Gardening

WINTER PROTECTION

Mike Burks, Managing Director, The Gardens Group

Perfect weather for the garden in the winter is for it to gently get colder over the coming weeks and a few decent hard frosts after Christmas is good news. What plants don’t like is dramatic weather changes, particularly in temperature as this can cause damage.

There’s plenty of time to enjoy the garden without starting too much tidying up or packing away. This will also provide a food source and habitat, particularly for insects, but also lots of spectacular displays when the frost sets on seed heads and old flowers.

But it would be good to be prepared and this can be done in several ways. It’s late to be talking about feeding regimes but reducing the levels of nitrogen fertilisers towards the end of the summer and either stopping feeding or in fact feeding with high potash fertilisers will help to toughen plant growth. Perhaps use this next year.

Autumn pruning is carried out by many gardeners and is sometimes necessary, but it can expose plants to the ravages of the winter. I often think that the best protection a plant can get is from its own branches. Some plants need a tidy-up prune in the autumn to reduce wind rock over the winter. This group would include shrubs, such as lavatera (Shrubby Mallows), buddleia and some spirea. But it’s just a tidy-up that is needed – leave the rest of the framework in place to provide protection and complete the pruning in the early spring. With other plants, the pruning can be used as protection. One example of this is with tree ferns where the fronds as they die back can be folded over to protect the crown. This won’t be sufficient protection in a really tough winter so a further wrapping of horticultural fleece tied around the trunk to bind on the fronds will complete the task.

Fleece can also be used as a form of protection for many plants. It is a lightweight material usually white in colour that is designed to provide protection in a gentle way. The material allows plants to breathe but will keep the worst of the cold and also the wet from the plant that is being protected. This is also useful in some situations to reduce fungal problems such as peach leaf curl on peaches, nectarines and the like.

One layer of the fleece material will give a couple of degrees of cold protection and the soft nature is kind to plants. So good is horticultural fleece that I have had some thermal long-johns run up out of it and they keep me very snug for the winter and in a stylish manner too! Fleece has also been adapted so that ready-made shrub protectors are available and also adapted into mini tunnels using wire frames that are also helpful in the early spring when bringing on young crops.

Tubs and pots on the patio can give each other some mutual protection by grouping them together. This is best done by pushing them to the wall of the house and then covering the pots with hessian, fleece or bubble plastic if the weather gets very cold. Pots that drain well will fare much better than those full of water so be sure to check drainage holes are clear where you can.

If you are lucky enough to have a greenhouse even if it is unheated, then some pots can be moved inside for the worst of the weather. Beware when we get sunny days to open the windows so that the plants don’t start growing too early and remember to harden them off before bringing the pots back out in the spring.

In borders, the laying of a natural mulch will help to keep plant roots snug. A two-three-inch depth of bark either chipped or composted or the wonderful mulch Bloomin’ Amazing (a bi-product of a biogas plant near Poundbury), will reduce the amount of frost that gets into the soil. The benefits don’t stop there – with the mulch reducing weed growth the following spring, conserving moisture in the summer and as it breaks down, also assisting in promoting good quality soil structure.

But don’t be too worried about the winter in the garden. Plants may get knocked back, but some need a period of cold to perform correctly in the following year. It’s also good news to have a ‘normal’ winter to help control garden pests. It’s all part of the natural cycle.

thegardensgroup.co.uk

HARVEST

Simon Ford, Land and Nature Adviser

Iam writing this article in late September, when we are enjoying the ‘fruits of our labour’ in the garden as well as nature’s bounty in the woods and hedgerows.

We have been very lucky with many species such as apples producing a very heavy crop of fruit and the outdoor tomatoes have had an excellent year, with all of the summer warmth. Blackberries are going over now, after a decent crop, but conversely, sloes are a bit thin on the ground. The dry weather has resulted in fewer mushrooms and fungi as yet.

Old wives’ tales suggest that bumper crops will mean we will have a harsh winter, although it is more likely that it is the result of favourable conditions last spring, when pollinators were busy fertilising the flowers.

Autumn fruits and vegetables have always been incredibly important for both animals and humans, to help us survive the lean winter months. Squirrels and jays bury acorns to come back to, wood mice hoard piles of hazel nuts and seeds, while hibernating species such as bats and hedgehogs will build up their body fat, by feasting on insects and snails.

Humans have tried various means of storage of food for millennia. On Iron Age hillforts such as Hambledon and Hod Hill, there are many pits which are associated

Svetlana Cherruty/iStock

with the hut circles where ancient Britons lived, where grain is believed to have been stored. In our stately homes such as Stourhead and Montacute, ice houses were built in north-facing sites to allow food to be kept frozen or chilled for many months with large blocks of ice packed with straw.

With the invention of canning and freezing, we seem to have forgotten how to preserve food in Britain. Supermarkets provided cheap food, imported from all over the world throughout the year. However, as we are all too aware, things have dramatically changed recently. Food of all types has increased enormously in cost and in some cases is no longer readily available.

Perhaps it is time to start thinking more about ways of storing fruit and vegetables to use during the cold dark winter months. Instead of thinking of ‘gluts’, where food is wasted or composted (or worse, sent to landfill), we can re-visit the ways our grandparents and ancestors kept food for lean periods.

Perhaps the simplest way is to freeze it. Our freezer has pots full of lovely blackcurrants, gooseberries and raspberries and bags of French beans and blanched spinach. If you are feeling more adventurous, you could make a multitude of varieties of jam, with the sugar acting as an excellent preservative.

Today, there were a large number of green tomatoes in the allotment, along with some blemished ones, which mixed with apple, onions and vinegar make a delicious chutney; far superior to that bought from the supermarket.

Vinegar can be used to store many vegetables (and even eggs), but we are generally not that adventurous in England – tending to keep to pickled onions and maybe beetroot. We have some Ukrainian guests, who pickle many things from mushrooms, tomatoes, cabbage, walnuts, cucumbers, carrots and peppers. Scandinavians also love pickled roll mop herring, which I am rather partial to, although I have not tried preserving it.

Drying is another good way of preserving fruit and vegetables. Many people will have tasted delicious sun-dried tomatoes, but this can be extended to things like apples and oranges and the Icelandic people even air-dry cod and meat. If you have lots of chillis, you can thread a needle with cotton through them and hang them as an attractive, but useful way of storing spices. Try thyme, oregano, bay, rosemary and lavender, tied in bunches in a dark dry spot, to liven up a recipe. Many mushrooms can also be dried to use later in the year.

With Christmas not so far away, another favourite is steeping gin or vodka with sloes, cranberries, blackberries or raspberries and some sugar for a month or two. Then sieve it through muslin to get a delicious warming drink to sip around the open fire. Don’t throw away the fruit, but have it as a boozy accompaniment to yogurt or cream!

No more waste and some reminders of those warm summer days, when the garden was full of produce and colour. Just remember to leave some windfalls for our birds and animals.

LIVING THE GOODDEN LIFE

Nico and Chrystall Goodden

November always feels like the year-end for gardening and growing. A chill in the air and the imminent first frosts mean we must finish clearing the last of our tender plants from the garden and greenhouse, protect our cacti collection by all means necessary and harvest whatever’s left that won’t make it through frosts. The truth is we often deliberately allow some tomatoes or raspberries to drop on the floor to provide food for the local wildlife. If it stops them climbing higher to grab them anyway, then it’s a win-win.

Our winter crops which Chrystall diligently sowed in July are now well-grown and established and protected by nets. Less sun intensity, more wind, lower temperatures and shorter days mean our winter salads, among other crops, will almost come to a standstill, growing extremely slowly. But that’s fine and to compensate for their slower growth we just grow a lot more. That way we can pick some leaves off the outside of the plants every now and then and still allow the plants to keep growing at their own pace. We find nets and horticultural fleece can add a few degrees by creating a microclimate for what we grow. However unsightly they may be.

Thankfully, the greenhouse guarantees not only protection from hungry wildlife but also that sun rays will be put to good use and generate some precious heat too. I love being in the relative warmth of the greenhouse on a sunny but brisk autumn or winter’s day.

While October was undeniably the most abundant and busiest month, processing everything into sauces, soups and jams, we must extend our efforts a little more so that what we grew this year is looked after and preserved, either through ever more jars, dehydrating or

freezing. Why run the race if not to cross the finish line?

We tend to avoid dehydrating when possible as it uses a lot of power whether you do it in an oven or a dehydrator and the prospect of sun-drying anything is now long gone.

Tomatoes have been excellent this year – we grew more than ever and now have lots of tomato soup, passata and chutneys for the winter months. I estimate we grew about five to six hundred tomatoes, the heaviest weighing over a pound of sweet, juicy fruit.

Pounds of excess raspberries have been frozen on trays in the freezer to then be transferred into bags. We will use them mainly for desserts over the cold months with a generous serving of cream and crushed meringue. I like raspberry milkshakes too. We grew an indecent amount of them. From what used to be perhaps 15 plants when we settled here in 2017, through the magic of propagation we now have over 80 and there is no sign of us ever getting tired of them.

The last of the apples have been picked and turned into apple juice which we freeze by the litre, a good boost of vitamins when we most need it. I admit, some juice may have been accidentally turned into cider and I may have accidentally ingested some! We do store some apples in the garage. When stored properly and not bruised, the right variety will keep until January or February – the perfect time for a tarte tatin. In addition to that, we also make stewed apples or compote which freezes well.

Mushrooms have been abundant since midSeptember, really ramping up in October. We found so many giant puffballs, field mushrooms, beefsteak mushrooms, and ‘chicken of the woods’. I save every location where I find edible mushrooms on Google Maps for future reference as mushrooms come back year-on-year. I now know over 40 spots within a 5-mile radius where I can find free delicious mushrooms at various times of the year. Most are gourmet mushrooms, at least when compared with shop-bought ones.

November shall too bring its own surprises. We expect oyster and ‘velvet shank’ mushrooms to be plentiful as we know the local spots for them. Meadow waxcaps are also mushrooms we find once the temperatures truly drop, as its name implies in meadows and pastures.

We have not bought vegetables since April and hope that this may be the first year we manage to complete a whole year, eating only what we grow and occasionally forage. There are some exceptions such as limes and lemons but ‘grow your own’ doesn’t have to mean that we can’t enjoy a margarita or whiskey sour at times.

Make no mistake, we eat very well! The food we grow and forage and consequently cook tastes better than any we could ever buy in supermarkets or eat in most restaurants – it inspires us to try new dishes. It keeps us happy and healthy. It connects us to nature, its rhythm, the seasons and the land.

Hopefully we can inspire some of you to embrace what nature offers and at the same time give back to nature by acting as ambassadors.

There is a visible decline in wild foods, often because of land development or land being reclaimed for intensive agriculture. It makes us sad but equally, it gives us purpose. If we can spread the message on the urgency of protecting what we all have or are about to lose locally, that’s enough in our book. We don’t need to necessarily highlight the destruction of the Amazon rainforest – if we all just looked at making changes locally, the whole world would benefit.

Nico: @nicholasgoodden Chrystall: @thegooddenlife creativebritishgarden.com

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