My Gardening Gurus – Anna, Sepp and Phil
One of winter’s best features is having the excuse to sit down with a good book. And Anna Pavord, my favourite gardening guru, published Growing Food last year and it is always going to be on the bookshelf to dip into from time to time.
Anna describes different planting plans, one such is the Exuberant Potager, where she mixes flowering plants to complement the vegetables. Here she advocates areas with different plant mixes:
- nasturtiums, beans and squash
- lettuce, onions with eschscholtzia
- carrots, beetroot with marigolds, among others
In fact, a bit like my planting which is very mixed, but not so well thought out. I’m working on a plan to incorporate her ideas.
Other plans include a formal herb garden, a Mediterranean garden, a city larder for a small balcony, cottage garden, salad and herb plot, a vegetable patchwork, traditional kitchen garden, an alcholic hedge (!), and a formal fruit garden. All the plans illustrated with delightful drawings, much in the style of the Dorothy Hartley books of yesteryear. The plans are easily adapted to suitable most plots, with a bit of artistic licence. Anna is such a respected gardener, she has had a hellebore named after her, Anna’s Red.
The ‘cunning plan’ of last November was to clear all the plants from most of the beds in the back garden and cover with leaves and horse manure. The leaves to provide an airy protective covering and eventually be taken down into the earth by the worms, with the manure holding the leaves down so they don’t fly around the garden. This mulching also ensures the bluebells, that have grown in large patches and grow between and through plants, come through the leaves and can be seen and easily dug up. Well as I said, that was the plan and it has worked reasonably well, although I think some bluebells have been missed, again, so probably next year will see me digging more up. We replanted them on the periphery of the garden and down a grassy drive beside our house.
Mulching is big in Sepp Holzer’s activities in his property in Austria. Famous for his permaculture philosophy and practices, Sepp is so down to earth and practical, it is a joy to read his book. There are web pages you can read and also videos. He writes about using pigs to clear ground before planting – so similar to Phil Drabble‘s experiences I read about many years ago.
Both inspirational men. I would love to meet Sepp and talk gardens, sadly Phil died in 2007 at the age of 93.
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
Revised Planting Plan for 2012 – In Praise of Plug Plants
Lady in Black - Double flowered fast climbing fuchsia
Isn’t it amazing how quickly sometimes plans have to be revised?
I’ve had to devise new plan where we will be using plug plants from established plant growers via the post for our front garden instead of growing from seed. Why plug plants? Four reasons: you know when they will be arriving, when you receive them they are well established, they take off like billyo and they have labels!
Why the new plan? With the prospect of our conservatory being turned upside down to store furniture from the sitting room and elsewhere in the house, because we are having some plasterwork and then redecoration done, I realised my seed planting plan was in peril because it’s in the conservatory where I grow all my plants from seed.
This is what is on order from: Thompson & Morgan
Foxglove Illumination Thompson & Morgan
- Tree lilies at the back against the wall – 6 bulbs
- Petunias Easy Wave - 36 plugs
- Fuchsia Lady in Black - 3 jumbo plugs
- Dahlia XXXL - 4 jumbo plugs – all different colours
- Foxglove Illumination – 3 jumbo plugs from the Titchmarsh Collection
From Gardening Direct: Some beautiful scented begonias and some Monet coloured petunias for the hanging basket
From Crocus: some fabulous sweet peas
From Homebase: I’ll be getting some shamrock and some beautiful chocolate cosmos as recommended by Jo Swift.
In between these I’m going to fit in two tall supports for some sweet peas my sister will be growing for me in her greenhouse. And I’ll have to rearrange some of the existing plants, either moved into the back garden or given away.
Fabulous sweet peas from Crocus
In some ways being pushed into adapting to a new plan has been easier than planning from scratch. Having ultimate choice in daunting. All I have to do now is make sure the plants are sited so they don’t fight with each other over space nor clash in colour.
Other plug plants I’m expecting for the back garden include celery, onion, brussel sprouts, cabbage, sweet corn, beetroot – all except the onion will be grown under protective netting to keep the pigeons from guzzling the lot! The brussel sprouts I grew from seed last year have been very successful, we still have some to eat now in early February. The kale is still giving leaves to cook but the leeks are frozen solid in the ground.
So, onwards and upwards! Gardening is a joyful occupation that gives me so much pleasure and lots of challenges.
Val Reynolds, Editor
Garden – New Plants and Sundries for 2012
My favourite garden press event was held this month and try as I might I didn’t get to visit all the stands I wanted but the ones I did visit were very rewarding.
My intention was to source plants for the front garden and give it a completely new look this year and I found some great new plants. Beautiful Monet coloured petunias for the hanging basket and scented begonias for the front of the bed from Gardening Direct, excitingly coloured sweet peas from Kings and from Thompson & Morgan for the Garden Maypoles I have been promised by Haxnicks. Jo Swift suggested white shamrock from Homebase and a wonderful chocolate cosmos that he has chosen for the Chelsea Flower Show garden he has designed for Homebase. I’ll definitely get that cosmos it’s the one plant I can’t resist – they will be available in store from March.
Although the front garden is only 26 ft x 12 ft I still felt the pressure of choosing plants in terms of height, spread and of course colour. So I was really pleased to find Plantify – an inspiring, free online garden design tool available to everyone that I will be using it to redesign the front garden.
Fairy Magnolia Blush
This year Crocus has some absolutely gorgeous new plants on offer – one in particular Fairy Magnolia Blush looks absolutely wonderful, as does the white with blue back anemone Wild Swan - if only I had a bigger garden! And the Forest Series of hepaticas look absolutely beautiful, hope I can fit some in.
Spencer sweet peas from Crocus
And just look at these sweet peas from Crocus – irresistible!
At the event I was given far more packets of seeds from Thompson & Morgan, Homebase and Kings than I could ever use so if you would like a packet or two just send a stamped addressed envelope to me. There is a range of flower and vegetable seed, if you would like one or the other, or both, just write veg and/or flower on the back of the envelope.
My grafted tomato plants grew so well last year only to be cut down in their prime by blight that I had moreorless given up on the idea of home grown tomatoes because once blight, a disease of the foliage and fruit causing rotting, is in the soil it is difficult to avoid further contamination.
Quadgrow Slim
Then I came across the Quadgrow Planter. It has four pots that sit in a reservoir of water, taking away the possibility of erratic watering. It’s possible to link it direct to a water source either mains water or a water butt. I plan on siting it on a path in a south facing part of the garden. I’m hoping that particular cunning plan will mean blight won’t get a look in with the plants getting a steady supply of water and nutrients.
I have been promised some grafted tomato plants that have two varieties on each plant! Sounds really exciting.
My Heath Robinson style protection for the brassicas worked really well last year, deterring the pigeons and cabbage white butterflies, even though the netting was not wide enough and I had to use additional netting. This year I’ll be trying out a crop cage from Greentree Products that should work much better. Easy to fix clips and netting ties sound very attractive. Greentree are also supplying a Grow Cloche to try with one of our metre square raised beds. We’re convinced this will be much better than the hoops and fleece we used last year that has gradually broken down since last autumn.
The Insect Hotel
Absolutely fascinated by insects, I was taken with the insect house from Neudorf, available on the web. One is on its way and I’m looking forward to observing what uses its 5 star bedrooms! The mason bees love a pipe filled with nesting tubes I’ve had for year and are fascinating to watch – see short video. I’m hoping for a wider range of insects this year that will give more photographic opportunities.
My gardening shoes have given me really good service for the last 17 years and I decided to replace them with a pair of Backdoor shoes. I chose ones with the bluebell print but as you will see on their website there are many other flower designs to choose from.
A range of gardening gloves were on offer and I thought it was time to replace a pair of Skoma gloves I’ve used continuously for the past three years and have seen better days. I liked them because they were flexible, wicked away perspiration, and gave me sensitivity, lacking in some gloves where you can’t feel anything. They survived frequent washing in the washing machine, but recently they have hardened a little and so I’ll be test driving three different levels of protection from Joe’s gloves – all rather brightly coloured – at least they won’t get lost in the compost bin. And a pair from Ethel Gloves, made from goatskin and bamboo, referred to as the little black dress of gardening! I have to admit they are rather stylish, I’m tempted to just use them for driving!
A rolling composter, one that be kept at ground level and pushed backwards and forwards to aerate your compost is by far the fastest way of creating compost – ready in six weeks! I’ll be trying out the Rollmix Composter and will write about how it works for us.
As you can imagine I had rather a lot to get home and was glad to reach my comfy chair by the fire, have a quick snooze and dream about the garden this year.
Val Reynolds, Editor
Latest Great Finds – Gardening Shoes and Gloves
It’s this time of year that seems to stimulate the need to replace worn out gardening stuff and this month I decided to look into replacing my somewhat worn, but much loved, gardening gloves. They have given sterling service, comfortable, not clammy, light, easily washed clean in the machine.
My worn out gloves
I wanted a similar lightweight feel and sensitivity and came across this stylist design from Ethel Gloves. They have all the plus features characteristics of my old gloves – two way stretch moisture wicking fabric made from bamboo – plus the added advantages of the wrist cover and a tab to hang them by, genuine goat skin leather palm and reinforced leather fingertips. I’m rather smitten, in fact they seem almost too good for using the garden but I expect I’ll make the effort!
My new Ethel gloves
My gardening slip ons have reached the point of no return with the sole worn thin and the heel at a dangerous angle … Have to say these have taken at least 12 years to reach this state of wear. So I was interested to come across a range of garden shoes made by a husband and wife team. Titled Backdoor Shoes there is a choice of design. I chose the bluebell design and have been happily trotting around in the snow in them for the last couple of days. They are waterproof, washable with removable, washable insoles. Designed for both men and women they are lightweight and very comfortable. Chris Evans got a pair with the grass design on them for Christmas, and he loves them.
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
Compare my new bluebell shoes with the old worn out ones
We love our woodburning stove
Woodburning stove
Having a wood burning stove has made the difference between a warmish room to a toasty one. We have been using oak offcuts from a local wood yard which are excellent, but as we get older we have begun to wonder whether we should install a gas fire – not less expensive but cleaner and immediate.
However, we heard of wood briquettes that are light to handle, come packaged ready to burn, sourced from virgin timber and have no additives of any kind included within the manufacturing process. All positive so far.
We tried them and they do light easily, are suitable for our multi fuel stove, open fireplaces and even log burners. They produce little ash, are low in moisture and give a very intense heat. Each briquette weighs about 1.6/7 kg. We were very impressed. We intend to stock up for next year just as soon as our woodstore becomes empty.
Have a look at their website for more interesting information and what other users have to say
We found this interesting rhyme that gives the burning characteristics of different firewoods:
Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year;
Chestnut only good, they say
If for long it’s laid away
Make a fire of Elder tree
Death within your house shall be
But Ash new or Ash old
Is fit for Queen with crown of gold
Birch and Fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last
It is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread
Elmwood burns like churchyard mould -
E’en the very flames are cold
But Ash green or Ash brown
Is fit for Queen with golden crown
Poplar gives a bitter smoke
Fills your eyes and makes you choke
Apple wood will scent your room
With an incense-like perfume
Oaken logs, if dry and old
Keep away the winter’s cold
But Ash wet or Ash dry
A King shall warm his slippers by
Published in The Times, March 1929
Val Reynolds, Editor
Great Gifts – Garden Tools
Christmas is a good time to make reference to those gifts you would really like to receive! Here are some Fiskar gardening tools we have tried this year and recommend highly.
Fiskars X17 Splitting/Felling Axe £59.99
600 mm long this is a beautifully made axe, well balanced, a nice weight and with a hand stop at the end – important for a good, accurate swing. The shaft itself has an anti-shock soft grip. The shaft is fibreglass with a good feel and easily cleaned. The blade is mortised into a tenon joint in the fibre glass shaft. The blade itself is double hardened and has an excellent safety cover with a carrying handle, or can be hung from a loop passed through to the eyelet at the end of the shaft. The fibreglass design eliminates the weakness of the older style hickory-shafted axes, where the blades becoming loose have the obvious danger of flying heads.
Fiskars X5 Trekking/Camping Axe £39.99
A light fibreglass shafted hand-axe, ideal for chopping firewood – wish I had the use of one of these when I was in the Scouts! It will do well for chopping brushwood in the garden too. Light, it is easily kept in the back pack. Comes with a neat safety cover and is easily hung up using the loophole at the end.
Fiskars Patio Broom £19.99
This broom head is absolutely excellent. The bristles are tough enough to get out weeds from between our paving slabs and does an excellent job when collecting leaves. With its QuikFit handle which you can use for other tools, it means less space is taken up in the shed and few handles to trip over! Be sure to choose the right length of handle/shaft £18.99 for you, there are several to choose from. It might be best to buy at a garden centre than on the web.
Fiskars Trowel £8.99
I was intrigued by the novel appearance of this trowel, and then sceptical. Familiar only with the metal variety, I felt sure that the lack of a metal cutting edge doomed it to failure, but I was pleasantly surprised. It performed very well in the extremely dry soil of my garden this summer, and has continued to be perfectly satisfactory so far this autumn, but due to the continuing lack of serious rainfall I haven’t been able to test it in genuinely wet, heavy soil.
Perversely, one of its good points is also a weakness. It weighs almost nothing, which has led me to forget its presence several times and throw it into the compost heap. I think it would benefit from being produced in a brighter colour as at the moment it’s only too easy to lose if it’s lying on the ground, or in a heap of weeds. (A red ribbon fed through the hanging hole would work (Ed)).
So, it’s Fiskars for us this year and for some of our friends in 2012!
Reviewed by John Reynolds, Katie Longland & Janet Hamer, contributing authors
Indoor Kitchen Waste Composter using Bokashi Bran
Bokashi bran
Who would have thought a handful of bran added to kitchen waste would provide a drain cleaning fluid/a high nutrient feed for plants – and a starter for some excellent compost.
Of course any old bran won’t have the same effect. It has to be Bokashi, a bran based material prepared with mixed culture of naturally occurring friendly micro-organisms. The waste then ferments, allowing it to be safely composted.
Wiggly Wigglers sells a bucket designed to work with the Bokashi bran. They will also regularly supply a 1 kg pack of bran that will last 3-4 months.
Bokashi bran multi order logo
We have tried this composting system and found it worked well, so much so we have bought another bucket to allow a couple of weeks for a full up bucket to mature while a second one starts to fill up.
The bucket is easy to lift and carry, we keep ours in a kitchen cupboard and once filled we take it in the garage for a couple of weeks to mature and then into the compost bins where it will decompose rapidly. Once the compost bins are full we will dig the Bokashi fermented waste into the garden where it would also decompose rapidly, releasing large quantities of soil boosting probiotic micro-organisms which nourish the soil naturally.
Bokashi bucket in our kitchen cupboard
Is it all good? Well, we did find assembling the tap device rather tricky but after a bit of a fiddle we managed it.
The tap could be longer so it could hang over a work surface to collect the fluid that builds up over time into a bigger container that the little cup provided. This fluid is the super stuff that can be used as a drain cleaner or more often used as a high nutrient plant food. In the summer we put oursinto one of the water butts where a leaky hose fed the front garden … It made an amazing difference.
Our front garden plants loved the Bokashi fluid
We like the ease of use, the small space it takes up, having it in the kitchen where we can top it up without any bother and the absence of any smell and amazingly it takes everything bio-degradable including bones, meat, and fish skins!
Available direct from Wiggly Wigglers
Have you seen the Wiggly Wigglers Christmas catalogue? We love the apple corer and peeler – 15 seconds an apple! More …
Christmas Catalogue for Good Life Gifts
The Wiggly Team!
Wiggly Wigglers is a feel good story. Heather and Phillip Gorringe live and work at Lower Blakemere Farm in Herefordshire and while Phillip runs the farm Heather runs Wiggly Wigglers, the company that started off selling worms to compost food waste. They do live the good life, with cattle, pigs and hens, and they grow their own fruit and veg.
We bought one of the first Wiggly Wigglers composters years ago when Heather was at one of the RHS shows. We have three Wiggly Wiggler composters now, all different styles and they all work well.
Oak sapling infused with truffle spores
Our favourite Christmas catalogue is the Wiggly Wigglers Christmas catalogue. It’s full of stuff we really want! From truffle spores infused in sapling oak trees – harvest your truffles in 5-7 years’ time, to spore infused logs to harvest your own exotic mushrooms.
Then there is the apple peeler and corer – named on the recent Channel 4 programme Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets as one of the top gadgets of all time. We really must have one! Processing the apples is such a messy, sticky job, but this gadget promises to make it more fun next year. Click here to see it in action.
Apple corer and peeler
There’s loads of other stuff, bird food, bird feeders, shelters – the catalogue is available by post – phone 01981 500391. However if you are cutting it a bit fine go to their website where everything is available. Remember though that date for last orders is Wednesday 21 December.
Happy Christmas!
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
Our Top Ten SIMPLY SUPER Christmas Gifts
In the space of a year we see a fair number of items we rather like. Here are our top ten we think would make fabulous, interesting and thoughtful gifts for Christmas 2011. They are of course equally appropriate at other times of the year.
Jean Christophe Novelli - Connoisseur Knives
1. Novelli Cooking Knives
These knives will last a lifetime, in fact they are designed to last for more than one generation. Beautifully balanced, made from the best of materials they are a joy to work with. We love using them. More …
Wolsztyn Steam Train Centre © Trevor Jones
2. A Footplate Holiday in Poland – The Steam Engine Enthusiast’s Dream More …
3. However this beautiful book Great Railway Maps of the World may be a less generous gift than a trip to Poland but just as acceptable we’re sure. More …
4. Forever Rumpole
The loveable legal rough diamond Horace Rumpole who refers to his wife as She who must be obeyed, conjures up an appropriate bon mot whatever the occasion. Forever Rumpole is a fine choice for bedtime reading. More …
5. A History of the World in 100 Objects
Oh yes, this is bedtime reading for at least a year! This is a great dip into book, with 100 historical objects to read about, from the earliest surviving object made by human hands to the 100th object – a solar powered lamp and charger. It would fascinate anyone interested in man’s history. Wonderful book. More …
6. Garden tools Investing in garden tools can be a hit and miss affair but here are three we have tried and liked for their utility. We loved the Fiskar trowel, patio broom and axes – our choice for 2012. More …
Fiskar Trowel
7. Growing plants from seeds is one of our passions. We usually go for Thompson & Morgan seeds but sometimes when we can’t find what we are looking for, we look at the Sow Seeds website. A small independent seed business based in Cheshire offering the home gardener, allotment holder and commercial growers the finest quality seeds at great prices it is worthy of support. They provide Gift Vouchers and Seed Boxes,
ideal gifts for beginner gardeners and old timers alike.
A
nd for those you know who suffered in the drought this year we highly recommend having some Supa Drippas to hand just in case it happens again next year. More …
8. Our kitchen waste is now being collected in the kitchen itself, saves us going down the garden in all weathers. This is achieved because we are now using a Bokashi composter – the micro organic process with no smell. Believe us when we say it is so good we keep telling everyone about it! And it is our favourite gift to our gardening friends. More …
9. For every harassed Mum or Dad – the answer to replacing damaged playthings! Saves a fortune – a lifeline especially to anyone not handy with broken stuff. A great stocking filler/tree gift. More …
Getting ready to taste eight different wines to match with Festive food
10. Our final suggestion is a course at the Wine Academy in Queen Anne St, Marylebone, for anyone you know interested in knowing much more about wine. We recently attended a wine and food matching course, absolutely excellent, led by Suzy Atkins, wine writer for The Times. We can’t rate this highly enough. Fantastic gift. We will be writing about our experience in the near future.
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
Grow Your Own Potatoes for Free!
OFFER OF THE WEEK*Free Potato Collection – Worth £15.00
What you get in the kit: 5 x tubers of Potato ‘Vales Emerald’ - A Maris Peer/Charlotte cross with an RHS Award of Garden Merit that is proving to be very popular. Potato ‘Vales Emerald’ produces generous yields of oval, cream-skinned and pale fleshed tubers. Perfect for your first potatoes of the year, and a simply delicious as a salad potato. Height and spread: 60cm (24″). 1 x potato planter - Holds approximately 40 litres of multipurpose compost (sufficient to plant 3 or 4 tubers). 5 x packets of vegetable seed - Receive 5 packets of quality vegetable seeds. The vegetable seeds will be chosen by Thompson & Morgan and may vary from those illustrated. *Just pay £4.95 postage HOW TO GET YOUR FREE POTATO KIT: GO to www.thompson-morgan.com and enter Offer Code: AF11109 in the box labelled “Enter catalogue or newspaper code:” This will ensure the £15 is crossed out and only the postage is applicable. Terms &Conditions: Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer code and is only valid with orders placed online START DATE: NOW END DATE: Midnight Sunday 27th November 2011 This is a really generous offer – 5 tubers of top quality potatoes, packets of seeds, and a planter bag which you can reuse for subsequent crops, or other vegetables. For instance, we have just planted two lots of asparagus in planters. Such a neat and easy way to grow vegetables, especially plants that need to be kept under control. So if you are interested, don’t delay, apply today! Happy gardening! Val Reynolds, Editor |
Thompson & Morgan are offering a fabulous Potato KIT FREE* for every visitor – worth £15.00!
