Gardening-Notes

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.

My kitchen garden gravel paths

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.

So why not?

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

Last Autumn I wrote an article under the title, This Year’s Leaves … Next Year’s Mulch, which was well-received by a lot of people.  It came back to mind today so I thought I’d follow it up.

This past year has not been a good gardening year for me.  Firstly a long period of indifferent health kept me away from anything very energetic, then a plague of apparently insecticide-resistant white fly followed by blight decimated much of what I had managed to grow, both vegetables and flowers.  I have not even been keeping this blog very much alive.

One thing that did grow well, however, was the harvest of leaves from both our own trees and the neighbouring churchyard.  Although that does at this time of year generate something of a chore, clearing them away from the lawn and the borders, there is a silver lining to the cloud.  As last year’s title put it, this year’s leaves can become next year’s mulch.  At least, they can!  It all depends on a bit of effort now.

Leaves left at their full size will often (depending on the local climate) take two or three years to fully degrade to give a nice mulch, and I’m not satisfied that last year’s are yet quite ready.  The process can be speeded, however, by shredding them.  I do own a leaf blower and vacuum but that also has succumbed to some dread disease.  Once again its engine won’t start. So today I raked leaves into piles, got out the lawn mower, raised its blades to their highest position and used it as a vacuum cleaner, “hoovering” up the piles of leaves.  Last year I manage to run out of petrol at this stage, but this year all went well.

Leaves compact into much less space when they’re shredded but I decided today that after the first run they were not small enough so created two heaps of the shredded material and ran the mower over them again.  So now I have a still smaller heap of more finely chopped leaf, now safely transferred to my leaf mould bin - actually just a wooden frame surrounded by chicken wire to stop everything from blowing way.

Next year at this time I should have a really good heap of mulch to spread on the borders.  Don’t waste those leaves by dumping or burning them.  Mulch them.

Tags: autumn garden, compost, leaf mold, leaf mould

We’re all familiar with the fact that herbs are good for you - at least, those that are not poisonous! Many culinary herbs provide not only enhancements to the flavour of our food but also are health-giving. A wide range of plants in the herb garden outside the kitchen door are also medicinal, and indeed for many people that is the primary reason for growing them.

However, research at an American government food research centre has shown that some herbs, including oregano, cloves and thyme, are effective in attacking the E. Coli pathogen. Other troublesome organisms such as Salmonella have also apparently found new enemies in these popular natural food flavourings.

Or maybe they’re not “new”. I wonder whether there is any correlation between countries in which these herbs are widely used and a low incidence of sickness outbreaks caused by those food-borne nasties. I don’t know. Maybe there’s some research somewhere that shows it. Meanwhile, I’m happy to know that in addition to the already well-known advantages of flavour, odour and health there are still further benefits to be gained from the herb garden.

While on this subject of health and healing, there’s a new book about to hit the shops.  Jill Henderson has produced what is described as “equal parts gardening guide and healthy living sourcebook” in The Healing Power of Kitchen Herbs (Published by Ball Publishing ; ISBN-13: 9781883052621; ISBN-10: 1883052629).  It should be in the shops in the UK at the beginning of September, but you needn’t wait to order it.  You can order here from Foyles of London and your copy will be mailed as soon as it becomes available.  Click either on the book graphic or on the title above.

Finally, for now, in the past few days we have launched a new site in the Gardening-Notes.com family called, “Herbs and the Herb Garden”. We didn’t wait until we had it full of dozens of pages but started with just a few, and will be building it up over the weeks and months ahead. Take a look at Herbs and the Herb Garden.

It’s July already!  In fact we’re almost half way through the month.  Where did June go to?  And my next question, when will Summer start?

Here in the English Midlands and North we’re not suffering the floods of last year, when thousands were left homeless, but we are getting a lot of dull wet days.  It’s great for the weeds, but the sun-loving plants are feeling rather deprived.

As I look out from my desk onto the vegetable patch I can, however, see my four golden yellow courgette plants flourishing.  No large fruits for the kitchen yet, but things are looking good for the next few weeks.

I decided to leave my broad beans last month as they were not quite ready, but yesterday we had a great meal including freshly picked beans.  It seems a long time since sowing them in one of the raised beds in January, but the wait has been well worth it.  There are many more good pickings to come.

On our bookselling site we have a great selection of kitchen garden books. Take a look.

Happy growing …. and eating.

- David Murray -
Gardening-Notes.com

ps.  Switching away from vegetables, don’t forget to take a close look at this excellent Fuchsias DVD.

Tags: broad beans, Courgettes, Fuchsias, Kitchen Garden, raised bed

I’ve recently started a gossipy blog specifically about lawn mowers - or should that be lawnmowers? The development of the English language over time, and in places separated by large geographical distances, is a fascinating subject in itself. My reason for including an article there on the difference between the two terms is more than mere pedantry or English nationalism. It’s very practical because if a web page or blog post is to have any chance of being seen by large numbers of people it needs its major terms to be in a form that most people might enter into Google or Yahoo!

I’ll leave you to read the article on lawnmowers.for-us-all.co.uk rather than repeating it here, except to say that there are significant differences in the words between the two sides of the Atlantic. In this respect as in many others English English and American English are drifting apart.

Anyway, whatever the spelling and word construction, mowing the lawn is an important aspect of gardening for many people. My latest piece over there on the lawnmower site is about environmental responsibility in mowing the lawn. I willingly admit to a degree of hypocrisy as I have written in praise of manual and cordless electric mowers when I myself still use my Honda Izy petrol powered model. Economics and practicality in this case conspire against any short-term improvement as my lawns don’t lend themselves to a manual mower and my bank manager might not approve of a fancy new cordless lithium battery model. Maybe one day!

Enjoy the lawn mowing this weekend.

- David -

Tags: lawn mower, lawnmower