10 PLANT HERB COLLECTION WWW.KITCHENGARDEN.CO.UK | MARCH 2017
DOWN-TO-EARTH ADVICE FOR GROWING FRUIT & VEG
MUST-HAVE HERBS FOR COOKS
Grow asparagus and save £££ Strawberry secrets revealed 7-page tomato grower's special
discover lazybeds
The easy way to grow vegetables
SEED SOWING PROBLEM SOLVER Are your allotments in danger?
gonutsin thegarden
...and make your own peanut butter
PLANNING LAW CHANGES PUT PLOTS AT RISK
DELICIOUS SEASONAL RECIPES RAKES ON TEST TAKING CARE OF YOUR SOIL
CONTENTS
EXPERT ADVICE TO HELP YOU GROW GREAT FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
28
6 ✪ ON THE COVER
YOU
@GrowWithKG
YOUR PLOT
6 ON THE VEG PATCH
KitchenGardenUK KitchenGardenMag /kitchengardenmagazine FOR OUR CONTACT DETAILS TURN TO PAGE 15
Plant and sow broad beans, feed spring cabbages, prepare soil and cover with cloches, spread mulches and finish planting fruit trees
10 IN THE GREENHOUSE Grow blueberries, prick out tomatoes, sow courgettes, watch for slugs and snails, grow companion plants, ventilate the greenhouse
12 WHAT’S NEW? The latest news, comment and advice from the world of kitchen gardening
14 YOUR LETTERS AND TIPS Learn what other KG readers have been up to and pick up some great first-hand advice
20 QUESTION TIME
NEVER MISS AN ISSUE...
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4 | MARCH 2017
Regular Gardeners’ Question Time panellists Bob Flowerdew and Anne Swithinbank answer your fruit and veg growing conundrums
24 BRITAIN’S MOST PASSIONATE PLOTTERS Meet more of the outstanding entrants in our annual competition to find Britain’s keenest fruit and veg gardeners
HAVING TROUBLE FINDING A COPY OF THIS MAGAZINE?
60 GROWING ONLINE
Just Ask your local newsagent to reserve you a copy each month
Our roundup of the best from the online gardening community
54 104 DIARY DATES Plus giveaway entry coupon and details of seed and young plant suppliers
107 NEXT MONTH Some of the highlights to be found in your April issue plus news of great free gifts
114 LAST WORD WITH THE KG FORUM We dip into the wealth of knowledge to be found on the KG forum.
36
MARCH 2017
108 RECIPES
Scan this, and we’ll tell you!
✪ More great recipes from our resident chef Anna Pettigrew to help you make the most of your seasonal veg Pg 108
49 GET GROWING
24 54 FOOD FOR BODY AND SOUL
16 ON THE PLOT WITH THE THREE MUDKETEERS
Joanne Maxwell, a bereavement counsellor at Springhill Hospice in Rochdale, explains why the beautiful kitchen garden is so important to the well-being of clients and their families
Find out what the KG team are up to in the KG veg garden this month
62 PLOT TIPS
28 A TASTE OF SUNSHINE WITH HERITAGE TOMATOES ✪
Ideas and growing advice for your kitchen garden from deputy editor Emma Rawlings
Heritage veg enthusiast Rob Smith selects his favourite tomatoes for flavour
65 GET OFF TO A GOOD START WITH SOWING ✪
32 TROUBLE-FREE TOMS ✪
Do your seed-sowing efforts often seem to end in disappointment? Then read Sue Stickland’s down-to-earth advice
Gardening expert Ben Vanheems explains how to get the best from your crop this season
36 AT-A-GLANCE GUIDE TO ASPARAGUS ✪ KG’s Tony Flanagan with his top tips on growing your own spears
41 MAKE A LAZY BED ✪ Fruit and veg growing expert Joyce Russell reveals an easy way to make raised beds
45 START WITH THE SOIL
70 ETHNIC EDIBLES NEW ✪ Gardening consultant Sally Cunningham is a keen grower of exotic crops. This month she explains how to grow your own peanuts
73 HERB UP YOUR KITCHEN ✪ Keen cook Gaby Bartai selects her top 20 herbs for the kitchen
78 CROPS TO SAVE YOU CASH
Organic gardening expert Michael Littlewood explains how to care for your soil the natural way
KG regular Julie Moore highlights the crops that can save you the most cash, while still delivering on taste
49 SWEET SUCCESS ✪
83 THE GREAT BRITISH SELL OFF ✪
KG editor Steve Ott takes a close look at strawberries and discovers some things that may surprise you about our most popular summer fruit
Last year Gaby Bartai visited a group of keen allotment holders who were in a planning battle with their local authority. Their story is a wake-up call to all of us
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73 WHAT TO BUY 89 BOOKSHELF Our roundup of the latest books to have reached the KG office
92 TRIED AND TESTED ✪ The KG team get out on the plot to prepare for sowing with a range of popular rakes. Which rake will be rated the best?
96 READER OFFERS ✪ Claim your free herb plant collection worth £15.90 plus save on strawberries, herbs for tisanes, lavender and hanging baskets
98 GARDEN STORE Our roundup of the best new products and services for kitchen gardeners
100 GIVEAWAYS WORTH OVER £2367 This month you could win great prizes including natural fertilisers, handy storage solutions or crop protection products
102 READER SAVERS ✪ This month there’s the chance to save 10% on some great garden essentials, including pop-up protection cages and cloches for your plants and variable-temperature electric propagators MARCH 2017 | 5
Meet
plotters
We’re all looking forward to a bumper year on our plots – here are some passionate plotters on theirs
ANNIE SUTCLIFFE FR ROM STEVENAGE, HERTS Do you tend your plot on your own? I tend my plot on my own. My husband, Andrew, built me some raised beds in the garden, and is an excellent cook which comess in handy at harvest time!
Do you h have an allotment or veg plot iin your garden? I ha ave a five-rod allotment, which is a 10-minute walk from w my house. There is also the m ‘engine room’ at home where I have my greenhouse and cold frames and a couple of rraised beds. This is where I sstart off most of my crops, where I grow salad crops, and cultiv vate tomatoes, peppers, melons ((and the odd carnivorous plant to cont control insects) under glass. How long have you been growing veg? I have been growing veg for about 15 years. I became addicted to gardening when I bought my first house, and then I was lucky enough to get an allotment before it became fashionable. At the time I think I was the only woman (and possibly the only person under 40) on my site.
Do you grow any veg in containers? I grow most of my leafy salad crops and annual herbs in containers as I find that this enables me to control the conditions more easily. I can move them into the shade, if necessary, to provide cooler germination conditions, direct watering to where it’s needed, and raise them up to keep them away from marauding slugs and snails. I grow salads outside in long, shallow containers (they don’t generally need a particularly deep root run) in a mixture of home-made and peat-free compost. Basil and coriander are grown in deeper terracotta pots in the greenhouse. I don’t generally feed the plants as they are a fairly short-term crop. I’m generally successful, although several sets of seedlings succumbed to this year’s bumper slug population, despite being kept off the ground and having slug pubs nearby.
What variety of vegetable can you recommend? I enjoy growing potato ‘Pink Fir Apple’. They don’t need a lot of earthing up and seem remarkably trouble-free and blight resistant for such an old variety. Although their knobbly shape can make preparation time-consuming, the flavour more than makes up for it. I like to grow veg that is not available (or is expensive) in the shops, or that tastes distinctively home-grown, and ‘Pink Fir Apple’ fulfils both criteria. 24 | MARCH 2017
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PASSIONATE PLOTTERS
How do you grow one particular named crop from sowing to harvest? My pride and joy every year is my tomato crop. I grow three or four varieties every year: a beefsteak (usually ‘Brandywine’, although last year I experimented with ‘Orange Wellington’); a plum (‘Roma’); and a cherry type (current favourite is ‘Ildi’); plus whatever KG has sent me as a subscription gift! My first tip is not to start too early. I’m always keen to start sowing come January, but I’ve learned the hard way that sowing this early results in stretched and anaemic seedlings (I have to grow them on a windowsill as the greenhouse is unheated). So I wait until early March, sow in peat-free compost in individual cells in a covered propagator. Once they are growing strongly I prick them out into small pots. These small plants can be pretty tough and I don’t think it does them any good to be mollycoddled too much, so I relocate them to the greenhouse as soon as possible with some fleece on standby in case the temperature drops suddenly. Once the plants reach about 6-8 inches I plant out the best one or two of each type into cultivation rings in the greenhouse bed, with canes to support. I improve the soil each year by adding home-made compost and worm compost. Some of the remaining plants go into pots both inside and outside the greenhouse, and the rest are planted out at the allotment to take their chances with blight! All are fed during the growing season with home-made comfrey feed and wormery liquid. Side shoots are removed (and the large ones potted up to create additional plants) and the tops pinched out to encourage ripening when sufficient trusses have set.
The beefsteaks are delicious fried, on toast, with a dash of balsamic vinegar and a handful of basil; and the cherry types are great for salads. My top tip for using up a large mixed crop is to roast them with olive oil, garlic, chilli (if liked) and seasoning, pass through a sieve and then freeze – perfect for soups and sauces right through to the next growing season. Why are you passionate about your plot? I love seeing the cycle of the year from the first seedlings emerging to the chaotic bounty of autumn. I enjoy being outdoors, especially in the spring, and a visit from a robin can brighten the whole day. I garden organically, and I try to not only have a productive plot but also provide a place where nature can thrive. I have a little ‘pond’ (just a plastic box but the frogs love it); a bird feeder; bee and hedgehog houses; I grow green manures (the bees love phacelia) and other plants for pollinators, as well as comfrey for homemade fertiliser (I use an old mini-wormery to extract the ‘juice’ and also use wilted leaves around leeks, tomatoes and potatoes). I’m also a bit of a compost nerd: I have seven compost bins altogether, plus a wormery, and I can honestly say that emptying them is one of my favourite gardening jobs. I just love the fact that I can turn kitchen and garden waste into usable compost in a few months – it seems like a miracle every time. When I first started, I grew the crops you were supposed to grow on an allotment. I struggled to grow spindly, cankered parsnips for quite a few years before the penny dropped and also fiddled about with netting and sticks for too long before I treated myself to a proper veg cage!
“I love seeing the cycle of the year from the first seedlings emerging to the chaotic bounty of autumn”
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Now I grow more perennials and more fruit (which always seems to do well); the crops that thrive on my site and soil (heavy clay, and shaded by a large oak tree); and the things we like to cook and to eat… and every year I experiment with a few new methods and unusual crops to keep me inspired about the next growing season. It may not be the tidiest or most regimented plot, but it does me proud. ➤ MARCH 2017 | 25
KITCHENGARDEN
GROWINGGUIDE
ASPARAGUS
With asparagus so expensive to buy, says Tony Flanagan, why not invest in growing your own? All you need is a bit of time, space and patience for long-term rewards
I
don’t remember ever having asparagus on trench and then carefully laying out its legs my plate as a child butt in the last 10 before covering wit with soil. Planting asparagus is years or even longer, itt has grown a bit like th his. in popularity and is reaadily Firstt, however, make sure that available in the shops. But it the ssoil is rich, well draining isn’t cheap! So growing your and fertile by adding a good own is definitely an option dose of well-rotted manure and, in the long run, very aand/or organic matter a few cost effective. As a perennial, months before. m To ensure they taste asparagus will deliver year on If your soil is acidic, add good, it's best to cut year for up to 20 years. ssome lime prior to planting to spears before the tips It’s also a good plant to raaise the pH level to 6.5-7.5. start to open. grow as you can harvest it in n Also, be sure to get rid of spring, just when there may not any perennial weeds where you be too much else to bring in from intend to grow your asparagus as the veg plot. Although you can c grow these will ccompete for the goodness the asparagus from seed, the easiest method is soil has to offer. to buy asparagus crowns which will usually be a Next you need to dig a trench, 30cm (1ft) year in growing and already have a healthy spread deep and 30cm (1ft wide). Now create a 10cm of roots. (4in) mound of soil that slopes at the sides. This will help with drainage. Place the crowns on top of the mound 30Imagine that you have a giant spider and you’re 45cm (1-1½ft) apart, with rows 90cm (3ft) going to give it a good burial by digging a apart. As you do this, spread out the roots
PLANTING 36 | MARCH 2017
PLANT: March-April or Oct-Nov HARVEST: April-June
FAVOURITE VARIETIES ■ ‘ARIANE’: With its large, purple-tipped spears, this is an attractive, heavy-cropping variety. ( Mr Fothergill’s) ■ ‘BACKLIM’: This is a mid- to late-season variety which produces large spears with good disease resistance. (Marshalls)
■ ‘GIJNLIM’: The spears of this variety are of medium thickness with green stems and closed, purple tips. An early season, high-yielding variety. (Pomona) ■ ‘PACIFIC PURPLE’: With its purple spears, this sweet and tender variety can also be added to salads and eaten raw. (Dobies)
‘Pacific Purple’
CREDIT: Dobies
■ ‘CONNOVER’S COLOSSAL’: This popular heritage variety has green stems with purple tips. (Victoriana Nursery)
Asparagus crown spread out in trench
across the top of the mound and trail them down the sides. Cover with about 5cm (2in) of sifted soil and water in. As shoots emerge, cover with soil until the soil level reaches the top of the trench, usually by autumn.
AFTERCARE
Keep the asparagus bed well weeded – it’s best to do this by hand, as hoeing can damage the asparagus roots unless you’re very careful. During the summer and into winter, asparagus throws up tall fern-like foliage. If, like me, you have a site open to the wind, you will need to stake the main stem to prevent it being blown over. In the autumn, when the ferns turn yellow, cut them down to just above ground level, 2½-5cm (1-2in). Add a mulch of well-rotted manure or organic matter around the plants in autumn and apply a general fertiliser to the asparagus bed in March and November. ➤ www.kitchengarden.co.uk
It’s important to keep the asparagus bed weed-free
MARCH 2017 | 37
Once soil is cleared in autumn, cover it – or sow a green manure
START
SOIL
Eco gardener Michael Littlewood delves into the fundamentals of organic soil care
A
healthy soil is a complex and biodiverse ecosystem. A synthesis of organic and inorganic elements, it has five essential components: minerals and trace elements, decaying organic matter, living organisms, air and water. These five components, and their myriad constituent parts, are interdependent, and if one part is damaged, or in short supply, this will harm other elements within the ecosystem. When organic matter is added to a soil, its micro-organism populations increase exponentially. They feed on the organic material and in the process break it down, releasing its nutrients for use by plants. A soil rich in microorganisms can produce a threefold increase in the yields of most crop plants. One teaspoonful of healthy soil can contain a billion organisms, or more than 10,000 different species. Most are invisible to the naked eye and cannot be cultured in a laboratory, so our knowledge of them is limited, but they are the basis of all terrestrial life.
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HUMUS
When soil micro-organisms have finished breaking down organic matter, what is left is a complex series of organic compounds known as humus. The soil of a well-managed garden contains about 5% humus. This can retain two to five times its weight in water, and a 5% humus content can increase the water-holding capacity of a sandy soil by 50% and of a clay soil by 30%. It helps a light soil hold on to nutrients, while in a clay soil it acts as a buffer between the mineral particles, reducing compression and improving drainage and aeration. More humus means a greater depth of topsoil and improves its texture, providing a better environment for plant roots. It also darkens the topsoil, so it warms faster in spring and cools more slowly in autumn. During the growing season, it helps to buffer crops against fluctuations in rainfall and temperature. In gardens which rely on chemical fertilisers rather than organic matter to supply nutrients, soil can become little more than an ➤
A healthy soil is the foundation of a productive garden.
MARCH 2017 | 45
GET GROWING
A handful of healthy soil contains billions of micro-organisms.
If your soil is very poor, think about importing better-quality topsoil from a reliable source
inert growing medium. Its micro-organism populations dwindle and it loses the ability to recycle what organic matter it does contain. This is why organic gardening insists on feeding the soil, not the plant, and why concentrated organic fertilisers should be regarded as supplements, not alternatives, to the addition of bulky organic matter. It is easy, as gardeners, to focus on the short-term needs of our plants and forget about the bigger picture – but our priority should be to build a healthy soil. Leaving soil uncovered over winter will result in lost nutrients
A mulch topped by a waterproof cover keeps soil safe through the winter
The type of soil in our gardens depends on the composition of the underlying rock. This breaks down, over geological timescales, to produce the mineral components of a sandy, silty or clay soil. Our soil type is therefore unchangeable, and as gardeners we need to work with what we have. Soil depth, structure, texture and fertility, however, are things which we can work to improve – and the answer, almost always, is large quantities of organic matter. If your soil is short
of nutrients, too shallow, too thin, compacted, too free-draining or not free-draining enough, the solution is to add organic matter. It is best to spread organic matter on the surface and leave the worms to do the work of incorporating it into the soil. Digging damages a soil’s structure and its complex web of microbial life, as well as its earthworm population – studies show that if you add organic matter to
the surface, the worm population increases, but that if you dig it in, it reduces. The optimum time to add organic matter to the soil is at the start of the moon’s fourth quarter, because the water table in the soil recedes as the moon wanes, resulting in a deeper and more thorough absorption of nutrients.
A green manure will protect soil over winter, and feed it in spring
A green manure in the vacant bed and straw between crops mean that no soil here is uncovered
SOIL IMPROVEMENT
Straw and wood chips are low-fertility mulching materials
MULCH
Adding organic matter as a mulch has a further benefit: it keeps the soil covered. You should aim to keep your soil covered at all times – if not with crops, then with a mulch, a green manure or a synthetic cover. Rainfall continually leaches nutrients into the subsoil and erodes soil structure, and with heavy downpours now becoming more frequent, it is more important than ever to keep soil covered. A mulch or green manure will protect soil structure, nutrients and microbes, and also suppress weeds. Over winter, you should cover unused beds with a layer of organic matter, and top this with a waterproof cover; alternatively, grow an overwintering green manure. In nature, soil renews itself; leaves, dead plants, animal manures and dead animals fall on to the soil surface, where they are gradually broken down and returned to the soil. But in our gardens we are growing and cropping intensively, and we remove fertility in the form of the crops that we harvest, so our soil’s need for organic replenishment is therefore greater than the area of land can itself supply. It is up to us to make up the shortfall, both to ensure that our soil can support the plants we want to grow, and so that we leave it in good shape for the future. ■ ■ Michael Littlewood is a landscape designer and the author of many gardening publications. www.kitchengarden.co.uk
WHAT TO BUY | SOIL RAKES
PRODUCT REVIEWS
SOILRAKES
A rake is one of the must-have garden tools for most gardeners. This month the KG team got ready for spring and tried out a range of models
LONG HANDLED SOIL RAKE With a tapered, ash wood handle, this Long Handled Soil Rake has a stainless steel head with 14 rigid tines. The overall length is 158cm (62in) and the head size is 37cm (15in). It has a 15-year guarantee.
This is a sturdy rake but is also quite light. The tines are relatively long, offering good depth when raking. The head support gives a good feeling of balance, the pointed teeth penetrate hard soil well and the ash handle has a nice finish to it. Good one for the larger plot.
KENT AND STOWE www.kentandstowe.com PRODUCT CODE: SKU: 70100056 PRICE: RRP £28
Quality Ease of use Value for money
92 | MARCH 2017
★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★
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TRIED & TESTED
MULTI-CHANGE® SOIL RAKE
GARDENING RAKE
LONG PATTERN RAKE
This soil rake is designed to be used with your preferred lightweight handle which you will need to purchase separately. It has a solid, 30cm (12in) steel head with curved teeth for easy penetration of the soil.
For clearing leaves and general garden waste, this has an epoxy-coated hammer-finished head with a width of 35cm (14in). The shaft is made of tubular steel and has a hanging hole for storing.
With a total length of 1.9m (75in), this Long Pattern Rake allows you to work from a standing position. The 30.5cm (approx.12in) head is made from powder-coated, forged carbon steel and has an ash handle.
WOLF-GARTEN www.wolfgarten-tools.co.uk PRODUCT CODE: DRM30 PRICE: £16.99
SILVERLINE TOOLS www.silverlinetools.com PRODUCT CODE: 595766 PRICE: £6.82
STANDWELL TOOLS www.standwelltools.co.uk PRODUCT CODE: N/A PRICE: £22
We liked the lightness of this rake. The pointed teeth have a good curvature and sink into the soil easily. The head is easily detachable but you will need to buy the handle separately if you don’t already have one.
At the lower end of the price range, this is a functional rake that will serve its purpose. The steel handle is on the shorter side. We felt the angle of the teeth could have been better but it’s difficult to beat on price. Better for smaller plots and raised beds.
This is quite a heavy rake but is strong and well made with an attractively shaped head. Its long ash handle means that you don’t have to stretch too far raking, so really good for the larger plot. Nice finish to the handle.
Quality Ease of use Value for money
Quality Ease of use Value for money
Quality Ease of use Value for money
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★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★
★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★
★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★
MARCH 2017 | 93
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