rainwater to go in a downpour. Have you sloped it so that it will direct a flood into the foundations of your house? Not a good idea! To lobby again for my gravel paths, another advantage is that they allow more or less natural drainage access to the earth beneath. Anything more solid needs supplementary drainage channels.

Many people will go to great expense to ensure that the materials are bright and new. For myself, I prefer things to look a little battered and worn, so apart from gravel I like the weathered appearance of second hand bricks which go well with weathered timber structures.

An important issue is garden safety. Paths can increase safety, but they can also give rise to their own set of risks. If you’re using bricks or paving slabs, make sure there’s nowhere to trip. Check and recheck that they’re level, and don’t wobble. Again, I prefer my gravel. It doesn’t have raised edges.

Tags: garden path, garden paving, garden project, garden safety, gravel path, path, paving slab, pebble path

[Here is an article that was originally placed on our old-style Gardening-Notes web site in 2007. I have left it unedited apart from correcting a couple of grammatical mistakes].

Hostas are often conjured up in people’s minds as rather drab seas of large dull green leaves with no flowers and badly slug-eaten. Well, it is not impossible to create that scenario but it is far from necessary as I hope this page will show. Firstly, the variety of leaf colour and form is considerable. The differences of size among the hosta’s many varieties also give plenty of cope for imaginative plantings. Flower colours vary from white to deep purple while leaves may be almost blue through to golden yellow.

The above photograph shows a part of my Hosta border in July 2007 with smaller varieties to the front. Below is a view of the same section from the opposite direction. I should say that this border was newly dug and planted in 2006. Everything there is new since then apart from the paeony on the right by the gate. I may have planted some of the larger varieties too close. We’ll possibly discover that next year. In the back row, up against the ferns, are Hosta Francee, St. John and Daybreak

The next picture shows two of the plants in greater close-up: the small blue-leaved plant is, I think, Pearl Lake and next to it is what to my mind is one of the most beautiful of Hostas, Golden Tiara. Behind, just showing on the left is the stately upright Patriot with its long leaf stems. St. John is in the centre rear and the golden-leaved Daybreak next to the right of it, with Fire and Ice just poking its leaves into the frame at middle right.

Stiletto is not what most people would expect of an Hosta with its long serrated leaves. This particular plant is in its third year, and was moved this past Spring from a spot which I decided was too sunny for it into this north-facing border protected from the hot Summer sun by the fence (not that we had much “hot Summer sun” this year!). Although some hostas are tolerant of bright sun the majority are more suited to the shade garden or areas of the general garden where they are at least semi-shaded from the strongest sunlight.

Surprised By Joy is a variety that I found at a Spring horticultural show last year, 2006. I think it was Harrogate. Anyway, even if I can’t quite recall where I do remember well the occasion; it was the end of the afternoon; I’d stopped buying plants and was about to leave when my attention was caught by its name – the same as the title of one of C. S. Lewis’s books. As can be seen below in this photo it is very small, and in each of its two years in my garden it has seemed as though it was never going to flower, then right at the end of the Hosta flowering season when others have finished it bursts out. Is that the reason for its name? I don’t know, but that’s my experience with it.

This is just a small sample of the range of Hostas even in my garden, let alone what is available worldwide. Who can say they’re boring when faced with this kind of variety?

Tags: Hosta, Hostas, perenniel, shade garden, shade loving plants

Mother’s Day is on its way! Here in Britain it is on Sunday, March 22nd. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has the perfect gift to treat your loved ones on this Mother’s Day. Give her more than just flowers, although you can always give her flowers as well, of course! Treat her to a day out at one of the splendid RHS shows: Chelsea, Hampton Court, Tatton and Cardiff.

• Cardiff: 17-19 April
• Chelsea: 19-23 May
• Hampton Court: 7-12 July
• Tatton Park: 22-26 July

Alternatively, with a Gift Membership you could give a whole year of great RHS benefits, including:

• Free garden visits
• Personal gardening advice
• Free monthly magazine
• Discounted flower show tickets

Go on.  Give something special this year.

Tags: Cardiff, Chelsea, Flower Show, Garden Gift, Hampton Court, Mother's Day, RHS, Tatton Park

In the northern hemisphere Spring is coming.  The snowdrops and crocuses have in many places already burst out into flower.  Maybe this has set your mind working, and you’re wondering what to do with that spare plot of earth at the back of your house.  Well how about a vegetable garden?

Vegetable gardening for flavour

I’m not sure whether it really is true, in any scientifically provable way, that my home-grown veggies from the kitchen garden taste better than what my wife buys in the local store, but I know it feels that way.  There’s certainly something special about eating what you’ve grown yourself.  What’s more, you know it’s fresh; you picked it yourself just an hour or so ago.  And if you have children in the household they will know that food does not come from a plastic bag but from God’s good earth.

How was it grown?

Personally I’m not opposed to chemicals.  Why?  Because everything we eat is chemical.  Even the cleanest air we breath is chemical.  The freshest, most unpolluted water we drink is chemical.  The materials of our bodies are chemical. The green leaves of a plant are chemical.  It’s not that chemicals are bad in themselves, otherwise everything around us would be bad, but it’s a question of what kinds of chemicals.  Plants need food, and they often need protection from pests and diseases. When you grow your food yourself you know exactly what has been used to fertilise the soil, what has been used to guard the growing crops from insect damage and plant disease.  The uncertainties are removed.  You know what you’re giving your family to eat.

Good food and good exercise

For many of us our modern lifestyle does not make it easy to keep our bodies in good condition.  Obesity and slack muscles are all too common these days.  Half an hour a day looking after a kitchen garden can make a major difference to a person’s physical fitness.  The variety of movement involved exercises many different muscular groups including legs, arms, back and more.  It won’t be long before you start to feel the difference.

Whether you’re looking for more flavourful food, trying to save the planet or aspiring after a better-toned body, a vegetable garden could do you good. Spring is coming. It’s time to be clearing the earth and sowing the seed. You’ll not regret it.

Tags: Kitchen Garden, Spring, vegetable garden

I have to confess that in recent months I’ve been neglecting my garden-related sites.

A project in a completely different online niche that was supposed to take around four weeks took nine, and then demanded quite a lot of day-to-day support to get it off the ground. Well, we’re through that period of 14-hour days, and 2009 is starting with something more akin to normality.

Herbs.at.Gardening-Notes.com has now been thoroughly checked.  All its links are working again.  One of the problems was that our main UK garden centre affiliate changed its marketing service company, so many of their old links no longer connected to anything very meaningful. Now you can once again go to our herb garden site with confidence and I’m hoping to add some more pages very shortly.

The Fuchsia File has also been given the same treatment.  Once again we faced changes made by an affiliate company, this one moving from running its own system to using a contracted service.  All links are now updated.  There are now twenty-one varieties listed and and described. I plan to add more, especially those which are easily available for online ordering of fuchsia plants within the UK.

A great feature of this site is the fuchsia news service.  The site software scans newspapers and magazines around the world to find articles relevant to fuchsias and puts brief notes about them on each page.  Most of the time it works well, although sometimes the news items can look a little strange if the fuchsia variety name includes words that have also been in the news recently. I’m trying to find a way of refining the selection process to avoid this; meanwhile it can sometimes add a little humour to the site.

My next task is to tackle the main site at Gardening-Notes.com, which will be a major job for the same reasons mentioned above.  This time I must redesign it so as to make updating far easier when affiliate companies change their catalogue management arrangements.

Meanwhile those of us in the northern hemisphere continue to go through the winter looking forward to the warmer days to come when once again we can get into our gardens.

Tags: Fuchsias, herb garden, Herbs