CONTENTS
EXPERT ADVICE TO HELP YOU GROW GREAT FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
WIN
£2541 in prizes up for grabs in our passionate plotter competition Pg 50
30
24
✪ ON THE COVER
YOU
@GrowWithKG
YOUR PLOT
6 ON THE VEG PATCH
KitchenGardenUK KitchenGardenMag /kitchengardenmagazine FOR OUR CONTACT DETAILS TURN TO PAGE 15
Plant autumn lettuce, harvest apples and beetroot, tend to pumpkins, check harvested onions, weed and mulch, lift and store main crop potatoes
10 IN THE GREENHOUSE
Care for tomatoes, sow winter salad leaves and endives, propagate strawberries, sow broad beans
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
NEVER MISS AN ISSUE...
18 QUESTION TIME
£20
Regular Gardeners’ Question Time panellists Bob Flowerdew and Anne Swithinbank answer your fruit and veg growing conundrums
49 YOUR FREE SEEDS ✪
ON PAGE 22 HAVING TROUBLE FINDING A COPY OF THIS MAGAZINE? Just Ask your local newsagent to reserve you a copy each month
4 | OCTOBER 2016
Get the best from your free gifts of lamb’s lettuce ‘Valentin’ and sweet pea ‘Tall Mixed’
50 ENTER OUR PASSIONATE PLOTTER COMPETITION 2016
Why not enter our best plot and container competition and win some great prizes
74 97 NEXT MONTH
Some highlights to be found in your November issue plus details of great free gifts
106 LAST WORD
KG editor Steve Ott looks back on his year of growing crops in pots
36
OCTOBER 2016
RECIPES
Scan this, and we’ll tell you!
KG chef Anna Pettigrew has some mouth-watering ways to serve kale, pears and carrots
Pg 98
98 84 GET GROWING
54 MAKE IT A LEAFY WINTER ✪
You can sow now for tasty and nutritious winter pickings, as Charles Dowding explains
✪
20 ON THE PLOT WITH THE THREE MUDKETEERS
76 IT’S A COVER UP
Learn what the KG team have been up to this month and pick up some great top tips
Deputy editor Emma Rawlings has some great advice to help you extend your harvest into the autumn
24 GARDEN OF TRANQUILLITY
84 TRIED AND TESTED ✪
Martin Fish tours a wonderful old walled garden that has been given a new lease of life as a community plot
This month the KG team put a range of gardening footwear through its paces
30 BEGINNERS’ GUIDE TO PEAS ✪
46 SETTING THE JUICE LOOSE ✪
34 MAKE IT! NEW
58 FRUIT AT A GLANCE… BLACKCURRANTS
All you need to know to grow this super sweet crop from veg expert Rob Smith
Our new series highlighting cost-saving DIY projects to make your gardening easier. This month, a year-round salad bar
36 VEG AT A GLANCE – BROAD BEANS ✪
A KG guide to growing this hardy staple
40 RUNNER BEAN ‘MILLIONAIRE’ ON TEST
Steve Ott reviews a pretty and productive new variety
42 RAISING YOUR GAME ✪
Allotment gardener Stephanie Harrod explains why raised beds are her choice when growing fruit and veg www.kitchengarden.co.uk
Apple juicing tips from Oxfordshire experts Waterperry Gardens
KG’s Steve Ott has some top tips to help you grow this nutrient-packed superfood
63 COMPOSTING THE BIODYNAMIC WAY ✪
Organic gardener Julie Moore explains this unique way of composting in harmony with nature
68 CULTIVATING THE CUT ✪
Meet some gardeners who grow their crops on the move
74 THE BEST OF THE BRUSSELS
Discover the very best varieties of Brussels sprouts for your plot according to RHS trials
10 WHAT TO BUY 88 GARDEN STORE
News of the best new products and services to reach the KG offices this month
90 READER OFFERS ✪
This month you can save on onion and garlic collections, oriental veg, broad bean and pea seed collections plus claim your free autumn planting garlic worth £4.95 with every order
92 KG INSTANT SAVERS ✪
Save on a range of great gardening products with our exclusive deals including weather vanes, plug plants and plant protection
94 GIVEAWAYS WORTH OVER £1810
This month you could win quality pots, gardening socks, a powered cultivator, gutter brushes and water butts
102 DIARY DATES
Great things to see and do this month
94 OCTOBER 2016 | 5
■ Sow mizuna, corn salad, mustard greens and rocket for a supply of late winter and spring leaves ■ Plant out spring cabbage so they can establish before temperatures drop too low ■ Sow mangetout peas for early crops next spring ■ If you have plenty of space, plant some garlic now to harvest in May
INTHE GREENHOUSE
WITH JOYCE RUSSELL Pictures by Ben Russell
TOMATO CARE E Some tomato plants will be removed in October and others can be kept going for several weeks. This doesn’t mean you have to struggle to keep tatty, unproductive plants alive; it does mean that with a bit of care you can eat fresh picked tomatoes until Christmas. Cherry varieties often crop longesst, but a lot depends on the health of the t plant. If foliage or fruit are showing signs of blight then remove the whole pla ant. If there is a bit of grey mould, then you may well get away with just removing affected leaves. Lower leaves can be removed for most of the length of the stem, provided the top 44cm (17in) or so has healthy green leaves to keep the plant growing. Cut watering down to a minimum from now on and keep soil moisture as consistent as possible to avoid fruit splitting. Beefsteak tomatoes are slower to ripen in a poor year and you may have lots of large green fruits. These can be picked and taken indoors to ripen, but vine-ripened fruits taste better. Try the same trick as for ripening fruits in June and hang a ripe tomato nearby or a banana skin. If one starts to turn colour, others will follow in any bit of warm October.
10 | OCTOBER 2016
GROWSOMETHINGDIFFERENT
Endive can be an acquired taste and some people find it bitter. It is an easy and hardy plant to grow and I find it a useful addition to a salad. To reduce the bitter flavour you can blanch plants by covering with a large pot to cut out light for a week or so before harvesting. There are some more delicate flavoured varieties (e.g. ‘Fine de Louviers’) available, or as a simple option, try growing as cut-and-come-again small leaves. www.kitchengarden.co.uk
Having once fallen into dereliction, dere ction Helmsley Walled Garden in North Yorkshi Yorkshire is now a thriving concern thanks to the hard work of its dedicated team. Writer, broadcaster and gardening expert Martin Fish explores its many virtues
KITCHENGARDEN
GROWINGGUIDE
GET GROWING
BROADBEANS Easy to grow and relatively problem free, this vegetable has a melt-in-your-mouth delicacy that other legumes just can’t rival. Broad bean devotee Tony Flanagan waxes lyrical about one of his favourite veg
SOW:
OctoberNovember or February-March
Pick pods before the beans inside get too big, otherwise you will have woody and bitter-tasting beans. If they are larger than you would like, all is not lost. Just peel away the outer skin of the bean
HARVEST: May-August
WATCH OUT FOR Broad beans freeze well so don’t be worried about a glut, just look forward to having them on your plate over winter
BLACKFLY: These black aphids can be a problem, and you can find that the tops of your plants are suddenly infested with them. Nipping the tops off your plants once pods begin to appear at the bottom is effective in preventing this happening. CHOCOLATE SPOT: It’s not unusual to find brown spots on the leaves of your plants. A severe attack can kill off your crop but generally this problem does not really impact on pod production. SLUGS AND SNAILS: You will need to protect your young plants, whether grown directly outside or in modules. Slugs and snails will find a way so be vigilant and use your preferred means of prevention such as organic slug pellets, broken egg shells or beer traps.
SOW YOUR FREE SEEDS NOW!
LEAFY WINTER There is still time to sow some salad crops for winter, as organic gardening expert Charles Dowding explains
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f you are reading this in September then there is time to sow a few hardy crops for winter leaf harvests. If reading in October then you can plant out small plants undercover, either those you have sown or bought from garden centres or specialist nurseries. Many of the crops mentioned below can be used for salads but remember that if you don’t find a cold salad appealing in winter these leaves can also be used in cooking, especially stir-fries, which means they are lightly cooked. This is also a good idea with many of these winter leaves because the slow growth in winter means some of them can have strong flavours which may complement heavier winter food. Sometimes the strong flavour will dissipate on cooking.
SURVIVING OR THRIVING
Vegetables for winter leaves are frost hardy but are less productive outdoors, especially in exposed locations, so it’s worth looking at options for protecting them. For example with ‘Red Grenoble’ lettuce and ‘Green in the Snow’ mustard, you don’t get to pick many leaves outdoors between December and February, compared to harvests off the same plants undercover. 54 | OCTOBER 2016
Outside, these and other salad plants will survive an average winter in milder regions but become more productive from early spring. This article takes winter as December to February, with its shadow that extends into March and even April, when there are few salad leaves to pick. However, even in a cold spring there is at least more light than in true winter, and in our high latitude the limiting factor is often light: even in mild winters there is a limit to new growth. December 2015 illustrated this when plants were growing fast in the remarkable warmth, but their new leaves were papery thin and weak with much more slug damage than usual – slugs are attracted to weak growth.
WINTER WEATHER WATCH
While frost is a limiting factor in new growth, often it is wind, precipitation and humidity that causes more damage to plants. Winter salads survive well in a polytunnel even though it can be as cold as outside on a frosty night, sometimes even colder because of the air inside being so still, and not mixed with warmer air above. The important positives are protection from wind, rain, hail and snow, allowing plants to survive midwinter in a healthy state, ready to grow again in any brief spells of sunshine, and then in a much stronger way, in the open from mid February.
WINTERCROPPINGSALADS-ASUMMARY OUTDOOR SALADS
SOW
SPACE
CROP*
Chicories
August
22x22cm (9x9in)
October-April
Lamb’s lettuce
By September 20
7x15cm (3x6in)
November-April
Land cress
August-early September
15x20cm (6x8in)
November-April
Mizuna
September
15x20cm (6x8in)
October-December
Mustards
Early September
15x20cm (6x8in)
October-April
Salad rocket
Early September
15x20cm (6x8in)
October-early April
Spinach
August
15x20cm (6x8in)
October-May
Wild rocket
August
22x22cm (9x9in)
Mostly April-June
Winter purslane
By September 20
22x22cm (9x9in)
November-early May
*harvests December to February are only small www.kitchengarden.co.uk
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COMPOSTING BIODYNAMIC WAY Building fertile soil to grow healthy, productive plants must be the ultimate goal of any gardener. Biodynamic gardeners use special techniques to do this, as keen proponent Julie Moore explains
H Many gardeners are constantly adding waste to their compost heap www.kitchengarden.co.uk
ealthy soil is a sensitive living organism— it’s alive with worms, fungi, bacteria and other organisms which are all vital for plant health. However, it’s important to respect the soil and not force it to produce as much as it can, even if it appears capable of doing so. Instead, we must respect our soil, nurturing and feeding it so it in turn can feed the crops we grow. From a biodynamic perspective, no matter how large or small your garden, it’s vital that nutrients are recycled around the garden, thus maintaining a circle of fertility. Composting is essential to this self-sustaining process and serves as a way to recycle animal manures and organic waste. The resulting compost, having been duly treated with the biodynamic preparations, is genuinely ‘black gold’, ready for its duty to give new life to your soil. ➤ OCTOBER 2016 | 63
GET GROWING
coverup
With autumn comes cooler temperatures so what can be done to extend the growing season and protect more vulnerable crops? Emma Rawlings has some top tips on plant protection
T In the depths of winter a cloche can give hardier salads a helping hand
76 | OCTOBER 2016
he warm days of summer are but a distant memory as temperatures start to fall and day length reduces, and this in turn slows down the growth of plants. Some summer crops that were late to be sown or planted out are now more vulnerable to the colder weather and can be cut down in their prime if we don’t take measures to protect them. Tomatoes, squashes and beans are good examples. With a bit of care we may just squeeze a few more pickings from them. Some crops such as winter salads and brassicas are hardier and can stand the ravages of autumn and even winter chills but they don’t put on much growth through the colder months. However, there are some things you can do to protect these plants and encourage a bit of leafy growth to harvest. www.kitchengarden.co.uk
WHAT TO BUY | GARDENING FOOTWEAR
PRODUCT REVIEWS
GARDENING FOOTWEAR
These Muck Boots Hoser Classic Non-Safety Wellington Boots have a 100% waterproof neoprene upper and a wrap-around sole with large, horizontal grips. They have a breathable air-mesh lining, Achilles reinforcement, shank support and a reinforced rubber toe. SCREWFIX www.screwfix.com PRODUCT CODE: 5253K PRICE: £69.99 84 | OCTOBER 2016
RE MO IN
HOSER CLASSIC WELLINGTON BOOTS
&
D
GITA
We know that gardeners as a species are as tough as old boots, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t look after their feet. Gardening in all weathers can take its toll, so this month the KG team kicked off their worn-out wellies and tried out some of the best gardening footwear available
These are very comfortable, stylish wellingtons that are flexible, completely waterproof and easy to slip on and off. The soles offer a strong grip too. Suitable for all-round gardening tasks.
Quality Comfort Value for Money
★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★
www.kitchengarden.co.uk
WHAT TO BUY | GIVEAWAYS
GIVEAWAYS
WORTH OVER
TO ENTER OUR GIVEAWAYS SEE PAGE 103 OR VISIT THE KG WEBSITE
SAVE WATER VINTAGE STYLE Stewart Garden’s Oak Effect Water Butts really do look like authentic wooden barrels. Their traditional vintage design, complete with copper-effect bands, will blend in beautifully in your garden. Attractive and practical, these longlife, rot-proof and sturdy rainwater collectors are great for the environment – and also great for reducing the price of your next water bill! Two sizes are available – 190 litres and 235 litres – and the complementary stand can be purchased separately. Stewart Garden is a proud UK manufacturer. Its products are available
Manufactured from polypropylene filaments spun around a wire spine, it’s virtually indestructible, requires no maintenance and will keep gutters clear year on year. It adapts to the shape of almost any gutter, fits around corners and over downpipe outlets, and is easily installed in minutes.
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in more than 1,60 00 outlets across the country, including DIY PRIZES retailers such as TO GIVE B&Q, Homebase AWAY and Wilkinsons. ly They’re also widely stocked at garden centres such as Dobbies, Notcutts and Wyevale and d in over 1,000 independentt garden centres. For more information go to www.stewart-garden n. co.uk or call 0203 657 5230. We have three 190-litre Oak Effect Water Butts, each worth £84.99, to give away.
PUT AN END TO GUTTER CLUTTER Hedgehog Gutter Brush, the market-leading brush gutter guard, is a cost-effective, innovative device that eliminates arduous and potentially dangerous gutter maintenance. It works by simply preventing leaves and other debris from entering the gutter, while allowing water to flow freely – so you’ll have no more overflowing gutters or blocked drains.
£1810
Hedgehog Gutter Brush retails at £14.99 for a standard 4m by 100mm brush and is available from builders’ merchants and DIY outlets nationwide. For more information visit www. hedgehoggutterbrush.com or call 01227 712833. We have three prizes of five lengths of Hedgehog Gutter Brush plus a Hedgehog GutterScoop, each worth a total of £90, to give away.
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PRIZES TO GIVE AWAY
94 | OCTOBER 2016
www.kitchengarden.co.uk
DARKER NIGHTS The clocks might go back in October but it’s time to step fforward in the kitchen, with the help of kale, pear and carrot, Anna Pettigrew’s prime choices for your autumn delectation