Innehållsförteckning för December 2023 från Kitchen Garden

WISE WORDS “Gardening is learning, learning, learning. That’s the fun of it. You’re always learning.” (Helen Mirren, actress) “Have you viewed us on YouTube yet?” COMPOST, CHILLIES AND CLEAN UP Steve’s compost bins are full and to make space for all those autumn prunings he is using any finished compost around his veg plot and in the polytunnel to reinvigorate soil where hungry tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers cropped through the summer. Hopefully this will also help to keep some moisture in the protected soil, which otherwise becomes very dry over winter. For Tony, December is all about clean up and clear out. First stop is the greenhouse which – I’ll tell you no lie – looks like a scene from a disaster movie. The whole greenhouse needs to be emptied…

MYSTERY BEAST I am fairly new to this growing veg lark. I did try having a go with an allotment about 10 years ago but it was an utter failure so gave up. Moving to a new house, I’m determined to succeed so have had a polytunnel built. By the time it was finished, it was quite late in the season but I’ve given it a crack and had some good vegetables out of it so far But my best success this year is this beast. I noticed a plant growing on the bank so left it to see what would happen… and it just kept on growing and growing! You can see how big it has grown – about 15 x 5’ 6” – and at one point, I…

CHRISTMAS DINNER As the days grow shorter and the air turns crisper, the countdown to Christmas begins. For many of us, this festive season is synonymous with cherished traditions and indulgent feasts shared with loved ones. Imagine elevating your Christmas dinner to a whole new level by growing a substantial portion of it in your own garden. From the delectable Christmas potatoes to the sweet parsnips and delicious Brussels sprouts, we’re about to embark on a journey that will show you how to grow your very own home-grown Christmas dinner, complete with cranberries and even mistletoe (but that’snot to be eaten!). THE PERFECT POTATOES No Christmas dinner is complete without a generous serving of potatoes, and growing your own Christmas potatoes is a rewarding and surprisingly straightforward endeavour. Always opt…

NEW VARIETIES One of the stars of the greenhouse, peppers are full of colour and flavour and come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Whether it’s something sweet to add to salads, stir-fries, pizzas and a whole range of international cuisine, or something to give your dishes a spicy kick, peppers are a must! So let’stake a quick tour of some of the new varieties to whet your appetite. CHILL WITH CHILLIES TEARDROPS 'RAGING BULL F1’: A cross between a 'Biquinho’ and a 'Habanero’, 'Raging Bull F1’ is a prolific cropper. It produces teardrop-shaped fruits which are sweet and fruity but with a Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) rating of 100,000 on the Scoville scale, it has a spicy hot kick. Six seeds for £3.99. Suttons AN’ ALL THAT JAZZ…

WINTER FRUIT CARE GET GROWING What’s worse than finding a maggot in your apple? Answer – finding half a maggot! Dad jokes aside, it is so disappointing to wait all summer and watch your fruit ripen, only to find them inedible when you bite into them. Codling moth (and the related plum maggot moth, which affects plums and gages) can be a serious pest, but the good news is that there are some easy ways to combat them. The female codling moth lays her eggs in late spring, and when hatched the larvae burrow into the fruitlets in May and June. There is quite a short window of opportunity to spray any contact insecticide before the caterpillars are hidden away inside the fruit, so ideally we need some sort of warning…

GROWING ON A BUDGET As the weather got weirder and weirder this year, how many times have we said: “Ah well, there’s always next year...”? Audrey Hepburn said: “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow,” and we gardeners are generally an optimistic lot, rising to the challenges of wild weather, ravenous garden pests and several different seasons in one day. One thing we can be sure of is that we cannot know what the weather will have in store for us in 2024! Here in Wales, the summer of 2023 was something of a washout: a lot of rain (even for Wales!), high winds and giant hungry slugs. Other parts of the UK endured weeks of drought and high temperatures. I think we can all agree that it…

ALLOTMENT LIFE GET GROWING One of the advantages of wintry days and long nights is the opportunity it gives us gardeners to do something that we rarely have time for during the mad throes of the growing season – and that is to dream! How many of us have snuggled up by the fire and started poring over seed catalogues, well-thumbed books and favourite gardening magazines with pictures of next year’s garden dancing through our minds? It will be better than the previous year, there will be no pests or diseases and the weather will do exactly as it’s told. And so it was that last year’s dream started to unfold. The structure of the allotment itself was now pretty much finished and so my attention started to focus on one…

HOME-GROWN GET GROWING For the first time since modern health care began, the average life expectancy in the UK has gone down. Despite what the papers will tell you, this started happening before the Covid-19 pandemic. Numbers of chronic diseases have gone up, and the biggest killers in the UK are all linked to dietary deficiencies – a lot of which are caused by not enough micronutrients and plant chemicals called phytochemicals used in almost all of our bodily functions. Over the past 100 years, agriculture has gone down the road of producing more and using more inputs. There is such a struggle to balance the books that subsidies and producing more have become the only choice for many farmers. Intensive farming has degraded our soils to the point of (almost)…

WORTH OVER £946 GIVE THE GIFT OF POTTING AND PLANTING! With impressive credentials gained from more than 260 years’ experience of designing and manufacturing high-quality garden hand tools, you can be sure that when you choose a Spear & Jackson gift, you’ll be giving your loved one tools they can trust. Fifteen lucky readers are set to win a Spear & Jackson Neverbend Stainless Weed Fork, Trowel and Transplanting Trowel Set (RRP £40.49), comprising three potting and planting essentials for the garden and greenhouse. Each tool in this set has a mirror-polished stainless steel head for low soil adhesion, making it easy to clean and resistant to rust. The handles are made from weatherproofed hardwood, and are tanged to give a stronger connection with the head. A stainless steel ferrule…

LAST WORD MEET THE HOLLOWAYS John and his wife Elaine have been tending their own allotment for 16 years. On retirement as a careers adviser, then a freelance writer, John moved to a Derbyshire village and rented his allotment. The couple grow more than 30 different fruits and vegetables for the kitchen table with a fair measure of self-sufficiency. John finds great pleasure on the allotment, one of 10 close to the centre of the village; it’s a heady mix of being outdoors, working the land and sharing the banter and camaraderie with fellow allotmenteers. As you might expect December is pretty much a slow time on the allotment. Short days, lengthening nights and often miserable weather as the ground hunkers down to a semi-dormant state. There’s a nip in…

JOBS FOR THE MONTH CLEAN THE GREENHOUSE With the last vestiges of summer crops cleared away and the spring sowing season yet to commence, now’s a good chance to give the greenhouse a thorough clean. Choose a mild day. Start by moving everything out of the greenhouse to strip it back to its bare bones. With everything cleared you can begin, starting with the glazing. Use soapy water to loosen the dirt and scrub it clean. Wash both inside and out. Use a plastic label or old credit card to scrape away the dirt in between the panes and frame. If necessary, repair any damage. Sweep away old debris and dirt and thoroughly clean staging. If you have gutters, use a gloved hand to scoop up and remove any leaves,…

JOIN THE COMPOST REVOLUTION A new movement of diverse organisations, including the National Trust and the RHS, has launched a manifesto calling for an urgent 'compost revolution’ to increase the proportion of households composting at home from 33% to 50% and to decrease levels of contamination in garden and food waste bins. Enrich the Earth has been brought together by environmental innovator Sizzle. Founder of Sizzle, Trewin Restorick, said: “According to the 2021 Census, almost nine in 10 people have access to a garden in the UK but our polling suggests only a third of us make our own compost, so we believe there is a huge opportunity here. “We’re especially keen for 'reluctant’ composters to have a go for the first time – it’s surprisingly easy, you get nutrient-rich…

PLOTTER OF THE MONTH Jez wanted to see if it was possible to have a veg garden at his military quarters. He has found it a great experience and has helped him wind down from his stressful job. And not content with just finding peace on his own plot, he now passes this on by volunteering at a veg garden run to help military personnel recover from injury and sickness. Have you an allotment or a veg patch in your garden? I have had a small veg patch in military married quarters since 2022. This is my first-year selftaught, mostly from reading KG and the online forums. It was started out of curiosity as to whether I could establish a productive veg patch in military accommodation that we would only…

CREATURE FEATURE It’s a fact of life: every living thing will, one day, pass on, and soon afterwards pass through a worm’s gizzard. Worms and other detritivores (including woodlice, millipedes and some species of slug) power the renewal of the natural world – dead things are broken down and converted into nutrient-rich matter which, in turn, fuels the growth of the living. As gardeners, we have special access to this process – when you run your fingers through the soft crumb of fresh leafmould or smell the sweet earthiness of ripe compost, you’re coming into contact with the essential work of earthworms. There are around 30 species of earthworm in the British Isles – 'earthworm’ being a common name for segmented worms from various taxonomic families, all of which live…

GET GROWING ORGANIC MYTHS BUSTED Gardening knowledge is dispersed in all manner of ways: through friends and family, between allotment plots and more recently through gardening groups on social media. It’s great that knowledge can be shared so widely and quickly – but this can come with a sting in its tail. Spurious findings and dubious conclusions can be propagated rapidly and then they soon become accepted as facts by virtue of being repeated so many times. A lot of knowledge is generated through gardeners experimenting and trying things out in the garden, but our judgments are not always objective: sometimes we like to conclude that some practice really had an effect because we believe in it. Garden Organic (or the Henry Doubleday Research Association as it was then) was set…

CUTTING CLASS Sharpen up your act with Niwaki’s superb range of quality Japanese cutting tools. The Yamakawa special-edition secateurs have ergonomic handles for great grip, and spring cushioning to enable repetitive use. They are hand-forged in the mountains of Yamagata from YCS carbon steel, which holds its edge well, sharpens up nicely, and is proof against the daily rigours of pruning. They come in a canvas pouch for storage. Price: £239 www.niwaki.com Tel: 01747 445059 SUBSCRIBER SAVING: Get a free pair of Sentei Garden Scissors, worth £32, when you place an order over £100, until December 31, 2023 FROG AND TOAD ABODE New to this year’s RSPB Christmas gift range, the Frogilo provides the perfect home for frogs, toads and even newts. Handmade in frost-resistant ceramic with a green decorative glaze…