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Category: Fruit, Vegetables & Herbs

Tips on growing good Fruit, Vegetables and Herbs

Cabbages for Kings

Cabbages for Kings

King slugs are feasting on my green and cream ornamental cabbages. It is late in the season and the slugs are helping to reduce the leaf waste from a variety of plants including the dying hostas. Still as I won’t be eating the ornamental cabbage I am not going to loose too much sleep.

I treat my ornamental cabbage as an autumn and winter display. This type of Kale can produce cabbageheads from spring   through  winter. Try ‘Rose Bouquet’, which produces dwarf, solid round heads of   red-pink, surrounded by a ruff of green leaves,  Tuscan cavolo nero, or a good seed mixture.

Super Veg 2017 Ornamental Kale

Super Veg 2017 Ornamental Kale

 

Kale is the newly rediscovered easy to grow vegetable.

Many plants sold as “ornamental cabbage” are in fact kales. They are grown for the coloured and ornamental leaves which are brilliant white, red, pink, blue or violet in the interior or the rosette. Because they supply colour in winter Ornamental Kale is popular with some designers. The green kales (Borecole) can also be very ornamental. Keep tidy by pulling old outer leaves off


Ornamental kale is every bit as edible as any other variety, provided it has not been treated with pesticides. Special recipes

For more Tips and other Kales

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Growing Runner Bean – Scarlet Emperor

Growing Runner Bean – Scarlet Emperor

Tips for good Runner Bean crops

  • Prepare the soil to retain moisture by incorporating good compost and/or wet newspaper at the bottom of a trench in winter.
  • Rotate crops to a new patch every year on a three year cycle.
  • Do not feed with heavy nitrogen fertilisers or you will get leaf and less flower.
  • Flowers pollinate best if the air is humid so mist over if there is a dry spell.
  • Water plants well and regularly or stunted ‘C’ curved beans will disappoint
  • Support with a cane each or on a wigwam. I am trying an X shape this year so that the top half of the X encourages beans to hang down outside the plant and be easy to pick.
  • Harvest when beans are still young and have a snap in them
  • Try a variety know for its flavour like Kelvedon Marvel or Red Knight
  • Ruby moon has maroon pods that turn green when cooked and Painted lady has red and white bi-coloured flowers
  • Runner Beans can be grown for the bean inside or for the whole pod to be eaten

Tips for entering Runner Beans for a local show

  • Stick to the schedule for the show – if it says three runner beans submit three runner beans and label the variety correctly
  • Chose straight beans of equal length and form – size isn’t everything
  • If beans need a bit of straightening keep them in a wet towel overnight pressed straight.
  • Grow and take some spares to the show
  • Display as instructed or on black velvet to show off your specimen
  • Collect the seed of good plants for next year and develop your own strain or get good seed from a specialist
  • If you want a giant bean to become a world record you will be looking for bean in excess of 48 inches and it will be too woody to eat.
Tips for Growing Giant Vegetables

Tips for Growing Giant Vegetables

Book Cover

This is one of the many books in my collection but the only one to focus on growing big, bigger and biggest vegetables. If you want to grow giant vegetable for exhibition or to get large crops then there are many pointers in ‘How to Grow Giant Vegetables’ by Bernard Lavery and below.

If you want to see 14 feet long carrots or parsnips, the 28 pound radish or the monster cabbage weighing 120lbs then encouragement to join the monster vegetables growing movement may be our gardeners tip for you in 2011.

Starting with Giant Vegetables

  • A good big one will beat a good small one and that applies to seed so consider what you sow. Good genetic potential will grow good plants.
  • Pumpkins are a good starter vegetable as a heavy weight can be achieved in the first year. It is also fun to see them grow by inches every day.
  • You need to learn by experience so you improve growing conditions, feeding and watering based on your own observations.

Large Crops from a Small Garden

  • Harvested whilst still in peak growing condition, giant vegetables taste every bit as good as smaller varieties.
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Gourds & Squashes

Gourds & Squashes

Gourds
Gourds

Gourds are grown for the decorative fruit which come in weird and wonderful shapes.They are part of the curcurbit family along with cucumbers, courgettes, pumpkins and marrows.

Cultivation Tips

  • Hard seeds may need chipping or scarifying to allow water for germination.
  • Gourds need a long growing season – start indoors in heat.
  • The yellow or orange flowers need pollinating male to female like all the squash family to form fruit
  • Gourds are ready for harvest when the stems dry and turn brown.
  • Leave a few inches of stem attached when harvesting.
  • Seed packets often have a mixture of seeds. Plants cross pollinate easily so saved seed may produce strange results.

Gourd Varieties

There are three main types of gourd; the ornamental gourds, the lagenaria or large utilitarian gourds, and the luffa or vegetable sponge.

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Uses for Crab Apples

Uses for Crab Apples

Crab apples can be used as food, for ornamental effect, to help pollination, or for the wood. The wild crab apple found individually in woods has green fruit turning golden in Autumn. Cultivated crab apples vary in habit and grow upto 10 feet. Fruiting this year looks like a bumper harvest after the wet weather earlier in the year.

Crab Apples make attractive ornamental trees with their pink or white blossom, followed by colourful autumn fruits that make delicious preserves. Varieties John Downie, Golden Hornet, Laura and Red Sentinel are all self fertile. Crab apples planted near fruiting apple trees make excellent pollinators and will help pollinating bees to increase your crops.

Crab apples are used to make jelly, pickles or can be roasted and served with meat or added to winter ale or cider. Any unpicked fruits will soften after a few frosts and will create a sumptuous food source for wild birds from late January until March. For a jelly recipe with a chillie kick try Cottage Smallholder

The timber of the crab apple is uniform in texture and if dried slowly, is excellent for woodworking. At one time it was used for making set-squares and other drawing instruments. Failing that apple wood burns in your chimenea of fire grate with a nice aroma.

Order now for winter delivery Crab Apples at Thompson & Morgan

Onion Family Competitions

Onion Family Competitions

Show Onions

  • These potential prize winning onions are uniform in size, colour and shape.
  • They are ‘to schedule’ in that they are 12 of the same variety grown by the show entrant.
  • Onions should be ripened at least a fortnight before the show and take off any extremely loose outer skin. Trim off the rootlets close to the base.
  • Presentation can be crucial at your local show. These onions have been neatly tied off at the neck with raffia and mounted in clean sand. Single onions are usually mounted on a cardboard ring (like an egg cup) on a black velvet cloth if you wish.
  • 2 lb Ailsa Craig are easier to grow and more consistent than 4 lb varieties and big size prizes are for the specialist (but at this show 3 onions weighed in at 41 lbs a lot to eat at one go!)

Leeks for Show

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Runner Bean Organic Feast

Runner Bean Organic Feast

The early insect damage on my runner bean leaves (above) has not damaged the crop of beans. Cool evenings and warm sunny days with adequate rain, has helped produce a bumper crop of tender beans.

Tips For Runner Bean Next Year

  • Add plenty of rotted compost this winter to increase the moisture holding ability of your soil.
  • Grow in a sunny spot sheltered from strong winds.
  • Stake to at least 6′ high in a wigwam or A frame shape. I used old canes and they snapped in the wind so beware false economy.
  • Plant more than one variety (I also planted heritage Painted Lady for the bi-coloured flowers).
  • Runners need pollination by insects and this is helped when the air is a bit damp. If the weather is very dry, spray your plants with plain water.
  • For organic veg I put up with some leaf damage rather than use chemicals

For more tips on Growing Scarlet Emperor

Saving Bean Seeds

  • When the beans start to fill out the pod and go starchy the seed is ready for saving for next years crop.
  • Let the pod dry out then keep the seed cool and dry for next year.
  • Save enough to give some seed to neighbors.
  • A good big one will beat a good small one so select prime seeds to save.
  • Even runts will probably grow OK but damage seed should not be kept.
Feed and Water Your Fruit Trees

Feed and Water Your Fruit Trees

Plum

March is a good time to feed your Pears, Plums, Greengages and Blackcurrants.

  • To boost your trees into growth they will appreciate a nitrogen feed.
  • A general feed like Growmore or VitaxQ4 is easy to apply.
  • A surface mulch of well rotted animal manure will also help.

Watering Tips

    • If spring is dry water the plants gently with a bucket of water onto the roots. repeat every fortnight if needs be.
    • Any watering should be dome before mid day.
      water well the weather is clement not in anticipation of a night frost.
    • Water pears for the first six weeks after blossoming. They are usually grafted onto thirsty root stock.
    • Try to keep water away from the trunk or woody stems to prevent rot.
    • Newly planted trees need watering for the first year.
    • If you have dry sandy soil mulch for the first three years to help retain water.
    • Water the first year after transplant after that they are on their own.
    • You want the trees to build deep roots so they are self sufficient for water.

Blackcurrants are a shallow rooted so weed by hand.

  • Blackcurrents are prone to frost damage on the flowers.
  • Varieties called Ben…. flower a but later or you can cover with horticultural fleece.

March is still a good time to plant new fruit trees and bushes. As the soil warms up they should grow away quite well.

Nuts and Drupes

Nuts and Drupes

Book Cover

True nuts include Pecan, Sweet Chestnuts, Beechnuts, Acorns, Hazel nuts and Hornbeams. True nuts are a simple dry fruit with one seed in which the seed case becomes very hard on maturity. True nuts do not split apart like Brazil nuts or horse chestnuts but the seed and the fruit are one and the same.

Peanuts are not nuts, it may be hard to believe but they are peas or at least part of the Pea family. If you compare the pods of peas and peanuts you will see what we mean. Monkey nuts, groundnuts, Manila nuts, earthnuts and goobers are all just other names for peanuts.

Walnuts are not nuts but are botanically called ‘drupes’. This is a fruit with a fleshy outer coating enclosing a hard shell that contains a seed. Cashew nuts are drupe seeds from the poison ivy family and the seed lining contains an irritating lining. Almonds, pistachios and pine nuts are not nuts either.

Coconuts must be nuts then, no I am afraid not they are another drupe. Nor do coconuts contain coconut milk but coconut water. Coconut milk is made by grating the flesh into water then straining it.

Macadamia nut is just a creamy white kernel and Brazil nuts are seeds in a pod.

Drupes are also fleshy fruit, such as a peach, plum, or cherry, usually having a single hard stone that encloses a seed which may be why they are also called stone fruit.

Resources

QI researched by Molly Oldfield & John Mitchinson