Innholdsfortegnelse for 12-Oct-24 i Amateur Gardening

We at team AG are here, as always, to offer lots of lovely ideas and advice. To help inspire and guide you through the weeks ahead, with everything from jobs on the ground to plant profiles, innovations and creative recommendations by the wheelbarrow load. At the end of the day though, we also want to help empower you with confidence and skills to garden in a way that works for you and your plot. This issue demonstrates that beautifully as we have our fantastic experts Toby Buckland and Bob Flowerdew explaining how they compost, and the methods they employ are not exactly the same. Nor should they be. We all garden in different plots, patches and positions around the UK. Our lives and personalities are unique so it stands to…

Cambridge-based charity Creating Nature’s Corridors has been nominated for a prestigious BBC environmental award. Founded by Vhari Russell in 2020, the charity has rapidly grown and made significant strides in environmental conservation, being listed for four top green awards in 2024 alone. Vhari is a finalist for the BBC Cambridgeshire Make a Difference Green Award, which spotlights individuals and groups in Cambridgeshire who are making significant efforts to improve the local environment. In addition, Vhari has been recognised on a national level as a finalist for the National Women’s Business Awards in the ‘Community Champion’ category. For further details about the charity’s work, visit creatingnaturescorridors.co.uk…

It’s time to plan for next year’s harvests, as Dobies has launched its new seed range for 2025. Varieties include broad bean ‘Vroma’ that is ideal for autumn and spring sowing, an early-maturing F1 carrot called ‘Carruba’, the ‘high rise’ broccoli variety ‘Titanium’, which has fewer leaves so is less likely to succumb to rot, and a bright yellow spicy chilli called ‘Golden Jalapeno’. Sweet peppers, cabbages, kale, peas, leeks and a red lettuce are also in the new collection, which is available from garden centres and online at www.dobies.co.uk…

Harvest and preserve chillies Are you a self-confessed chilli head? Chilli fans who enjoy the kudos associated with growing the world’s hottest varieties (Xs, reapers, nagas, scorpions, ghosts etc.) are a league apart from me. I don’t confess to be a huge lover of chilli heat (in that the hottest I grow is a habanero, and that scares me) but I do grow a dozen or so different varieties every year. I think they look incredible in terracotta pots, and plants are dripping with fruits come the autumn. So, now, despite a slow start due to this year’s prolonged cold spring and soggy summer, it’s harvest time. Chilli peppers belong to the capsicum family. I was inspired by a recent visit to the kitchen gardens at Audley End, in Essex.…

Shrubs are the unsung heroes of the garden. They’re often associated with big spaces such as historic gardens and parks, but they can also be used in smaller areas or container gardens really successfully. With many deciduous and evergreen options to choose from, these stalwart plants can act as the building blocks of a garden, often taking a modest background supporting role during summer while fabulous flowers and edibles take centre stage. When annuals fade, these shrubs remain and they can offer 12 months worth of interest if you don’t have much time or knowledge. They really are an ally for the small space grower. In autumn, the fruits of the cotoneaster and holly (ilex) provide food for the birds, while colourful winter dogwoods and the scents of sweet box…

At this time of year, hedgehogs are busy gathering food and finding a suitably snug place to hibernate. Unfortunately, their populations across Britain have undergone a historic decline, so it’s important to understand how our gardening choices can impact them. Preparing for winter With daylight hours diminishing and temperatures dropping, hedgehogs focus on preparing for the colder months ahead. As one of the few UK mammals that hibernate, hedgehogs enter a dormant state where their bodily functions dramatically slow down to conserve energy. They commonly hibernate from November to April, depending on the weather. During this time, their body temperature drops from 37°C to around 6°C, plus their metabolism and heart rate will slow down, allowing them to rely on energy from fat reserves. In autumn, hedgehogs focus on two…

A fine sight through September and into October is the massive orb web of the ginger garden spider (Araneus diadematus), beaded with morning dew; one of the best arguments for leaving supporting stems in place. Don’t disturb these spiders, as mature females will lay their eggs before dying off in late autumn. Hatching to a golden mass in spring, the spiderlings soon disperse to live through the next winter and mate the following late summer and early autumn. I get along well with these and all garden spiders, yet have an irrational fear of the giant house spider Eratigena atrica. During autumn the males leave their webs to sprint at up to half a metre per second across our floors in search of females. Having settled down with one, a…

● If you’ve been reading my column for a while, you’ll know by now that I take great pleasure in finding things down the back of cupboards or tucked away behind compost bags in the shed. The joy of discovering these oddities from past ideas gone by and then turning them into something of real use makes me feel incredibly good inside. It’s also a nice activity for children, grandchildren or big kids everywhere. We all know plant labels can be quite boring to look at, so I’m repurposing some of my daughter’s old air dry clay (that I actually found tucked away under the stairs!) into some plant labels with real character! This is readily available at craft and hobby shops and comes in a wide range of colours,…

■ Another easygoing, easy-growing plant for the garden is candytuft, and the variety ‘Giant Hyacinth Flowered’ is much-loved for its beauty and sweet-strong scent. ■ These are hardy annuals that can be sown now where you want them to grow, in soil that has been raked to a fine crumble and watered. ■ It is worth protecting the seeds with a few puffs of pepper dust to stop rodents and birds eating the seeds, and prevent cats using the seed bed as a litter tray. ■ In more exposed, cold areas, you can also sow the seeds undercover now and grow the plants through winter and spring, planting them out when the weather warms. ■ Candytuft is a low-growing plant that forms attractive mounds of pristine white flowers. It reaches…

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Compost is a hot topic… and how you stack, cover and keep your heap makes a huge difference to the quality of what it produces. At ‘Buckland Castle’ I curate a line of the classic pallet-based compost bins, made – as if you didn’t know - using pallets like fence panels, fixed in an ‘E’ shape to hefty wooden stakes. This triumph of carpentry wouldn’t win a beauty contest but it is fit for purpose and thanks to the stout stakes, stable enough to climb up and stand in should the contents need treading down. Another pallet, tied with rope acts as door for each bay giving easy access when it’s time to turn, or tip out the contents. This set-up goes back to the middle of last century when…

■ The weeks between now and December 25 are traditionally said to be the best time to plant your garlic, though cloves can still be planted in the new year too. There are two varieties of garlic, softneck and hardneck. The former produces smaller, tightly packed cloves, stores for longer and is less likely to bolt (produce flower spikes). ■ Hardneck garlic has a stronger flavour, larger cloves and usually only stores until mid-winter. It also bolts more readily. ■ Always buy planting garlic from garden centres or online, as supermarket garlic may carry diseases and not be suited to growing in the British climate. ■ Garlic likes a sunny, sheltered site with free-draining soil that’s been enriched with well-rotted compost or manure. It will also grow in large pots…

■ If you don’t have room for a large pot of forced bulbs inside, you could have a go at growing them over a vase of water. ■ Forcing glassware often comes in a variety of styles and colours, and is usually a jar with an open top designed to cradle the bulb. ■ Alternatively, use a wide glass vase, place a layer of gravel at the bottom, sit the bulbs on this and add water. ■ It can help promote healthy growth by adding a little liquid fertiliser to the water, and also some charcoal to help prevent mould. ■ Place the vase somewhere light, but out of direct sun, and keep the water topped up and watch the roots and shoots start to grow.…

✿ We’re increasingly learning that our soil is the lifeblood for all plants, and it needs to be treated well if we’re to expect good harvests from our edibles. Mulching is the act of covering the earth with a protective layer, and it brings the advantages of suppressing weeds, insulating crop roots from temperature extremes, encouraging soil organisms, and keeping roots moist and well fed. Mulching is best kept as a spring or autumn activity, because it preserves the current soil conditions (i.e. warm and wet). Now, as bare patches appear, is an ideal time. While it’s quick and easy to just lay sheeting like polythene or cardboard over bare autumn soil, these items don’t add any nutrition. So, reach for homemade compost, well rotted animal manure or leaf mould.…

Cuckoo flower ✿ If, like me, you’ve been inspired by Anne Swithinbank’s forager pages here in AG, then this springtime flower could be right up your street. So named because the opening of its pale lilac blooms often coincides with the return of the cuckoo each year, this perennial plant goes botanically by the name of Cardamine pratensis. Growing to a height of between 30-50cm, the blooms are held above a rosette of lobed leaves. Both foliage and flowers are edible, with a hot peppery flavour (this can be modified by blanching to exclude light, if preferred). Once established, plants will naturally self-seed, preferring a moist, shady spot (they make excellent plants in damp meadows or alongside ponds and streams). When allowed to flower the blooms are excellent pollinator attractors.…

Q What are the best evergreen shrubs for pots? A Evergreen shrubs can be clipped to suit the space and there are endless choices. I love tea olive (Osmanthus fragrans), strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) and gorse (Ulex europaeus), all of which provide cover and privacy for wildlife. Q I’d like to attract more bees and butterflies. What shrub do you recommend? A Migrant plants introduced by Victorian collectors, such as the butterfly bush (buddleia), are brilliant at entertaining and feeding butterflies, as the name suggests. And roses, especially the native dog rose (Rosa canina), are irresistible to bees. Q What’s the best time to plant a shrub in a container? A Now! Bare root, or container-grown shrubs, will settle in very nicely when they are dormant between late autumn and…

Late performers such as asters (also known as Michaelmas daisies), help to ease the transition to cooler weather, giving us a welcome burst of colour among bleached grasses, stems and seedheads. Several years ago, the aster genus was separated into a number of genera: symphyotrichum, doellingeria, and eurybia. Asters now include most European and Asian asters, providing that reliable pop of autumn colour and structure. The genus consists of a range of species, each one offering something different in height, colour and flower size. There are also a large number of cultivars available to provide good displays of late summer and autumn colour. Flowering late in the year, these later-season beauties offer an invaluable source of pollen and nectar at a time when much in the garden has started to…

As plants fade and die off for the winter and the garden starts to look a bit scruffy, I find it really tempting to cut plants back and leave the beds all neat and tidy. But there are several advantages to keeping those secateurs hidden away and allowing stems and seeds heads to stay in place over the autumn and winter months. They can provide interest, their stems and seed heads offering punctuation and drama in an otherwise still, and often bland, landscape. Some stems are useful refuge for overwintering insects, so waiting until spring before cutting them back to the ground actively supports biodiversity in your garden. Seed heads can also provide food for wildlife. I love to watch birds land on stems swaying in the breeze, pecking away…

Dessert apples Apples are the most popular fruit in the world, and they are either grown or traded on every continent. Dessert apples – the kind you can eat straight from the tree, unlike ‘cooking apples’ – are the mainstay of many a British garden, and right now they are being harvested and stored (and eaten) in every county. The first apple grew in the area that is now Kazakhstan; the largest city is Almaty, which derives from alma-ata, or “apple father”. Traders on the ancient silk routes developed a taste for the wild apples they found on their travels, and spat out their pips. Scientists are now creating a gene bank from the huge array of wild apples they have found growing there. Some fruits are as large as…

As leaves fall and gather on the ground, I dance with joy that such riches are raining down on us at this time of year, for leaves are truly the golden harvest of autumn. This often-overlooked bounty is more important than ever as gardeners move to being peat-free. There is a re-awakening among the gardening community about a secret that many of our ancestors knew - autumn is not the end of this harvest, but the promise of the beginning of the next. Those faded greens, yellows, and browns that flutter down to meet us have the potential to become leaf mould in our gardens, and if you have ever walked through a forest in spring, you understand the powerful potential that leaves have to make the undergrowth explode with…

9 Oct: Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens Opening for the NGS, Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens, Elmstead Market, Colchester, Essex, CO7 7DB. 10am-4pm. 9 Oct: Open day to see the National Plant Collection of Apples, Sparsholt College, Winchester, Hampshire, SO21 2NF. 12 Oct: Godinton House Autumn Fair, Godinton House, Godinton Lane, Ashford, Kent, TN23 3BP. 11am-4pm. 12 Oct: Cyclamen Society Late Autumn Show, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Westbourne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, West Midlands, B15 3TR. 12 Oct: Alpine Garden Society Autumn Show, RHS Garden Harlow Carr, Crag Lane, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG3 1QB. 10am-4pm. 12-13 Oct: Autumn Bulb Fair, Great Comp Garden, Comp Lane, Platt, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN15 8QS. 12 Oct: Wessex Orchid Society Annual Autumn Show, Portchester Parish Hall, 1 Assheton Court, Portchester, Fareham, Hampshire, PO16 9PS. 11am-4pm. 12 Oct:…

When can I plant lily bulbs? Q Please can you advise me when to plant lily bulbs? I have space for them in the garden but would also like to grow some in containers. Anne Marshall (via email) You are in luck, for lilies are best planted in the autumn. When planting outside, choose a south-facing spot on a gentle slope that is in sun or partial shade. If possible, give the soil a boost with some well-rotted compost or manure first, and your bulbs need to go in the soil at roughly three times their own depth, a bulb’s width apart. Like most bulbs, lilies hate getting ‘wet feet’, especially as they are loosely-scaled and can trap water if left sitting in damp soil. If your garden is on…

I fill my heap with all the usual stuff including ‘green’ nitrogenous plant material, lawn clippings, and uncooked vegetable waste along with ‘brown’ stems, leaves, and cardboard boxes. In an ideal world the proportion of ‘green’ to ‘brown’ should be three to one, a ratio that encourages heat-producing bacteria to multiply and devour organic material. When they’ve had their fill and the heap cools, fungi and worms happy to work at lower temperatures finish the job. To get a hot heap, adding meaningful amounts, i.e. a barrowload at a time, is important to keep the ‘hot’ process going and if you’re able to fuel and fill your heap in this way, you can get useable compost every six months. Not only that, because the rotting-rate is so high, you can…

Despite a largely damp summer, the annual State of the Climate report released by the Met Office suggests that the UK is experiencing a larger number of really hot days than in previous years. They say that this is caused by climate change which is also resulting in an increase of torrential rain, as well as a 40% rise in the number of ‘pleasant days’, where the temperature reached 20C or higher. Meanwhile, incidences of ‘very hot days’ where the temperature breaks the 30C barrier has trebled in the past few decades. There are genuine concerns that these climatic changes will have a disastrous effect on the nation’s flora and fauna as flowering times and insect emergence gets out of synch, meaning birds don’t have food for their fledglings.…

The mists and mellow fruitfulness are in full swing now, and with the drop in temperature and rise in seasonal dampness, it’s time to turn our attention to garden health and hygiene. Autumn conditions are perfect for helping rots, moulds, fungal diseases and many pests to thrive, so anything that can give them sanctuary needs to be removed before the weather really turns against us. Uproot summer bedding that is past its best and add it to the compost pile. Cut off dead and damaged material from perennial plants as it can create an entrance for fungal problems and adversely affect the health of your plants. Remember never to add anything to the compost pile that is diseased, as spores will live on in the warmth and subsequently be spread…

1 Nestle the bulbs on a damp layer of bulb fibre. They should not touch each other or the side of the container. 2 Now add more fibre, fillingthe pot until the tops of the bulbs are just poking above the surface. 3 Wet the bulb fibre, but not too much. If you think you’ve overwatered, carefully tip the bowl and empty some out. 4 Place the bulbs in a closed drawer or wrap in a bin liner. Check them every week or so and bring them out when they shoot.…

Want to steal a march on spring sowings? Sweet and chilli peppers (see main story) show perennial traits and can be overwintered, with a little help. Especially useful for super-hot varieties that take a long time to germinate and mature in our UK summers, here’s how to do it: 1 If your chilli is in a large pot, you can downsize it now so that it takes up less room (this is handy if you’re attempting to overwinter a collection, or have limited space). Gently tease away surplus compost, taking care not to break the roots. Then re-pot into a smaller container, watering it in well. 2 Excess top growth can be pruned back, again to take up less room (you don’t need to do this if your chilli is…

Once the habit of foraging from your garden takes hold; walking, touching, smelling and tasting will turn into a year-round habit. An autumn favourite here is Chilean guava (Ugni molinae) with dainty fruits that are so intriguingly spicy, they are literally a conversation stopper. My first encounter with these tasty berries was many years ago at a Gardeners’ Question Time recording down in Cornwall. Some were brought in for us to try and I had never tasted anything like them. Our plant is still small and I’ve been watching and waiting for the berries to ripen any day now. I like them so much I need to take cuttings and buy more plants; a hedge of them would not be too much. For some, Chestnut Sunday happens in May and…

‘Marigoule’ This French variety bears large nuts early in its life within four years of planting and is both partially self-fertile and also a good pollinator. A good choice if you only want one tree. www.walnuttrees.co.uk ‘Belle Epine’ Also partially self-fertile and a good pollinator, this medium-to-late-maturing variety has a fast to medium growth rate. www.frankpmatthews.com ‘Marron de Lyon’ This well-known cultivar produces large mahogany-red nuts and is one of the most compact varieties. Early ripening and reliable, the chestnuts are large and flavoursome. A pollinator will be required. www.pvroger.co.uk…

For my money, one of the best plants for giving a lot of bang for your buck is larkspur. The annual ‘cousin’ of delphinium, it is low-maintenance, tolerant of less-than-perfect soils and easy to grow. This year I found two that had self-seeded in a raised bed of vegetables. I lifted and replanted them in a border and they went on to flower amazingly, their indigo blooms with the back ‘spur’ that gave them their name drawing the bees for weeks on end. I left the seed pods to ripen, letting some of the seeds fall onto the soil and collecting some more to sow elsewhere in the garden. Standard larkspurs don’t generally grow as tall as delphiniums, and dwarf varieties are widely available to grow from seed. They grow…

It has been a slightly disturbing year in the garden, the cold wet start to spring and summer knocking back the plants and animals alike. However, not all was lost. While there was a shocking lack of butterflies skipping over the lawn and flowers, we were visited by a healthy population of bumble and solitary bees, which appeared to kick the national trend. We have also seen more dragonflies and damselflies than in previous years, happily watching them hawking over the garden like little helicopters. Bird-wise, we’ve been lucky enough to have several broods of sparrows and starlings pillaging the feeders, along with blue, cole, great and long-tailed tits and a family of great spotted woodpeckers. In their wake came the sparrowhawks, which picked off several unwary starling fledglings. On…

Cucamelon challenge So my daughter gave me a challenge: to grow a product I had never heard of, cucamelons, literally a cross between a melon and a cucumber. I took up the challenge and here are the results. Grown on a wigwam and picked when they were approx 1.5cm long. Wonder what my next challenge will be? Andrew Slack (via email) Kim says; how fantastic! Cucamelon is super productive once it gets going and indeed can take over a little with its vine-like nature, so that’s good you had it growing separately. It’s lovely isn’t it and such fun to grow new varieties and be set challenges like this, it makes gardening even more fun! More wildlife content please Dear Kim, After reading ‘A warm welcome’ in the autumn special issue…

You’ve dutifully staked your tomatoes, earthed up your potatoes and managed to stop the slugs from munching your leafy greens - and now you have an abundant harvest. So, what’s next? The benefits of your kitchen garden don’t stop here. Every peel, scrap and leftover has potential beyond the plate, whether it’s feeding your garden, enriching your soil, or even becoming something new - like some delicious kimchi! As countries around the world move towards banning peat and other non-renewable resources, adopting sustainable growing practices becomes more important than ever. By growing your own food, composting organic waste and preserving your harvest, you can create a cycle of sustainability in your own home. Plus, let’s not forget about the possibilities of the food cycle as a money-saving mechanism. Reusing scraps…

Without doubt one of the simpler ways to make better compost is to make larger amounts at a time. Like a nuclear power station, the larger the pile the hotter, faster and more effective it will be. Of course most folk only have a smallish composting bin they can add to as materials become available, and while this is okay, it only produces a small amount, relatively slowly. I’m here to tell you-we can do better. Awkwardly, smaller bins are the hardest to manage because they lose heat faster than they can make it, thus the breakdown process is slow. Insulating your pile will make it work faster, though don’t prevent airflow as that’s needed in the process. Most heat is lost upwards so fashion a duvet of some sort…