CONTENTS
EXPERT ADVICE TO HELP YOU GROW GREAT FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
WIN BIG WILD SLEEPOUT KIT WORTH £500 Pg 96
06
54
✪ ON THE COVER
YOU
@GrowWithKG
62 YOUR PLOT
6 ON THE VEG PATCH
KitchenGardenUK KitchenGardenMag /kitchengardenmagazine FOR OUR CONTACT DETAILS TURN TO PAGE 15
Tend to leeks and carrots, prune raspberries and blackcurrants, propagate strawberries, feed tomatoes and make a ‘basil bar’
10 IN THE GREENHOUSE
Harvest grapes and sweetcorn, feed summer crops, sow now for winter harvests, control pests swiftly, try a late sowing of mangetout peas
12 HOT TOPICS
The latest news from the world of kitchen gardening
14 YOUR LETTERS & TIPS
NEVER MISS AN ISSUE...
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ON PAGE 24 HAVING TROUBLE FINDING A COPY OF THIS MAGAZINE? Just Ask your local newsagent to reserve you a copy each month
4 | AUGUST 2016
Learn what other KG readers have been up to and pick up some great first-hand advice
16 QUESTION TIME
Regular Gardeners’ Question Time panellists Bob Flowerdew and Anne Swithinbank answer your fruit and veg growing conundrums
68 48 LAUNCH OF OUR PASSIONATE PLOTTER COMPETITION 2016
Why not enter our best plot and container competition and win some great prizes?
97 NEXT MONTH
Some highlights to be found in your September issue plus details of great free gifts
106 LAST WORD
KG reader, Shona Small from Swansea, marks the death of The Bard by selecting veg that might have been familiar to the nation’s favourite playwright, William Shakespeare www.kitchengarden.co.uk
AUGUST 2016
RECIPES
This month KG chef Anna Pettigrew brings you simple seasonal recipes for fennel, plums and raspberries
Pg 100
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WHAT TO BUY
GET GROWING 20 VEG AT A GLANCE… SPROUTING BROCCOLI
A KG pocket guide to growing this nutritious winter crop
26 NO ROUGH EDGES IN THIS WALLED GARDEN
Sue Stickland travels to Worcester to see a newly restored walled kitchen garden and take a masterclass in tool sharpening and restoration
32 BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO CHARD Keen organic gardener Rob Smith turns the spotlight on the brightest of leafy veg
36 ON THE PLOT WITH THE THREE MUDKETEERS
Tips and gardening gossip from the KG team Plus our fun Spot The Difference competition
38 GROWING GUIDES
A review of the best websites and apps for kitchen gardeners
40 WILD ROCKET ‘WASABI’
Steve Ott reviews this hot new salad leaf
42 KEEPING GARDENING ON THE CAREER MAP
KG editor Steve Ott visits a thriving horticultural college in Hampshire to see how a new generation of gardeners is being trained www.kitchengarden.co.uk
26
54 FRUIT AT A GLANCE… RASPBERRIES
Deputy editor Emma Rawlings reveals the super choice of colourful and tasty raspberries available to gardeners
58 BOOST YOUR ENERGY LEVELS
Feel on top of the world with nutritionist Susie Kearley’s top tips for a healthier lifestyle
62 MAKE A FOOD DEHYDRATOR
Practical gardener Julie Moore brings you a weekend project that could help to increase your stock of store cupboard favourites
68 ROOTS WITH ATTITUDE!
Expert veg grower Ben Vanheems turns up the heat with his advice on growing winter radishes
74 YOUR FREE SEEDS
Get the best from your crop of freebies this month worth £7.88!
76 ORGANIC PEST SOLUTIONS
Green gardener Joyce Russell offers advice on controlling summer pests without using chemicals. Plus our roundup of current products
80 TRIAL RESULTS LEEKED!
Colin Randel brings you the latest news from RHS trials to find the best leek varieties for your garden and offers advice on beating leek rust
52 KG BOOKSHELF
A roundup of the latest and best book releases to reach the KG offices
60 WIN A DIGITAL PASTEURISER WORTH £195 84 TRIED AND TESTED
This month the KG team give their verdict on a range of popular spray guns
88 GARDEN STORE
News of the best new products and services to reach the KG offices this month
90 READER SAVERS
Claim your free blueberry plant plus save on cabbage and cauliflower collections, strawberries and more
92 KG INSTANT SAVERS
Save on a range of great gardening products with our exclusive deals
94 GIVEAWAYS WORTH OVER £1605
This month you could win a VegTrug, a vertical planting system and coffee pods
98 DIARY DATES
Great things to see and do this month, plus giveaways entry form AUGUST 2016 | 5
■ You can still sow plenty of things that will crop through the autumn and winter. Sow directly in rows or start off in pots or trays to plant out later if beds are full (see next page). ■ Plant out young plants sown last month, or move to larger pots until space clears.
INTHE GREENHOUSE ✔ Feed crops that are in full production ✔ Remove plants that are seriously damaged by disease or have finished cropping ✔ Spray overhead and damp down paths on hot days ✔ Harvest while crops are at their best
GROWSOMETHING DIFFERENT
Mangetout peas may not seem very different at all, but sowing them in early August is a bit unusual. If you live in a milder part of the country, you may get good autumn crops from these plants. Further north you may get a few tasty pods if you consider it worth the space. Sow a double row directly in a broad drill. Provide support as plants grow. Throw horticultural fleece over the top on cold nights and keep your fingers crossed. 10 | AUGUST 2016
WITH JOYCE RUSSELL Pictures by Ben Russell
SUMMER SOWINGS FOR WINTER CROPS It’s perfectly possible to keep a greenhouse full of things to eat through autumn, winter and on into spring. It just takes a bit of a reminder now, plus a small bit of work at a time when it may not be at the top of your greenhouse ‘to do’ list. Start some seeds in pots, and keep potting them on as they grow, until there is enough free space in the greenhouse to plant them out. Other seeds do best if they can go straight into the soil at this point. You can sometimes squeeze rows between other plants that are due for removal before too long. Sow turnip ‘Snowball’, winter turnip, beetroot, mooli radish and spinach straight into drills in the ground. Seed goes 15mm (½in) deep in rows 30cm (12in) apart. Sow three or four different varieties of lettuce in pots, to plant out as space clears. If
you pick off individual leaves as needed, rather than lifting whole plants, you can keep harvesting leaves right through the winter months. Sow a range of salad leaves directly in drills in the ground. Mizuna, rocket, frilly mustard greens, corn salad, winter
purslane and mibuna are some favourites of mine: they can crop until April from a late August sowing. Sow Florence fennel, pak choi, kohl rabi, Swiss chard and spring cabbage in pots, or trays, and plant out when 10-15cm (4-6in) tall.
www.kitchengarden.co.uk
SOW:
March-May
HARVEST: August-June
Chard stems come in a variety of bright colours, each with a subtly different flavour
W
CHARD Gardening expert and heritage veg fan Rob Smith turns his attention to a much neglected but very useful vegetable – chard… or is it silver beet?
hat’s in a name? You’ve probably already heard of chard, but have you heard of silver beet, sea kale chard, Swiss chard or perpetual spinach? No? Well, they are actually different names for the same plant. It’s a bit like us here in Britain calling beetroot ‘beetroot’, whereas in the States, they call it ‘garden beet’ or simply ‘beets’. Using the comparison with beetroot is quite apt, as both beetroot and chard are part of the Beta vulgaris family. However, chard doesn’t form a very good root, like beetroot. Chard’s virtues lie in its fantastically versatile stems and leaves. They are grown as far away as South Africa and Egypt yet it is people from around the Mediterranean who use and love chard the most. Funnily, the Swiss have never been great lovers or growers of the vegetable, so I’m not sure where that link came from? Swiss chard, perhaps not! Chard is a biennial, meaning it has a two-year lifespan. It will produce green growth in the first year, then typically flower and set seed in its second. However, most gardeners will only grow chard for one year as an annual crop for salad or greens. There are benefits for over-wintering a chard plant or two. I’ll tell you about these later, so make sure to leave at least one plant in the ground.
Illustrations: Let’s Face It
When climbing beans and runner beans reach the top of the canes, pinch out the tops of the plants – this will encourage the production of more flowers below and we know what flowers mean, don’t we – more beans!
“All for onions and onions for all”
The KG team offer chat, tips and gardening gossip
3 Mudketeers
BOUNTIFUL BLUEBERRIES
ANYONE FOR EGG & CHIPS?
I just had to share this picture with you of my blueberry ‘Bluedrop’ plant. This picture was his taken in early June and by the time you read th I hope to be tucking in to lots of delicious fruit. ‘Bluedrop’ is an unusual variety since it is semi evergreen and only reaches a height of about 60cm (2ft). Although you don’t get the big show of autumn tints from this variety, the young leaves are attractively bordered with red, fading to green as they mature. The teardrop-shaped berries are small but prolific (assuming my flowers all set well) and are formed on long strigs rather than individually as is the case with normal highbush blueberries. Pleased to say that the bees have found my plant and seem to like the red-tinged flowers, so fingers crossed for some lovely sweet berries to top my breakfast cereal. I’ll let you know how they taste when the time comes! Available exclusively from www. lubera.co.uk for £17.40 plus p&p.
After the excitement generated by Thompson & Morgan’s ‘Tomtato’, a grafted plant with tomato above and potatoes below, the d Mudketeers are trialling the new enticingly named ‘Egg and Chips’. This is a graft of aubergine and potato and here is one of them in the biggest pot I could find, not quite the 40 litres of compost recommended. Potato shoots started to emerge quite early, so back in June, in line with T & M’s instructions, I pinched them off. All going well now, apart from the ants’ nest I found in the initial pot. Oh dear, ants in me plants!
36 | AUGUST 2016
www.kitchengarden.co.uk
GET GROWING
Meet the plotters and be a plotter! Around the country the veg growing community is watching as carefully tended plots fill with sumptuous crops. Here we meet one of our readers on her plot last season and invite you to enter our 2016 Passionate Plotter competition
JACQUI FRANCIS, NEAR NORWICH
PRIZES WORTH £2541
Jacqui’s husband Pat helps with any heavy work in the garden and has also built raised beds and veg cages. The cages help keep the wood pigeons and white butterflies at bay. It also means Ja can let her three bantams range freely w helping themselves to the produce. Do you have an allotment or garden veg patch? I do not have an allotment but I am very lucky to have a good-sized garden, although it is an unusual shape. A previous owner bought half of next door’s garden. I have six 2.4m x 1.2m raised beds and a 3.5m x 1.2m strawberry patch. I have a narrow bed either side of the gate that leads to my veg garden with ‘Autumn Bliss’ raspberries one side and two espalier apple trees the other. I have a 6ft x 6ft greenhouse where I grow tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, peppers, chillies and basil. How long have you been growing veg? I have grown tomatoes and salad for many years but I began growing veg seriously when I had given up work due to contracting ME after a virus which left me virtually bedridden in January 2008. After a very difficult year I slowly recovered enough to take some therapy which helped immensely and then discovered the therapeutic and addictive joy of growing fruit and vegetables. What variety of veg can you recommend to other gardeners? Climbing French bean ‘Cobra’ takes some beating for ease and sheer volume of produce. Do you grow veg in containers? I grow lots of things in containers including potatoes, peppers and peas and salad. They are grown in either growing bag compost or in a mixture of my own garden compost, leaf mould and bought compost. This year I tried concentrated sheep wool and bracken compost from Dalesfoot compost which gave very good results when I mixed it with some garden compost and as the compost is so rich it did not need extra feeding. 48 | AUGUST 2016
I use a variety of containers including old florist buckets, potato sacks, glazed pots and conical hanging baskets. How do you grow one particular named crop from sowing to harvest? I have always had great success with parsnips in my light East Anglian soil. As parsnip seed can be difficult to germinate I start it off on damp kitchen paper and then transplant the seedlings into toilet roll tubes with a mix of compost and vermiculite and put two seedlings per tube. When the seedlings are about 2cm tall they are planted out 6-8in apart with just a small collar of tube above the soil. When they are growing well I thin them to one seedling per tube. They are only watered at planting time and for the first few weeks as they get established, after this they are left to their own devices. The beds are covered with a cage of Enviromesh which is not lifted until harvesting. I usually sow them around late February to early March (depending on the weather) in an unheated greenhouse. Although I have had success with many varieties I always seem to go back to ‘Tender and True’. They are lifted as needed and the first ones usually are ready from September.
Why are you passionate about your plot? My plot is my own special sanctuary where I can forget the rest of the world and produce beautiful healthy food that is good for the mind, body and soul. No matter what the time of year there is always something available to make a wholesome and tasty meal with. I have a sense of well-being and satisfaction from being able to do this and, as I also love cooking, my freezer and cupboards are full of produce and jams, chutneys, pickles etc.
www.kitchengarden.co.uk
GET GROWING
BOOST YOUR ENERGY LEVELS F
Fatigue affects us all from time to time, with restless nights and drowsy mornings – it’s remarkable that some of us make it into the garden at all! But, says Susie Kearley, there are things you can do to increase your energy levels, and feel much more alive! 58 | AUGUST 2016
eeling good starts with what you eat. The food we consume affects our energy levels in many different ways. When you eat, your digestive system works hard to break food down, turning carbohydrates into blood glucose, which is taken up by the brain and pushed into the cells by insulin, providing energy. However, the digestive process also releases a variety of hormones that have the potential to make us tired. Carbohydrate consumption triggers the release of serotonin into the brain, which promotes feelings of calmness, relaxation, and sleepiness. Not so bad, as long as the heavy gardening can wait! Protein takes a lot of energy to digest, and protein-rich foods are a source of tryptophan, a precursor for serotonin production too. So consuming meat, eggs, cheese, or other highprotein foods, may actually increase your fatigue too, rather than eliminate it.
So what you should you eat for more energy? The key is to choose complex carbohydrates, which release energy slowly. With simple carbohydrates such as white flour products, sugary drinks and other sweet foods, you risk experiencing a short burst of energy, followed by a slump. The foods you grow on your plot are complex carbohydrates. Salads, vegetables and fresh fruit are the best foods in the world, providing sustained energy, good health and vitality. Add whole grains, beans or pulses, and healthy fats, found in nuts and seeds, for a balanced diet, and you should feel energised, and reasonably alert throughout the day, as long as you’re sleeping well too. Drink plenty of water, as dehydration can zap your energy levels. Stimulants, like caffeine and sugar, might give you a short lift, but they’re not effective for a longer-term energy boost. Small, frequent meals will also help to level out your blood sugar levels, providing sustained energy. www.kitchengarden.co.uk
‘Black Spanish’, a fist-sized radish, black on the outside but white within
ROOTS ATTITUDE! Winter varieties of radish pack a formidable punch. They’re the feisty cousins of their summer counterparts, promising bigger, bolder, crunchier roots! Ben Vanheems shares some tips on growing them
Picture: D T Brown
Radish ‘Hilds blauer Herbst und Winter’
68 | AUGUST 2016
T
he list of vegetables that can be sown come late summer may be considerably shorter than in spring, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some crackers to get excited about! Chief among them is the winter radish – varieties that can be sown from July to early September to give a crop in autumn and on into winter. Radishes… in winter? Well, yes actually! And unlike the familiar red or white-tipped roots of summer varieties, these chunky roots lend themselves to more than just salads. Chunky, definitely crunchy and often sporting a pleasingly pungent back-kick, they are as delicious grated or sliced into salads as they are roasted or grilled with other root vegetables. Winter radishes are a curious and somewhat mismatched family. At one end of the scale is the “All winter or mooli radish, with radishes share daikon its sleek white roots and one thing in relatively mild flavour. Then at the other end of the common: plenty spectrum are the likes of of character, lots ‘Black Spanish’, a fist-sized of flavour and spectacle that’s black on the outside but white on a plethora of the inside and which, left to culinary its own devices, will mature to uses.” ‘quick-pass-the-water’ heat levels! www.kitchengarden.co.uk
GET GROWING
ORGANIC PEST SOLUTIONS There are many ways to cope with pest problems in the garden and many products available that will blast those pests into oblivion. Before you reach for one however, organic gardener Joyce Russell has some common-sense advice to help you keep pests in check
S Use a brush for flicking an unfiltered mix of compost tea over plants
76 | AUGUST 2016
ome techniques are more harmful than others to the general insect population, and insecticides are purchased at such a massive rate that some must eventually find their way into watercourses and the wider environment. An obvious response might be to make your own mix from ‘natural’ ingredients. Natural is a loose term and it is often taken to mean ‘safe’. Many naturally occurring or plant-based chemicals are very unsafe and many perfectly ordinary things like salt, which are safe for
human consumption in small quantities, can be harmful to both humans and the environment if consumed in large doses or used at high concentration as a pest control or weedkiller. For this reason you should only use pest killers that have been approved after extensive trials and these are available from your local garden centre and via some mail order suppliers. Even here, however, you should only use a pesticide if all else fails. It is far better to avoid the problem altogether, or to deal with it promptly before it gets out of hand. www.kitchengarden.co.uk
WHAT TO BUY | SPRAY GUNS
PRODUCT REVIEWS
SPRAYGUNS
&
D
GITA
Though essential, watering can be a laborious job so why not make life easier by using the best equipment? This month then it was water, water everywhere as we tried out a range of spray guns
RE MO IN
ULTRA TWIST SPRAY GUN This Hozelock Ultra Twist is a unique 2-in-1 spray gun. A simple twist converts it into a lawn sprinkler with 69m² area coverage. It also comes with a choice of four spray patterns, a lockable trigger and a separate flow control. HOZELOCK www.hozelock.com PRODUCT CODE: 2695 PRICE GUIDE: SRP £19.99 84 | AUGUST 2016
The versatility of this spray gun is its strongest feature as you can also use it as a sprinkler, perfect during dry spells for watering your veg. The moveable trigger can be locked and the rate of flow can be controlled. The four spray patterns are probably sufficient for most needs.
★★★★★ www.kitchengarden.co.uk