Archive for January, 2012
Baking bread in chilly January…
Posted by editor on Monday, 30 January 2012
While not exactly gourmet gardening, making your own bread touches on many of the things we love about our outdoor spaces – smell, touch, hard work, wonderful results and something you can share with friends and family!
Last Saturday a group of Garden House friends visited the bakery at Brighton’s Real Pâtisserie for a bread-making workshop. Click on Pictures (top navigation bar) and take a look at all the photos of the day! 
We donned our blue hairnets and aprons and under the patient and very informed guidance of head baker Tom enjoyed a unique baking experience, learning about the ingredients and the traditional skills that go into creating wonderful fresh breads for our own family kitchens.
Real Pâtisserie is an independent bakery specialising in traditional French bread and cakes, and renowned for their extensive range of artisan breads – making sourdoughs in the time-honoured way, hand moulding every loaf and creating a range of speciality breads picked from the traditionally popular loaves of France, Spain and Italy.
We made four different bread types - focaccia, traditional French cob, multi-cereal loaf and sour dough – with the opportunity to take some ‘starter’ sour dough home with us.
Hard work, but really satisfying – and in the freezing middle of January, actually rather more fun than gardening!
Winter garden thought…
Posted by editor on Thursday, 26 January 2012
Winter garden thought, Vita Sackville-West…
“The shortest day has passed, and whatever nastiness of weather we may look forward to in January and February, at least we notice that the days are getting longer. Minute by minute they lengthen out. It takes some weeks before we become aware of the change. It is imperceptible even as the growth of a child, as you watch it day by day, until the moment comes when with a start of delighted surprise we realize that we can stay out of doors in a twilight lasting for another quarter of a precious hour.”
Planning ahead on the vegetable plot or allotment
Posted by editor on Thursday, 19 January 2012
Plan out your vegetable plot on paper before working out what seed you want to order from the catalogues, so you don’t over order or end up with two much of the same things.
DIARY NOTE: Seedy Sunday takes place on takes place on Sunday 5th February at Hove Town Hall, Norton Road BN3 4AH, 10am – 4.30pm. Entry is just £2, children free. It’s a great opportunity to buy heritage and other seeds, onion sets, and potatoes for chitting.
This is also a good time to think about crop rotation.
Crop Rotation - The principle of crop rotation is to grow specific groups of vegetables on a different part of the allotment each year. This helps to reduce a build-up of pest and disease problems and it organises groups of crops according to their cultivation needs. Pests and diseases tend to be crop specific – for example carrots don’t suffer from potato blight and club root only affects brassicas!
Crop rotation is used in allotment plots and gardens usually for annual vegetable crops. Perennial vegetables, those that come up every year (such as rhubarb, asparagus and artichokes, both globe and Jerusalem) can remain in the same bed.
Some annual crops such as cucurbits (courgettes, pumpkins, squashes, marrows and cucumbers), French and runner beans, salads (endive, lettuce and chicory) and sweetcorn can be grown wherever there is space – this is because they don’t tend to suffer from as many serious pests and diseases as brassicas, roots, legumes and potatoes. Just try to avoid growing them on the same piece of ground year after year.
Different crops have different nutrient requirements - Changing the plot that you grow crops on each year reduces the chance of particular soil deficiencies developing as the balance of nutrients removed from the soil tends to even out over time. For example; legumes have the ability to fix nitrogen from the air into the soil using nitrogen-fixing nodules on their roots, brassicas on the other hand need nitrogen to produce green leafy growth, the part we eat – and so it makes sense to grow brassicas on the plot that was used to grow legumes last year.
Weed control - Some crops, like potatoes and squashes, with dense foliage or large leaves, suppress weeds, thereby reducing maintenance and weed problems in following crops. Onions, on the other hand, are not good at suppressing weeds due to their lack of foliage and so it is a good idea to follow onions on from potatoes.
Why not try the ‘three sisters’ system – a North American idea where you grow squashes on the ground to provide shade and suppress weeds, sweetcorn or sunflowers as a support for pole beans to grow up – this enables you to grow three crops on one plot, in a relatively small space.
Pest and disease control - Soil pests and diseases tend to attack specific plant families over and over again. This can be a real problem for the commercial grower, just because some of the serious diseases such as clubroot can remain in the soil for up to thirty years! If you rotate your crops this means that pests tend to become less of a problem as the spores or eggs of the pest won’t be able to build up when in the soil. White onion rot tends to be a real problem on allotments and crop rotation can help to avoid this.
If you are new to your allotment divide it into sections of equal size (depending on how much of each crop you want to grow), plus an extra section for perennial crops, such as rhubarb and asparagus.
The following groups should be used in the rotation scheme:
Brassicas: Brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflowers, kale, kohl-rabi, oriental greens, radish – swedes and turnips are brassicas too, just look at the flowers on them and you can see why many people think they are roots.
Legumes: Peas, broad beans (French and runner beans suffer from fewer soil problems and can be grown wherever there is space).
Onions: Onions, garlic, shallots, leeks.
Potato family: Potato, tomato, (pepper and aubergine suffer from fewer problems and can be grown anywhere in the rotation).
Roots: Beetroot, carrot, celeriac, celery, Florence fennel, parsley, parsnip and all other root crops.
Move each section of the plot a step forward every year so that, for example, brassicas follow legumes, onions and roots, legumes, onions and roots follow potatoes and potatoes follow brassicas.
Here is a traditional three-year rotation plan where potatoes and brassicas are important crops:
Year one
Plot 1: Potatoes
Plot 2: Legumes, onions and roots
Plot 3: Brassicas
Year two
Plot 1: Legumes, onions and roots
Plot 2: Brassicas
Plot 3: Potatoes
Year three
Plot 1: Brassicas
Plot 2: Potatoes
Plot 3: Legumes, onions and roots
If you have the space you can practise a four-year rotation, this is when potatoes and brassicas are not as important, but more legumes (which take up a lot of space) and onion-type crops are required:
Year one
Plot 1: Legumes
Plot 2: Brassicas
Plot 3: Potatoes
Plot 4: Onions and roots
Year two
Plot 1: Brassicas
Plot 2: Potatoes
Plot 3: Onions and roots
Plot 4: Legumes
Year three
Plot 1: Potatoes
Plot 2: Onions and roots
Plot 3: Legumes
Plot 4: Brassicas
Year four
Plot 1: Onions and roots
Plot 2: Legumes
Plot 3: Brassicas
Plot 4: Potatoes
Plant of the Month: Garrya eliptica
Posted by editor on Friday, 13 January 2012
Garrya eliptica is more commonly known as the Silk Tassel Bush, an excellent evergreen shrub providing a long period of interest throughout the winter, and especially good for January colour. It has attractive leathery leaves and from November to February produces decorative silky tassel-like grey-green catkins measuring 20-25cm long, a wonderful sight on a cold winter’s morning.
Garrya should be grown in more sheltered sites, in a shrub border or against a wall, in full sun or partial shade – it will thrive in any soil. It is fully hardy, will tolerate pollution and is well suited to coastal conditions and may even tolerate temperatures as low as -10 c. Height and spread of 4m (12ft) x 4m (12ft)
It was named after Nicholas Garry, Secretary of the Hudson’s Bay Company who assisted David Douglas in his explorations of the Pacific North-West in the 1820s, and can be found growing naturally in woodland in western USA, Central America and the West Indies. The name eliptica means eliptic, referring to the shape of the leaves. There are 13 species in the genus, the females produce purple brown berries on separate plants from the male, but the male catkins are what make this plant so appealing.
Garrya elliptica ‘James Roof’ is a particular favourite – a lovely form with dark sea-green, slightly larger leaves and silver-grey catkins up to 20cm (8in) long.
Pruning, if needed, should be done in mid spring to remove shoots that spoil symmetry and dead or damaged growth. It can be susceptible to fungal leaf spot and also wind burn.
New Year Gardening Quiz: PART 3
Posted by editor on Sunday, 8 January 2012
Take part in our three-part Gardening Quiz and join us for FREE on our visit to the wonderful winter garden at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens on Saturday 11February OR on our day trip to Woolbeding Gardens at Midhurst, West Sussex on Friday 20 April – first entry received wins!
Introduce a new friend to The Garden House and they will receive a 10% discount on their first booking!
GARDENING QUIZ: PART 2
1.Araucaria araucana is better known as what?
- Tree of Heaven
- Dragon tree
- Monkey puzzle tree
2. ‘Iceberg’ is NOT a type of what?
- White arum
- Lettuce
- Rose
3. Camellias belong to which plant family?
- Heather
- Iris
- Apple
4. What is a cloche?
- A cover to protect plants
- A type of fruit
- A way of digging
5. Jasper Carrott could be linked to which of these vegetable varieties?
- ‘Chantenay Red Cored’
- “Webbs Wonder’
- ‘Gardener’s Delight’
6. What is the Latin name of the yellow winter jasmine?
- Jasminum nakediflorum
- Jasminum nudiflorum
- Jasminum bareiflorum
7. The traditional Christmas tree – Picea abies – is what type of conifer?
- Fir
- Pine
- Spruce
8. Why would you cover carrots with horticultural fleece?
- To keep them warm in winter
- To stop the being attacked by carrot root fly
- To hide them from view
INSTRUCTIONS:
Print off each of the four quiz parts, ring around the correct answer, add your name and address (of course!) – and post to Bridgette and Deborah at The Garden House, 5 Warleigh Road, Brighton BN1 4NT
Answers must be received by 25th JANUARY – and we’ll announce the winner by the end of January – best of luck!
New Year Gardening Quiz: PART 2
Posted by editor on Thursday, 5 January 2012
Take part in our three-part Gardening Quiz and join us for FREE on our visit to the wonderful winter garden at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens on Saturday 11February OR on our day trip to Woolbeding Gardens at Midhurst, West Sussex on Friday 20 April – first entry received wins!
Introduce a new friend to The Garden House and they will receive a 10% discount on their first booking!
GARDENING QUIZ: PART 2
1.How can you keep an area of soil weed free, without digging?
- Cut the tops off the weeds with scissors, to prevent them from seeding
- Cover the soil with a light-excluding mulch or mulch-fabric
- Ignore the weeds and they will eventually go away
2.When a gardener makes a ‘drill’ what is he/she making?
- A machine to make holes in the ground
- A shallow trench in which to sow seeds
- A loud noise to scare away birds
3.A ‘kumquat’ is a small Japanese variety of what sort of fruit?
- Citrus
- Plum
- Pineapple
4.Harry Wheatcroft was a renowned breeder of which type of plant?
- Fuchsias
- Begonias
- Roses
5.Name the evergreen hedging conifer that has created many a neighbourhood dispute?
- The British Leyland cedar
- The Leyland cypress
- The Lakeland cupressus
6.What is the Latin name for the Rowan tree?
- Sorbus
- Malus
- Prunus
7.On what would you use the spray containing the chemical ‘Glyphosate’?
- Persistent weeds
- Greenfly, blackfly and whitefly
- Black spot of roses
8.What is the popular name for the Antirrhinum?
- Snake-bark maple
- Snapdragon
- Dog’s tooth violet
9.Who or what is Muller-Thurgau?
- A botanist from Victorian Bavaria
- A variety of grape
- A summer pudding using raspberries and yoghurt
10.In garden design terms, what is a Ha-Ha?
- A ditch forming a boundary but not obscuring the view
- An area of the garden using mirrors or other illusions
- An arbour or other secluded seating area
INSTRUCTIONS:
Print off each of the four quiz parts, ring around the correct answer, add your name and address (of course!) – and post to Bridgette and Deborah at The Garden House, 5 Warleigh Road, Brighton BN1 4NT
Answers must be received by 25th JANUARY – and we’ll announce the winner by the end of January – best of luck!
New Year Gardening Quiz: PART 1
Posted by editor on Monday, 2 January 2012
Take part in our three-part Gardening Quiz and join us for FREE on our visit to the wonderful winter garden at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens on Saturday 11 February OR on our day trip to Woolbeding Gardens at Midhurst, West Sussex on Friday 20 April - first entry received wins!
Introduce a new friend to The Garden House and they will receive a 10% discount on their first booking!
GARDENING QUIZ: PART 1
1. The cranberry, so popular at Christmas, is botanically known as what?
- Needlium
- Injectium
- Vaccinium
2. What would a gardener do with a dibble or dibber?
- Scrape mud off spades and trowels
- Make holes in compost to transplant seedlings
- Grade soil particles according to size
3. What is meant by resistant vegetable variety?
- A variety that is resistant to attack from pests or diseases
- A variety that is not resistant to attack from pests and diseases
- A variety that doesn’t like being moved
4. The Royal Horticultural Society runs a large garden at Rosemoor. Which county is it in?
- Kent
- Devon
- Warwickshire
5. What general term is given to trees and shrubs whose leaves fall in autumn?
- Deciduous
- Evergreen
- Ambidextrous
6. What is the popular term for the flowering house plant Impatiens walleriana?
- Marguerite
- Black-eyed Susan
- Busy Lizzie
7. What is the name given to the technique of clipping trees and hedges into ornamental shapes?
- Topiary
- Bonsai
- Renewal pruning
8. Why do gardeners practice crop rotation?
- To grow bigger vegetables
- To make the garden appear organized and efficient
- To help prevent a build up of pests and diseases in the soil
9. Which part of a tree can be used to make cork?
- The bark
- Root tissue
- Pulped seeds
10. The love apple is the original name for what?
- Potato
- Tomato
- Quince
INSTRUCTIONS:
Print off each of the four quiz parts, ring around the correct answer, add your name and address (of course!) – and post to Bridgette and Deborah at The Garden House, 5 Warleigh Road, Brighton BN1 4NT
Answers must be received by 25th JANUARY – and we’ll announce the winner by the end of January – best of luck!