The pressure is off in the vegetable garden. The vigorous summer growth has receded and the remaining plants are growing gently and gracefully. All in the garden seems peaceful and suddenly there is time for the gardener to think!
leeks-in-autumn
Maybe we should make an effort to think out of the box! The gardening we have grown up with, and practised year after year, might benefit from a shake-up.
Hanging baskets may seem a bit suburban but are a way of contributing to our Grow Your Own supplies and add another dimension to the pleasure of gardening.
- As well as tumbling tomatoes or strawberries which are often grown in hanging baskets, why not try herbs or peas?
- A basket of herbs looks and smells beautiful. It would be useful hanging just outside the kitchen window. Marjoram will hang down over the edge, and Chives tend to drape a little too. Various Mints would fill in the centre with Borage providing height.
- chive-flower
- A basket of peas, filled with sugar snap or mange tout would make an interesting spectacle. Asparagus peas have a frilly pod which is eaten whole. The pods need to be picked when they are about an inch long before they get stringy, so they are not particularly productive. But they are useful as a garnish. The dark red flowers stand out against the green foliage.
- frilled-asparagus-pea-pod
Raised beds may be the talk of the modern gardener, but they could make gardening easier and improve the productivity of traditional vegetable gardens.
- Raised beds have the obvious advantage of being lifted up off the ground so the gardener does not have to bend so far to reach the soil.
broccoli in-raised-beds
- Plant growth is improved because the un-compacted soil allows good drainage and free root development.
- The gardener has control over what soil goes into the raised bed.
- The soil warms up quicker than that in the garden.
- Plants can be grown closer together in a raised bed so the productivity per square foot is increased.
- Pests and diseases are fewer. Carrot fly is not such a problem because it is a low flier and rarely reaches above 1 foot (25cm). Slug control is easier because they have to climb up the walls to get into the raised bed. It is relatively easy to deter them from the climb, by laying gravel around the outside of the bed, and putting discouraging strips on the outside walls of the bed.
raised-bed
So, as the nights draw in, and new catalogues arrive, think about different ways of vegetable gardening, as well as what varieties to grow next year.
The new potato variety Challenger offers a high yielding alternative to Maris Piper.
The main characteristics of Challenger are:
- early main crop variety
- used as a French fry variety
- delicious baked
- good texture
- good taste
- produces a high number of tubers
- needs fertile soil
- best planted no closer than 14in (35.5cm) apart
- ready for lifting in late summer
- suitable for long-term storage
potatoes---challenger
The Challenger potato tuber is:
- a long oval
- yellow skinned
- with light yellow flesh
Warning: Challenger potatoes have a low resistance to blight, eelworm and scab.
3-challenger-potatoes
Challenger is a medium-late main crop potato variety with good all round kitchen use, particularly chipping.
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This pumpkin soup recipe is all you need after a hard days gardening!
pumpkin-slice
Ingredients:
- 1 large onion
- 1 lb pumpkin
- 1 lb potatoes
- 8 oz carrot
- 1 litre chicken or veg stock
- 1/2 pint milk
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- salt & pepper
- knob butter
- 2 tablespoon oil
Method:
- place butter & oil in pan
- saute onions
- add pumpkin, potatoes & carrots
- pour in stock
- simmer for 40 minutes
- liquidise
- season to taste
- add ginger, nutmeg & milk
- serve piping hot!
Pumpkin Soup recipe is ideal for a Halloween party!
Purple Majesty Potatoes contain up to ten times more health-giving anti-oxidants than conventional white potatoes.
Characteristics of Purple Majesty Potatoes:
- purple flesh
- satiny purple skin
- high in anthocyanins, an antioxidant
- oblong tubers – good for chips
- resistant to most viruses, susceptible to blackleg & dry rot
- medium to late season potato
- good for short-term storage only
- high yielding
Purple Majesty Potatoes are fun to eat as they are purple even when cooked!
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By Dr Liz Bentley, founder of The Royal Metrological Society’s theWeather Club
Dr Liz Bentley, founder of the Weather Club reported today; “Many of us will experience a brief taste of winter over the next couple of days with northerly winds blowing in air from the Arctic.”
High pressure in the Atlantic and low pressure in Scandinavia is drawing in cold air across most the country during the rest of today and Wednesday.
Daytime temperatures will drop to single figures but when you add on the wind-chill it will feel close to freezing with snowfall over Scottish hills and another widespread frost again tonight.
By the end of the week, the wind will become westerly bringing milder air in from the Atlantic along with rain for most places by the weekend.
theWeather Club Membership benefits include:
- A welcome pack with a free Galileo thermometer RRP £15, weather postcards and a unique membership card.
- A quarterly magazine called theWeather each with a seasonal theme delivered directly to your door. The magazine contains a variety of features, news and views as well as science, presented in a non technical way and using stunning photography. In addition to the magazine is a collectable information guide to Meteorology – that builds up over the issues.
- Access to a website where members are able to participate in weather debates and discussions, join forums, post views, propose ideas, submit images and share their experiences with the weather.
- Access to events, exclusive access to theWeather magazine branded items, a range of great discounts on weather related products and additional content on the website: www.theweatherclub.org.uk.
- The chance to participate in nationwide weather experiments and some of the largest weather investigations ever conducted
Costs: theWeather Club costs £25 for membership per year
Profits from theWeather Club will be used to help meet the charitable aims of the Royal Meteorological Society, with an emphasis on educating the public, especially children, about weather and climate.
About theWeather Club
theWeather Club is a charity organisation established in 2010 by Dr Liz Bentley, and backed by the Royal Meteorological Society which exists to promote an appreciation and understanding of the weather with an emphasis on educating the public, especially children, about weather and climate.
The weather club will be a great help to vegetable gardeners.
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Storing Sweet Chestnuts is simple:
- dry sweet chestnuts in a very low oven until hard
- store in an airtight dry jar in a cool, dark cupboard
- dry sweet chestnuts will keep for years
- to reconstitute dry sweet chestnuts, put in boiling water to cover for an hour or so and use as recipe.
sweet-chestnut-tree
sweet-chestnuts
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The term Broccoli is a bit of a minefield and misunderstanding often occurs because supermarkets, seedsman and farmers use different names for the same thing.
Broccoli is Italian for little branches.
- Calabrese is the type of broccoli which has the little branches as one large head.
This is sold in the supermarkets as broccoli but is known as Calabrese to the seedsmen.
calabrese
Calabrese originally came from Calabria in Southern Italy.
- Sprouting broccoli has lots of shoots instead of one big flower.
If you ask a seedsman for broccoli he will probably give you sprouting broccoli, which is sold in supermarkets as purple (or white) sprouting broccoli.
spear sprouting broccoli
Sprouting broccoli has a very short season in early spring.
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Winter cabbage is harvested in the winter from November until March.
Winter Cabbage is:
- sown in late April or May
- planted out (as young plants) in July
- ready to eat from November until March
- ball or drum-headed – tight to survive the winter
- cut from the garden as & when required
cabbage-Elisa
We have found the following varieties very successful:
Winter cabbage is very productive per square meter of vegetable garden.
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Abundance is a project to harvest the seasonal glut of local fruit like apples, pear and plums and share them out.
Each year hundreds of fruit trees go unpicked either because:
- people don’t notice them
- may not be physically able to harvest them
- there are just too many fruits
- no-one wants the fruit
Teams of volunteers pick the fruits from trees on waste ground, in the countryside or from trees that have been offered to them. The fruit is then shared out to the community for eating, pickling, jamming and so on!
Abundance is an excellent project helping to share unwanted fruit.
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The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) have a wonderful scheme which helps and encourages school gardens.
The RHS Campaign for School Gardening:
- aims to encourage and support schools to develop and actively use a school garden.
- provides teachers with resources through their website
- provide an extensive programme of CPD days for teachers
Schools joining the RHS scheme receive:
- Free start-up kit
- Rewards and certificates for your progress on the new benchmarking scheme.
- Access to useful information and advice that will help you use your school’s garden to greater effect.
- Regular news and items of interest sent to you by e-mail.
- Free seeds from the Schools Seed Distribution Scheme once a year.
- Regional Advisors
John Hickling, Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) regional officer for Yorkshire and Humberside has just visited the garden and gardeners at Leys Farm Junior School in Scunthorpe, where they had a Get Grown-Ups Growing day.
“Gardening encompasses all areas of the national curriculum including science, maths, English and geography,” he said.
Parents and friends from the local community joined in, in what was a win – win situation.
The RHS are doing great work helping schools use and develop their gardens
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