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Category: Top Ten Tips

Gardeners and gardening tips for the day. Hints, ideas, advice and suggestions in list form

Top 10 Garlic Varieties

Top 10 Garlic Varieties

Garlic is increasing in popularity in the UK and a wide selection of varieties are now available. They grow well under glass or poly tunnel but also produce worthwhile crops in most sunny gardens and allotments.

Top Ten Varieties for the UK

    1. Solent Wight – a heavy cropper with large cloves
    2. Albigensian Wight – spring or autumn planting good keeper
    3. Purple Wight a ‘hard neck’ best used fresh as it is a poor storer
    4. Long Keeper large white bulbs to harvest in July from autumn planting.
    5. Early Wight another ‘hard neck variety’ with AGM in purple variety

Planting Garlic

  1. Luatrec Wight fat pink cloves with white outer skin and a good keeper.
  2. White Pearl autumn planted will store reasonalble well.
  3. Pink Lady a pink skinned bulbs and gloves that can be eaten raw.
  4. Germidore softneck variety that is well adapted to British conditions. Produces large, white bulbs with a mild but rich flavour.
  5. Chesnok Red a hardneck variety from Georgia with attractive purple striping and a lovely, full-bodied flavour. Lovely choice for baking as it has a lovely creamy texture. Great for garlic bread!

Garlic
Elephant Garlic would be in many best top ten lists but is closely related to the Leek side of the allium family   see Gardeners tips

To buy a selection of Garlic at Thompson & Morgan

Credits
Planting Garlic by Chiot’s Run CC BY-NC 2.0
Garlic by mrwalker CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

‘It’s that time of the year to plant garlic. I’ve read that you should plant it around fall equinox, which I missed by about a month. I received my planting garlic the day before we left on vacation and just planted it on Sunday. I ordered 2 garlic samplers from Gourmet Garlic Gardens again this year. Each year I’ve grown garlic, I’ve tried a few different method for planting. I’m hoping this year I’ll finally be able to grow nice big heads of garlic. Mine usually end up being small, but they’re still quite tasty. I chose a free-draining area of the front garden and amended the soil heavily with compost.

For specific varieties planted and planting directions from another site visit:  chiotsrun.com/2010/10/28/planting-garlic/’

For more information  read Tricks to get great garlic

 

Tips for Dark Winter Gardening

Tips for Dark Winter Gardening

Book Cover

What can gardeners do in the cold wet months of December and January? The soil will probably be cold and wet as so will be the weather particularly if you live in the north of England.
Stay warm and dry and do all the cleaning and maintenance jobs you have avoided. When the growing season starts in earnest you wont have the time.

One tip for indoors is to invest in a ‘blue light’ or natural light bulb. This can con plants into thinking the days are a bit longer and the light levels a bit brighter.

A top ten tips

  1. Curl up with a good internet connection and browse away on the host of gardening web sites including Gardenerstips.
  2. Ask Father Christmas for a gardening book on your favourite subject or by a popular set of authors like Matthew Biggs, John Cushnie, Bob Flowerdew, and Anne Swithinbank.
  3. Plan your garden campaign for the coming seasons. Record what you want to achieve and the actions that will help you achieve it.
  4. Order your seeds and summer bulbs from a quality supplier.
  5. Check your over wintering plants, cuttings and stored vegetables.

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Top 10 Small Gardens

Top 10 Small Gardens

Alpine Trough

You can grow an interesting garden in an old sink, trough or container that you have to hand. In the case of the photograph above all the plants chosen were small compact alpines. They include small varieties of normal garden favourites such as Asters, Pinks (Dianthus), Campanula, Gypsophilia, Primula, Sempervivum and Pelargonium (Geraniums).

Types of Small Garden

1. Container
A collection of plant pots on hard standing can look exceptional. The choice of plants is massive, fruit trees, trailing annuals, bulbs, conifers the list is endless. Hanging baskets also fit in this category of containers and as an idea try a herb garden in a basket near your kitchen door.

2. Window boxes
If you have ever seen Swiss Chalets in summer they will probably have been brimming with red geraniums and brilliant trailing flowers. Free window box plans are available for DIY experts to try and make their own.

3. Bonsai

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Shade and Dry Areas

Shade and Dry Areas

Try the shade test. If you can’t see to read then plant a fountain as no plants are likely to thrive.
If you can only just read then try Ivies, ferns, mosses, box, Ruscus aculeatus an evergreen shrub or craggy moss & lichen covered stones.
Under a deciduous tree spring bulbs, berberis and some clematis may be good doers.
Lightly wooded areas are havens for hostas, hellebores, solomons seal, trillium and choisya amongst others.

Dry Shade is one of the least hospitable places in the garden but some flowering perennials will thrive. A modicum of sun or light will suffice to provide this more interesting top ten.

Top Ten Dry Shade Perennials

Poppy

1. Convallaria majalis or Lily of the Valley will provide scented bell shaped flowers and spread from underground shoots
2. Meconopsis cambrica Welsh Poppy with single yellow or orange flowers has fern like foliage
3. Lamium maculatum or the Spotted Deadnettle is semi-evergreen.
4. Geranium macrorrhhizum or Balkan Cranesbill has magenta flower sprays and covers the ground quite quickly.

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Elephant Garlic 10 Tips

Elephant Garlic 10 Tips

A Mediterranean diet is allegedly good for us so eat more tomatoes and garlic.

Elephant garlic is an allium but not a true garlic. It is technically a stem leek which produces massive bulbs approximately 4 inches in diameter. The cloves are also much larger than conventional garlic with a milder taste making it suitable for a wide choice of culinary uses, especially roasting.

Top 10 Tips

  1. Suitable for Spring or Autumn planting I am starting mine off in February but I could wait as late as May.
  2. Cover the individual cloves with one to one and half inches of soil over the top of the clove.
  3. Give each plant space to grow, 6 inches plus.
  4. Garlic responds to well dug soil with adequate amounts of phosphate and potash.
  5. Sulphate of potash will help protect against rust disease the main problem with garlics.
  6. Never let the plants run dry until a couple of weeks before harvest.
  7. As harvest approaches lift the head with their green leaves.
  8. Hang is a warm dry area with all the leaves attached until there is no moisture in the necks.
  9. Store in a warm, dry place, a cool place will encourage the cloves to sprout.
  10. The curly flower stalks also called scapes should be removed to concentrate growth into the bulb. The flower arrangers may have different ideas.

 

‘Elephant garlic sprouts small bulbils on the cloves or on the leaf bases, usually at least three per head. If these become detached from the parent bulb and left in situ they develop into rounds. If, however, bulbils form at the leaf tips it is not elephant garlic, but Babington’s Leek, which some growers mistakenly offer as elephant. According to the National Vegetable Society
The best crop will be produced on light, friable, well drained soil in full sun.
When planting ordinary garlic plant only the outer cloves from each head. Those cloves, that is, with one rounded and one flat side, the inner cloves, which are square or triangular in section, should be used in the kitchen.’

Roast Garlic

To buy a selection of Garlic at Thompson & Morgan click here.
For more read Tricks to get great garlic

Growing Top Ten Euphorbia

Growing Top Ten Euphorbia

The most popular Euphorbia purchase in December is the poinsettia but many cacti are also Euphorbias.
euphorbia

Euphorbia is one of the most diverse genera in the plant kingdom with over 2100 species. Members of the family and genus are sometimes referred to as Spurges. They range from annual weeds to trees. They all have a latex sap which can be an irritant and a unique flower structure. Many Euphorbias are succulent and the characias species are an architectural perennial with fresh bluish-green foliage.

Top Ten Euphorbias

  1. Euphorbia milii or Crown of Thorns is a succulent houseplant which has spiny stems and comes from Madagascar. Easy to grow in cool, bright conditionsit is propagated from tip cutings.
  2. E. griffithii ‘Fireglow’ one of the few euphorbias with orange-tinted bracts and a red flush to its leaves. ‘Fireglow’ has the Award of Garden Merit (AGM).
  3. Euphorbia pulcherrima is the plant often associated with Christmas the Poinsettia with flame red bracts or cream and pink varieties for indoor growing.

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Primula & Polyanthus Seed Sowing Secrets

Primula & Polyanthus Seed Sowing Secrets

primulas

There should be no great secrets to sowing seeds of one of our favourite genus the Primula. However with in excess of 600 species and 30 different groups or sections you need to be on top of your seed sowing game.

Primula allionii

Secrets of Timing when Sowing Primula

  • Nature sows seeds soon after flowering. If it is good for mother nature it likely to be good for gardeners.
  • On the other hand most seed can remain viable for several years. Keep the seed in packets in a screw-topped jar and store in the cool & dark preferably in a fridge
  • If you sow before the end of May the plants have time to develop before winter.
  • Sowings can be made up to the end of July as long as you keep the seed compost cool and moist.
  • The later you leave it the more difficult it is for small plants unestablished Primulas through a winter season.
  • Primula seeds germinate best when they are fresh and ripe.
  • Alpine Species generally benefit from natural freezing and thawing to get them germinating so it’s important to sow as early as possible.

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Miniature Daffodils and Narcissi Tips

Miniature Daffodils and Narcissi Tips

Good things come in small packages and that applies to Daffodils for house and rockery.
canaliculatus

Miniature daffodils grow from 4 inches to just short of a foot. Varieties Minnow, Toto and Canaliculatus have several flowers on the one stem and are particular favourites of mine. Try growing some in pots in the cold greenhouse as welcome additions to your alpine plants.

Tips on Minature Daffoldils

  • Look in spring for successful varieties that you may want to buy for planting this Autumn.
  • Buy pots in bloom this spring so you know what you are getting. Deadhead before the seedheads start to develop and feed the bulbs with a high phosphate feed.
  • One of the smaller varieties is Bulbocodium Conspicuous, yellow hooped petticoat at 4 inches tall with golden yellow flowers.
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