Garden News October 3

AUTUMN SPECIAL!

October 3, 2015

FREE SEEDS £2.19!

B rit a in'sed st m o st t ru in vo ice g a rd e n in g

ht ✔ Plant a shrub for brig berries and leaves o ✔ Brighten up your pati with an autumn pot! ✔ Grow a smoke bush for bonfire leaf colours

Worth

FLOWERS

that last forever!

Bring the outside in with seedheads & dried blooms

START OFF BROAD BEANS Get a headstart on next year's crop

Light up dull days with lateflowering cacti!

Give your veg patch an update!

Replace old varieties with the latest breeding

Celebrate the

season!

Carol Klein picks her autumn favourites & they might surprise you!

10

reasons we n love autum mper

● Make free plants ● Pick bu r harvests ● Enjoy masses of colou

AboutNOW

Gigantomo fails to weigh in Adverse weather the toughest challenge for competitors Words Ian Hodgson

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Judges reveal the results

Joe and his pride and joy – his whopping giant tomato

How Joe Atherton grew his Gigantomo Part-time nurseryman Joe, 60, grew his plants in a polytunnel.

Sowing the seed in April, he kept the plants well-watered through the growing season, using

Van Meuwen

“I ate £1,000 tomato!”

O ne person a little glum at the result was PR officer Kris Collins, from the competition’s sponsor Van Meuwen.

Trialling the new variety at home, the best of his two biggest fruit clocked an impressive 1.95kg (4lb 3oz), heavier than Joe Atherton’s eventual winner! As he was ‘expecting to see tomatoes the size of footballs’, Kris thought his toms wouldn’t ever be contenders, so made a Bolognese with one and a

4 Garden News / October 3 2015

Photos: Simon Hipperson

inner of the inaugural Gigantomo tomato competition was Joe Atherton of Mansfield, who scooped the £1,000 prize with a tomato of 1.755kg (3lb 8oz). The only trouble was that Joe’s specimen, which was genetically tested to prevent cheating, was trounced troun by a fruit in the standard heaviest tomato class, which weighed in at 2.361kg (5lb 3.3oz), won by John Dale from York, who pocketed just £35 in prize money for his efforts. The weight dropped far short of the current world record standing at 3.51kg (7lb 12oz).

“Sadly, weather conditions prevented growers from meeting the true potential of this fantastic giant tomato,” said Van Meuwen’s general manager Chris Wright. “‘Gigantomo’ has the potential to create a world record breaker and we hope to see growers trying again next year.”

salad with the other. “When we heard the winning weight, I went pale – it dawned on me that I’d treated my family to the most expensive pasta dish on the planet!” said Kris. “Had I kept the fruit I could have treated them to a holiday instead of a simple meal!”

A grumpy Kris Collins

normal tomato feed. He thinned to just one tomato on each of his 22 plants, all formed from the ‘mega-bloom’, the largest flower produced on each truss.

“The largest was 3lb bigger than any of the others,” said Joe. “I left it on the plant as long as I could, cutting it at 1.30am in the morning before the show, so it wouldn’t get damaged.”

He himself nearly didn’t make it to Harrogate this year, having suffered two heart attacks, the

Joe cheerfully receives his prize last in May. Thankfully, Joe’s wife Carmel gamely stepped in n to keep things going while he was in hospital.

Said Joe, holder of three longest vegetable records: “You must have a dedicated wife, and of course a little bit of luck in order to win!”

Mammoth tomatoes get their weigh in

5 of the best varieties to try

Plant

Bluebell Arboretum and Nursery

OF THE WEEK ‘Young Lady’ Showy flowers and vibrant colour on a compact shrub ideal for a small garden.

Height: up to 90cm (3ft).

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‘Golden Spirit’ (Ancot) Grow this neat, lime-yellow cotinus in sun for the brightest foliage.

Height: up to 2m (6½ft).

‘Grace’

Cotinus!

Wonderful colour and a haze of flowers make smoke bushes must-have autumn shrubs

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flame reds or rich buttery yellows and brilliant orange, before they drop, leaving a handsome tracery of branches in their wake.

All these hardy, deciduous shrubs are easy to grow, and they combine or contrast with other plants in the border. Favourites such as Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’, ‘Grace’ and ‘Flame’ will grow into large shrubs over time but are easy to keep manageable.

Cotinus obovatus also has brilliant autumn colour – it is larger than C. coggygria, and if left un-pruned, will grow slowly to 9m (30ft).

Keep them happy Cotinus are slow-growing, unfussy plants, they’ll thrive on most soils but, for the best autumn colour, don’t plant into soil that is too rich or heavy – just give them a sunny spot on well-drained soil.

Cotinus don’t need regular pruning, but if you have to cut out dead or damaged branches, do it in spring. Spring is also the best time to cut back any overlarge shrubs to keep them a manageable size. ● Bluebell Arboretum & Nursery, tel: 01530 413700; www.bluebellnursery.com

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‘Royal Purple’ Deep wine-purple foliage gives way to brilliant red that sets borders ablaze.

Height: up to 4m (13ft).

Garden World Images

nown as smoke bushes because of the hazy plumes of tiny fawn, pink or green-tinted flowers that appear in summer, Cotinus coggygria makes a year-round impact on the garden.

Their oval leaves emerge every spring, in shades of green, crimson-red or deep magentapurple, depending on variety.

‘Golden Spirit’ is a luminous green-gold. ‘Velvet Cloak’ is one of the darkest, with deep purple-black leaves. As autumn arrives, the summer foliage starts to turn colour, lighting up the garden spectacularly in

Dark green leaves turn fiery in autumn. ‘Flame’ is similar, both have pink flowers.

Height: up to 4m (13ft).

‘Velvet Cloak’ Pale flowers contrast with dark inky-purple summer leaves that turn red in autumn.

Height: up to 2m (6½ft).

October 3 2015 / Garden News 5

MARTIN FISH

The undercover

GARDENER Former head gardener, TV and radio broadcaster and RHS judge

Time to clear out the tomatoes

Jo b s to do now

And bring in tender perennials that need to be under cover soon

Photos: Martin Fish

Melon’s ready to harvest The ‘Emire’ melon that’s growing in the greenhouse has produced a couple of fruits and they are now fully ripe and ready to pick, judging by their wonderful aroma.

I cut down the stems and chop them into sections

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omato plants growing in my greenhouse have just about finished for the season, so it’s time to clear them out now and start the autumn tidy up.

For me it’s been a strange growing season.

The plants in the greenhouse certainly haven’t grown as well as normal and the quality of the fruits hasn’t been as good.

My polytunnel plants have grown much better, but they’re slower ripening and still have lots of green fruits on them, so fingers crossed for an Indian summer in October!

The other reason for wanting to clear out the old tomato plants is to make room for tender perennials such as salvia, agapanthus, clivia and pelargoniums that are in pots on the patio at the moment, but need to be brought under cover in a few weeks’ time.

The old tomato stems are cut down from the canes and chopped into sections before putting them in the green waste bin. I do

sometimes compost them, but this year I’ve had more fungal problems on the leaves and fruits, so the old plants are being disposed of elsewhere to prevent spreading diseases.

All the debris is cleared up and the old compost in the pots is taken outside where I might use it to mulch ornamental plants in borders. Once everything is cleared, the soil can be forked over and raked level.

The sides of the greenhouse are then washed down with a soapy solution to which I add some disinfectant or bleach, taking care not to splash it on any nearby plants. I then cover the soil with landscape fabric and it is ready for when I want to start bringing pots of tender plants under cover for the winter.

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Prick out lettuce seedlings I’m pricking out late-sown le uce seedlings into cell trays. When grown on, they will be planted in the greenhouse or polytunnel for late autumn salads.

Train cucumber shoots

g in r Ca ia : ek cen e w rra t xGarden saNews 29 e October 3 2015 / r N fo

My cucumbers have suddenly made new long shoots. I’ve trained them along a horizontal wire so the fruits can hang down.

What to do this week

ON YOUR FRUIT & VEG PLOT

Sow broad beans now They'll wait out the winter, then give you a late spring treat, says Clare

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suitable varieties. ‘Witkiem Manita’ and ‘De Monica’ are early maturing and heavy cropping.

All are available from Thompson & Morgan (tel: 0844 573 1818), Suttons (tel: 0844 326 2200) or Johnsons Seeds (tel: 0333 321 3103).

Wet weather and soggy soil can cause the young plants to rot, so it might not be a crop to bother with if you have very heavy soil, unless you have well-drained raised beds.

Although these are tough plants, have some fleece at the ready to drape over the young plants when very cold weather is forecast.

Dig over the site and improve it

St e p by st e p

with manure or garden compost a couple of weeks before you sow.

Sow in single rows 45cm (18in) apart, 5cm (2in) deep with a space of 15-19cm (6-9in) between each seed. Sow a few extra at the end of

Sowing broad bean seeds

Set out a string line and draw a drill 5cm (2in) deep with a hoe. Straight lines help keep stems neat and uncrowded.

2

Sow each broad bean 15-19cm (6-7½in) apart, with one or two extra at each end.

These extras will fill any gaps.

Harvest runner beans

3

Cover the drill back over with soil and water thoroughly, se ing your plants up widely. Be careful not to over water.

Stake sprouts Now your Brussels sprouts are shooting up and on their way to being ready to harvest, it’s a good time to support the heavily laden stems.

Mound soil around the base of the stems to stop them bending over. Also you can use stakes to hold them up – place canes or other wooden stakes around the outside of your sprout stems. Tie string around them, enclosing the stems to keep them upright.

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Shu erstock

Now that temperatures have dropped, any more flowers that form on your runners are unlikely to develop into beans so it’s time to pick the last of the crop and clear the plants.

Cut them at the base and unravel them from the canes, storing those for next year. You can leave the roots in the ground to slowly rot down over winter. Because they’re legumes, their nitrogen-fixing nodules will release nitrogen for whichever crop goes there next season.

30 Garden News / October 3 2015

each row to fill any gaps if there are casualties over winter. After the seedlings appear, keep weeding around them.

Mice can be a problem, so set up some baited traps.

Photos: Ma hew Roberts

1

Ma hew Roberts

ucculent, creamy broad beans are a treat in late spring! They're one of the first harvests of the growing season as long as you sow the seeds in autumn. On free-draining soils in a sheltered site, sow them directly in the ground from now until November. Seeds take about two weeks to germinate, then they will wait out the winter before bursting into growth and flower as the weather warms up in spring.

Make sure you choose a winter hardy variety for autumn sowing – ‘Aquadulce Claudia’, ‘Masterpiece Green Longpod’, ‘Medes’, ‘The Sutton’ and ‘Scorpio’ are all