Plot to Plate Aug/Sept

This is the question that I have been asking any-one who seemed even vaguely interested in the fact that, because of ever growing demand for ready-made compost and grow bags, peat is being stripped mercilessly by machines from the land leaving it barren and unable to recover. It takes hundreds of years to restore the land back to anything like manageable. Species of plants and insects may be wiped out if their habitat is destroyed and irrigation and flooding will be a problem.

I have been experimenting with grow bags this year. In the greenhouse I planted three sweet corn plants in a peat grow bag and three in a peat-free grow bag. I have watered and fed both bags equally but the difference is amazing. The peat grown corn is tall and strong with dark green leaves and swelling corns, whereas the peat-free plants are about two thirds the size with pale yellowy-green leaves and pathetic little cobs. I have done the same thing with tomatoes with the same result. However, tomato plants that I have grown in peat-free bags, with the bag cut in half and stood upright with one plant in each half, seem to be doing alright but I will have to see how they ripen.

All plants need to be grown in good nutritious material to perform well and there doesn’t seem to be a commercial substitute for peat. In our own gardens and allotments home-made compost is the answer. Depending on what is to be grown mix it with the right organic slow or quick release fertilizers, sand, grit or leaf mould and you will not need peat. Find a good source of well rotted farm-yard or horse manure, which shouldn’t be too difficult in our area, and use it. Mulch with it, compost it, dig it into a trench, get it onto your garden. It is a slow release fertiliser that contains all the essential nutrients demanded for healthy veg. growth and maintains and boosts the structure by breaking up heavy clay soils and binding lighter soils. How can your garden survive without good old-fashioned muck?
Commercial growing compounds are a fairly recent commodity which enables anyone with a small garden to grow their own produce but maybe we should give more thought to compost bins and wormeries.

Jobs for August and September

• Enjoy your summer harvest and stop going to the supermarket as often, spend more time being inventive with your produce, it is amazing how delicious a simple home grown meal tastes.
• If the strawberries have finished fruiting, give them a trim leaving any runners to pot on for new plants next year.
• Harvest onions if the weather is fine and dry.
• Cut off some of the lower leaves on tomato plants to allow the sun to ripen the fruit.
• Sow over-wintering cabbage such as Durham Early and Pixie (if not already done) ready to plant out in September.
• tart harvesting 2nd early potatoes. Earlies are harvested 10 to 13 weeks after planting, 2nd earlies 13 to 15 weeks and main crop 15 to 20 weeks. (This is a rough guide depending on weather conditions and blight!)
• Inspect all potatoes for blight and remove and burn or dispose of any tops that are affected. Do not compost them.
• Water and feed courgettes, squash, tomatoes, sweet corn and any very thirsty plants but hold back on watering the onions and garlic for a few weeks before harvesting.
• Let a single plant of rocket, parsley and lettuce bolt this year. There will be some interesting shapes and the birds will love you. You will also find new plants next spring for free. (This is not a tip for the tidy gardener).

RECIPES

Courgettes

This year I have grown three different types of courgette, the reliable old favourite ‘All Green Bush’, the dark green ‘Defender’ and a round variety called Tondo Chiare di Nizza. They are all cropping well and much as I love the first fresh juicy pickings I will soon be groaning under the glut that will inevitably happen. I am determined to try and find new ways to use them.

Courgette Cake for the Birthday Boys

My son Chris and his son Frank have birthdays on the 8th and 13th July respectively. This year they coincided with the ripening of my 1st courgettes and the deadline for my Northern Life column. How many more reasons did I need to inspire me to make this deliciously moist chocolatey cake? I have adapted a recipe by Jeanne Jenner which I found in an old Skipton Garden Club booklet.

Courgette and Chocolate Cake

150g plain good quality cooking chocolate (Green and Blacks Organic)
200g S.R. flour
Half tsp. salt
150g castor sugar
2 standard eggs
150 ml walnut oil (or sunflower/vegetable oil)
225g courgettes
25g chopped walnuts

Method:

1. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water and grate the courgettes.
2. Whisk the eggs and oil together.
3. Put flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl, mix in the eggs and oil and beat well.
4. Add the chocolate, courgettes and walnuts and stir well.
5. Pour into a 20cms (8 inch) round greased tin.
6. Bake at 180C. (160 Fan oven) Gas 4 for 50 to 60 mins until well risen, firm and springy.
7. Cool in tin for 10 mins. before turning onto a wire rack.

Currants

Time to start harvesting the shiny blackcurrants and the jewel-like redcurrants which are hanging heavy with juice from my bushes. Currants are a prime ingredient of summer puddings and will always have a place for at least one bush in my garden. I have fought shy of making jellies and jams with them thinking it is too much like hard work, but this recipe for redcurrant jelly is so simple and foolproof.

Redcurrant and Cinnamon Jelly

900g (2lb) red currants, washed
1 cinnamon stick
Sugar with Pectin (jam sugar)
30ml (2 tbsp) lemon juice

1. Put the redcurrants in a heavy pan with 300ml (half pint) water and the cinnamon.
2. Bring slowly to the boil, mashing the fruit occasionally, then simmer gently for 30 mins.
3. Spoon the fruit pulp into a jelly bag attached the legs of an upturned stool and leave to strain into a large bowl for at least 12 hours.
4. Discard the pulp from the jelly. Measure the juice and return to the pan with 450g (1lb) sugar for each 600ml (1 pint) juice. Add the lemon juice.
5. Heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved, then boil rapidly for 1 minute or until setting point is reached. (i.e. put a little jelly on a cold plate, cool, then push a finger gently through the jelly. If the surface wrinkles, setting point has been reached.)
6. Pot into warm sterile jars and cover whilst still hot with a waxed disc (available from most cook shops)
7. Allow to cool before sealing with the screw top and labelling.

Small jars of this jelly would make very acceptable gifts if covered with pretty fabric or paper, secured with a rubber band and labelled neatly.

Alan Titchmarsh

“I’d like to be remembered for greening things up and making people smile…”

I believe you were born near Ilkley, Yorkshire and now reside in Hampshire, so do you class yourself as a northerner or southerner?
I was born in Ilkley – right on the moor. I class myself as a northerner doing missionary work down south.

Do you think there is a north-south divide?
For some folk, but not for me. I’m happy almost anywhere in Britain, and thanks to my job I’ve been to every single county as well as most of our islands – including Orkney and Shetland. I couldn’t live abroad. I’ve a great fondness for this country and the north-south divide is there, it seems to me, for amusement rather than anything else!

How old were you when you started to develop a real love of gardening?
I was eight or nine. I joined the Wharfedale Naturalists Society (I’m still a member) and started growing things in our back garden in Ilkley. I even built a polythene greenhouse. My grandad had an allotment by the River Wharfe which fired my interest even earlier.

Were your parent’s active gardeners?
My mum loved it but my dad hated it. It wasn’t until after I’d started work as a gardener that he confessed that both his father and his grandfather had been gardeners and made him weed for a penny a bucket. It put him off for life, so he was relieved to hand over the spade. I still have it, and it still bears traces of cement when he used it to mix concrete!

Did you have a happy childhood?
Blissful in the holidays and at weekends, but not at school. I was a late developer academically (come to think of it, I’m still developing) and a bit too sensitive for my own good. The moment I left school I grew both physically and intellectually (I would like to think).

In 1997 you were voted ‘Yorkshire Man of the Year’ – what is your favourite Yorkshire saying?
It was my grandfather’s: ‘Never let it be said that your mother bred a gibber’. In other words, never give up. It has stood me in good stead all my life.

Northern Life’s resident gardener is Peter Foley who I believe you went to college with – he would like to ask you how it feels to be such a heartthrob.
Not the Peter Foley? As to being a heartthrob, that’s for me to know and him to wonder. (I haven’t a clue!)

What is the most challenging garden you have ever worked on?
Probably Nelson Mandela’s garden in South Africa. We did a Ground Force make-over in three days. It was a tricky project but the man himself was simply charming. The quietest most understated charisma I have ever encountered, and a great sense of humour, too.

In the last edition of Northern Life we ran a competition for the North’s best back yard – what top tips could you offer our readers who have limited gardening space?
Take it slowly, keep it simple and use larger numbers of fewer plants for dramatic impact. And most importantly, plant things that will enjoy your soil and conditions, rather than having to fight them.

You’re so busy, so how do you find the time to tend your own garden or do you have a gardener?
I have about 40 acres in total – 38 of which are fields and woodland that we treat as a nature reserve, and around two acres of garden. I have two folk helping me – Sue, who gardens, has been with us for twenty-odd years, and Bill – who does everything brown and grey – only slightly less. I write and broadcast for a living and I garden for pleasure. I’m out there a part of every day when I’m at home writing, but I couldn’t do without them.

You are associated with so many charities is there any in particular that are close to your heart?
I try to do my bit for all of them – there are more than 40 of which I am president or patron – and I feel I can never do enough. I do run a charity of my own which makes grants to primary schools to create gardens and nature areas. We have funded almost 300 of them now. I do feel it’s vital to offer children a feel for the countryside so that they can take care of it in the future – we have a wonderful landscape that deserves to be cherished.

In April, you were appointed as High Sheriff of the Isle of Wight, what does this role entail?
It is mainly ceremonial and involves opening things and attending things and keeping the judges happy. In my case I hope it will raise the profile of an island which I think is greatly undervalued. You should come and have a look – it’s almost as beautiful as Yorkshire! I live partly on the Isle of Wight and it is my way of giving a bit back.

You’ve been married to Alison for 32 years, what is the secret of a happy marriage?
I rather like her. Hopefully she rather likes me.

Grandchildren?
Not yet.

Describe your perfect day?
The morning in my garden, lunch on my boat anchored in a calm bay for the afternoon, early evening in my study with my books and then an evening at the theatre or a small, favourite restaurant with a handful of friends.

What is your favourite northern dish?
It used to be Thirkell’s pork pies in Ilkley (now, alas, no more). Now it is fish and chips.

What are your future plans?
To keep being interested and to grasp opportunities.

How would you like to be remembered?
For greening things up and making people smile.

What flowers would you like at your funeral?
Sweet peas.

What is your favourite place in the north?
Ilkley, of course, and Wharfedale especially around Grassington and Burnsall.

You’re presiding over the Chatsworth Country Fair– a celebration of country life in August – what will be happening there and are you looking forward to it?
It is a fabulous celebration of country life – everything from fly fishing to dog racing and clay pigeon shooting in the most fabulous setting. I love Chatsworth as a house, garden and estate – it really is an earthly paradise – and the current Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, like their predecessors, are really keen to share it. As a result the fair – along with the house and garden – has a keen band of followers who go every year and have a whale of a time – whether it’s watching the variety of events in the arena, walking around the display of vintage cars, or spending a fortune on everything from shepherd’s crooks to waterproof jackets and locally-grown produce. I really do think there is no country fair to beat it and I’m pleased and proud to be its patron.

Interview from issue 21 aug/sept 08. To order this issue go to the Northern Life online store.

Gardeners' Diary with Peter Foley

Well, all the predictions seem to point towards a much warmer and dryer summer for this year and judging by the behaviour of the Oak and Ash trees this seems to underline this point. In the last two years the Oak has come into leaf long after the Ash which normally is taken to denote a ‘soak’ in the coming summer which was certainly true for 2007 and 2008, but all around here in the Forest of Bowland and also where I was in North Wales during mid May the Oak are well advanced with the Ash trees hardly showing any movement as yet. So this should mean that we are to be in for a ‘splash’ in terms of rainfall for the coming summer. Why this happens like this I do not know but the other day we were looking at a large old Ash tree some 150 feet tall and thought what a wondrous thing it was that this plant should be able to pull water up from below ground level to feed the growth. It certainly makes you realise what a wonderful feat of plant engineering there is in a tree.

If it is going to be a scorcher this summer then it is now that gardeners need to take some advance precautions to guard against the effects of drought. Here in the garden near Clitheroe we have already mulched the roses with a good layer of compost made up of old lawn mowings and rotted leaves from 2007, and this week we are doing the same with the newly planted fruit bushes so as to conserve moisture in the ground and protect the new fine fibrous roots from the scorching effects of hot sun. If you do not have any garden compost ready then start preparing a heap to take all of your non woody garden rubbish in preparation for next year, and for this season purchase some bark chips, not the very coarse type, that you can use as a mulch and then they will gradually work into the soil during the coming year. Never use fresh lawn mowings as these can heat up and also take essential nitrogen resources away from the plant.

Even if the weather is not sunny, temperatures under glass can still heat up from radiation, so always make sure that there is sufficient ventilation and plants are well watered if you going out for the day. Once plants such as tomatoes run short of water and wilt they never really recover and it certainly affects the crop.

If you are watering outdoor crops or flower borders try and undertake this in the evening and then give a really good soaking to the ground, not the foliage, rather than a light spraying with water. A light watering soon evaporates and only encourages weak surface roots that soon burn up in hot sun next day, whereas the water that penetrates deeper down helps form strong roots and means that you only need to water every few days, rather than every day. It is a much more economical use of water especially if you are on a water meter.

June and July are two of the most colourful months in the garden and there is a wealth of good, hardy, colourful perennials that you can plant to brighten your garden year after year. In recent years the emphasise with new plant introductions has been for longer lasting blooms and more compact plants that do not require staking. One of the plants that has really undergone a surge in popularity is the easy to please Achillea or Yarrow. Prior to the mid 80’s this was mainly thought of as a roadside verge plant with white flowers and a few gold varieties of taller statue but there are now a wealth of colourful varieties in striking pinks and reds, terracotta, primrose yellow and lilac plus many two-tone varieties. Being derived from a native plant that puts up with our indifferent weather very well, their flat heads of many smaller flowers on 2-3 foot stems last for several weeks in mid summer. Once faded just remove the old heads and new side-shoots will appear with more buds for September and October. Their only requirement is that you regularly divide them every two or three years in March, replanting the stronger outside shoots after replenishing the soil with some compost and fertilizer and they will make a marvellous show that coming summer. They are also much loved by bees and butterflies.

The Day Lilies or Hemerocallis are another old favourite with countless new varieties now available, flowering in the various varieties from late May to August. These lily-like flowers from leafy clumps each last for a day but there are always countless buds to follow. The flower colour ranges from palest primrose to deep golds, rich reds and purples as well as many shades of pink and bicolours. Additionally the thick textured flowers are edible so make very attractive finishing touches as well as a talking point to summer salads, trifles and fruit salads. The flavour is somewhat akin to watercress but I am not sure if they possess the same aphrodisiac properties as watercress!

Another good hardy and reliable plant that kicks off in July is the Crocosmia, otherwise known as Montbretia. Now if you are the unfortunate person whose only experience of these is that of a plant that takes off in your garden with little bloom and masses of foliage then send those plants to the local recycling centre and start again. Go to a good specialist supplier and obtain some of the modern varieties that really give you good value for money with many blooms and much fewer leaves. At Holden Clough Nursery near Bolton-by-Bowland my son John has expanded on my collection and amassed together an array of over 150 varieties. One of my favourites is ‘Rowallane Yellow’ which was first given to me by Mike Snowden, the then head gardener at Rowallane Gardens in Northern Ireland, in 1986 when I was lecturing over there. It took me some fourteen years to increase the stock but it starts in mid July with enormous sprays of up to thirty five bright golden yellow flowers on a long spray for many weeks on 3-foot stems. Another good variety from the late Alan Bloom of Bressingham is ‘Irish Dawn’, much shorter at just under 2 feet with bright yellow flowers from mid July until mid August. Again all that these Hemerocallis and Crocosmia need is a good annual feed of a general fertilizer such as Fish, Blood & Bone or Vitax Q4 annually in March and they will give you just reward.

Lastly don’t forget to try and get along to one of the main horticultural events in summer such as the RHS Tatton Park Show, Arley Hall’s and Dalemain’s garden festivals or one of the many plant fairs across the north. You will be able to pick up a lot of inspiration as well as some top quality plants direct from the grower.

Peter Foley can be contacted on 01200 429145 or at peterfoleyhcn@hotmail.co.uk