What’s On!

A list of gardening related events for the coming week, compiled by The SUN gardening team.

To submit a gardening event, please see below the last event for this week.

Week 14

Wednesday April 1st

Trerice, Kestle Mill, nr Newquay, Cornwall TR8 4PG

2.00pm – 3.30pm

Guided tours of National Trust gardens with Head Gardener

Cost

For booking & details call 01637 875404

Friday April 3rd – Monday April 27th

Marle Place Gardens & Gallery, Tonbridge, Kent, TN12 7HS

10.00am – 5.00pm.

Wild at Art Group Exhibition

Cost £5.00 (4-12 £1.00)

For more details call 01892 722304

Saturday April 4th – Sunday April 5th

Boconnoc, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0RG

10.00am – 5.00pm

Cornwall Spring Flower Show

Cost £6.00 (under 16’s free)

For more details call 01208 872507

Sunday April 5th

Bowburn Community Centre, Durham, County Durham, DH6 5AT

11.00am-4.00pm

21st Anniversary Show of the North East of England Orchid Society

Cost £2.00

For more details call 01914 879515

Monday April 13th

The Dorothy Clive Garden, Willoughbridge, Market Drayton, Shropshire, TF9 4EU

10.00 a.m.

Plant Hunters’ Fair

Cost £2.50 (children free) to Garden and Fair, Free Parking.

For more details call 01270 811443

To submit a gardening event, send details of time, place, duration and cost (if any). Also a contact number, to www.thesun.co.uk/gardening

Or contact us by logging on to www.thegardeningchannel.net where you can also see our gardening video clips.

Food for thought

We are fast approaching the time of year when most of us will eat and drink too much on at least one occasion over the season of goodwill. This is nothing new and comes as no great surprise but what fascinates me is the amount written about magic cures for hangovers, advice on the “right” foods to eat, how to start/maintain a healthy diet and how to reduce the effects of over indulgence at Christmas.

We have become obsessed with food and for all of the wrong reasons. Very few people in this country go hungry these days and hardly anyone starves. We probably have the opportunity to eat more food than at any other time in history and enjoy a much more varied diet than many other nations, so why the fascination with food?

Researchers seem to be undertaking a constant search for ‘Super foods’ that will provide the elixir of life, with so numerous foods now rated on their anti-oxidants, vitamin content, fibre content….the list goes on. Just this week I was sent a communication telling me that eating just one 70g bar of a certain brand of chocolate will provide me with the same amount of antioxidants as a whole 7lb of Brussels sprouts! This interested me on two counts: one, there is no mention the particular ingredients in either the chocolate (which I like) or the sprouts (which I also like, but not enough to eat 7 lbs in one go); and two, the mixture of metric and imperial measurements. I’m not really bothered if we go metric or stay Imperial, but I am getting fed up with having to convert from one to the other and back again. We have been messing about with this since the 1970’s.

Super foods
At the moment, Blueberries are very fashionable as they have been found to contain a range of micronutrients, anthocyanins, other antioxidant pigments and various phytochemicals, as well as (possibly) helping alleviate some of the effects of ageing. But then there are Goji berries. Originating from China and Tibet, these little red berries are nutritionally rich, containing beta-carotene, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and amino acids. Apparently they are good for the liver, aid digestion and circulation, improve eyesight and boost the immune system. They are also nicknamed “happy berries” because of the sense of well-being they are said to induce. The trouble is, they taste awful.
Personally, I think “all things in moderation” works – it might not be trendy or “super”, but it is practical. I also think we gardeners have had it right all along. Growing your own fruit and veg is part of a healthy life style, because it makes you get outside for fresh air and exercise as well as providing fresh food that is chock-full of nutrients rather than being cold-stored and shipped half way across the globe. If I grow a mixture of these new fruits with my existing black currants, red currants and apples, it’s because I like the flavour!
See you next time.

Summer at Last

Cercidophyllum in Autumn

This last week has felt more like summer than the summer did. What a shame it can’t last, but we’ve already been warned that high winds are on the way.

 

Most climbing plants are starting to look a bit shaggy at this time of year and, as this makes them vulnerable to windy weather, this is the ideal time to give them a trim and tidy up. Tie in any loose shoots that might flap about in the wind and damage themselves or any surrounding branches and stems.

 

Perhaps the biggest problem is likely to be the loss of fruit from apple trees, which are still laden with apples. If I have any doubts, I remove the fruit and sort through them before storing them. Any damaged fruits can be used immediately or cooked and frozen. The biggest risk is fruit being blown from the tree and getting bruised as it falls, because bruised fruit has a very short storage life. It rots quickly and infects any fruit it comes into contact with, so I would rather opt for a pre-emptive harvest than wait and lose lots of my lovely crop.

 

The good thing is that this wind is due before autumn has really set in. Once the leaves on the trees and shrubs have started to change colour, they will blow away very easily, but they haven’t yet – so we could get some good autumn colour this year. The ideal conditions for good colour include damp weather, calm days and no frosts, so if we get all of these the vivid leaf colours will last much longer.

My particular favourites include;

-          Japanese maples, for their reds and oranges,

-          North American maples, with brilliant oranges and yellow,

-          North America oaks, which hold their red and orange leaves for a long time, with young trees often holding their leaves until Christmas, and

-          the Katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum), because not only does it have brilliant autumn colour, but as the leaves change they give off the smell of cooked sugar (which is why it’s also called the ‘Candyfloss Tree’. Mmmm ….. and you don’t put on weight while you are sniffing it. 

 

As the days get shorter and plant growth slows down, many perennial plants are already preparing for next year. Almost all of the food they manufacture in these warm sunny days is going to be stored in readiness for a quick start next spring.

I am taking advantage of this by treating perennial weeds (like bindweed, couch grass and ground elder) with a Glyphosate-based weedkiller. They will take in the chemical and appear untreated as they die down for the winter, but it will carry on working away before they go dormant, severely weakening them. Next spring should bring pale, weak shoots that have been partially poisoned. I will spray them again when they are about 15 cms (6 ins) high, and this second application should finish them off. 

See you next week.

Happy gardening!

Change with the weather

Change with the weather

At last some sunshine! It seems that all we have had is rain since the Chelsea Flower Show ended. Although we had a relatively dry spring, the weather seems determined to catch-up and provide a month’s rain in just a few days, which presents another set of problems for gardeners. We had just managed to get our herbaceous perennials staked before all the torrential rain arrived, so the damage has not been too bad, but travelling around I have spotted some very flat and battered perennials, with Paeonies suffering the most (especially those where the flowers had opened and filled up with rain water).

 

Some of the main pest problems we are seeing at the moment are slugs munching away at everything they can slither onto (which is very easy at the moment due to the very wet soil) and slug eggs hatching like mad in these warm damp conditions, so get some slug pellets down or use one of the organic slug killers, like Just Slug Killer (the nematodes work very well now the soil is warmer).

The other major problem we have had this week is ants. They seem to be more active than they were at this time last year, but then the soil is warmer due to the drier spring. If you spot ants running up and down the stems of your plants, take a close look at the new leaves and young shoot tips and you will almost certainly find greenfly feeding there. If you spray them now, it stops the greenfly populations building up to epidemic proportions.

 

The conditions are perfect for really good growth on most of your plants, with all the warmth and humidity, but remember that these are perfect conditions for potato blight to start. Rather than wait until you see the first symptoms, you can spray with a suitable fungicide like Dithane 945, this fungicides (like the few others still available) work better when they are protecting plants from disease, rather than trying to eradicate it after it strikes.

Our first strawberries are just starting to turn red – the first few have been picked and there are more on the way. With all the rain, we’ve been picking them when they are pink and letting them ripen on a windowsill. If they are left to get wet, they can get botrytis and the fungal mould will cover them within 24 hours.