Broccoli Roses and Shallots

 Flowering broccoli late or early?

I’m a bit confused about broccoli. I know there are varying types that produce flower heads in summer, autumn and spring. It’s just that this year I’ve got things completely wrong. 

I bought a purple sprouting type that I thought would give us a nice crop in early spring. It turns out these are a summer cropper. The ones I wanted were an “Early” variety. It turns out that early ones are the type that produce early next year, not early from the time they are sown. 

I’ve confused myself again (and probably you) but it gets even more confusing when you take bolting into consideration regardless of the flowering type. You can have early varieties that produce at this time of year because the soil is too hot and the plant gets stressed. 

The sunshine isn’t the issue it’s the hot soil that makes the plant think there’s no point in growing anymore and needs to throw out some seeds. I think if I mulched the base of the plants to keep the soil cool and kept them better watered in the dry spell I wouldn’t be adding the florets to every meal now trying to use them up. 

An excellent way to prevent broccoli flowers is to harvest early and frequently. Broccoli is a cut and come again vegetable, when you cut the main head, other smaller heads will grow. The side heads will take a little longer to bolt so I’ll be munching on them for a while yet if I’m lucky. 

Shallots

Talking of being confused. I have grown shallots for the first time this year and was a bit unsure when to harvest them. It turns out they are more or less treated the same way as onions. Shallots and onions are of the same family and share many characteristics. Shallot bulbs are smaller and, once grown, tend to have a milder flavour than onions. The main difference in the garden is that shallots form clumps of bulbs, whereas onions grow as individual bulbs. Regardless of this, they’re planted and grown in exactly the same way.  Onion and shallot sets are sold, like broccoli as spring or autumn planting varieties. 

I picked the green leaves to put in stir fries and curries earlier in the season until the leaves started to turn a bit yellow. I then pulled up the shallots and put them on a sunny shelf in the shed to dry off.

They came up really easily on a dry day and it was as though they were pushing themselves out of the ground. They should last for several months.

Black spot on Roses

I’ve had a few people tell me their roses have black spot this year. Black spot, curse of the rose garden, has been flourishing countrywide ever since sulphur pollution from smoky chimneys was reduced. The disease annually strips roses of their leaves. Spores from fallen leaves infect the soil and even if every infected leaf is picked off and burned, which is impossible, the cycle continues because more spores blow in on the wind.

Who would have thought that clean air would cause a problem in the garden?  One treatment seems to be to give the roses back their sulphur, which thankfully doesn’t mean introducing heavy industry into Inishowen as there are other ways to get sulphur to the plants.  Sulphur is not soluble, so you cannot spray it, and if you dump the stuff on the ground, it won’t break down. There is a soluble sulphur dioxide you can get and if you overlook the fact it is a by-product of the oil industry you can put the wettable mixture on your plant or add granules to the soil. This is said to actually prevent the black spot from forming compared to the commercial rose sprays, which aim to cure the problem only after it has arrived. You can live with the issue though, or like me, choose not to grow roses but appreciate them on other people’s gardens or parks.

Prevention

There are a few things you can do to minimise the issue without sulphur.

Mulching and keeping the plants healthy is the top of the list I think. Strong healthy plants will generally resist attack better those that are weak.  Regular raking around the plant with a hoe and good mulch will cover infected leaves if you can’t be bothered to lift and burn them.

Choose resistant varieties, but don't rely too heavily on resistance because there are many species of fungus and even new varieties can quickly succumb.

Slug Pellet Ban-Male Courgette Flowers-Springtails.

 Tiny springtails under the microscope

The days of using general slug pellets are nearly over. An announcement from DEFRA has banned metaldehyde slug pellets from Spring 2020.  They say "metaldehyde poses an unacceptable risk to birds and mammals."  The pellets being taken off the shelves contain metaldehyde or methiocarb. Don’t worry though, you won’t be needing to get the flashlight out to go into the garden at midnight on a slug hunt. There will be alternatives that claim to be less toxic to the environment. Some shops are stocking the new products now.

The new pellets are ferric phosphate based and are classified as suitable for use by the organic grower. They contain ferric phosphate or iron III phosphate, which affects the calcium metabolism in the gut system of snails and slugs causing them to stop feeding and die within three to six days.

Although the ferric phosphate is less toxic than metaldehyde, there remains the problem of the other ingredients in the tablets - known as chelators. These chemicals help bond the iron molecules and make them more toxic to the molluscs. Unfortunately they also affect earthworms, and, if consumed in large quantities, can poison pets.

There are other products coming to market such as the wool pellets but I have yet to see or hear anything positive about them. The compressed wool deters the slugs only until it gets wet, then the slugs crawl all over them so they are probably more effective in drier climates. They do work better than eggshells or coffee grounds though but at the moment are very expensive. Back to pellets then.

Courgettes

Our corgettes are finally doing something. For weeks now they have just sat there looking sorry for themselves but now have sprung into life with wild, reckless abandon. I think they have been using all of their energy to form roots ready for the growth spurt.  We did have a couple of male flowers initially which don’t produce the courgette and these probably come about to help pollinate the female flowers and entice insects such as bees who will return to the plants once the female flowers are produced.

You can make use of some of these male flowers by deep-frying them, though make sure you leave enough on the plant to ensure successful pollination. You'll know when your plants have started to produce female flowers, because female flowers have an immature courgette fruit behind them, while the male flowers are produced on long, thin stalks with no such swelling.

Courgette Tip

The trick to avoiding a glut of courgettes is to pick them while they are still small - anything up to about 20cm (8in) - and to pick them regularly. Picking and eating some of the male flowers will also help to slow production.

Springtails

The damp conditions have been a perfect breeding ground for springtails. You might have never seen one of these six legged creatures because they are only a couple of millimetres in size.

Springtails (Collembola) can be prolific with 100,000 reputed to live in each cubic metre of top soil. Most have a tail-like appendage folded up under their abdomen called a furcula which is held under tension. If they feel threatened it can be released to catapult them into the air to escape. They don’t seem to care where they spring to when disturbed and can spring anywhere.

They live in soil and in leaf litter where they eat mainly decaying plant material, fungi and bacteria. Some species are believed to feed on algae, pollen and insect faeces.

I have found the small creatures (that are not classified as insects but ‘Entognatha’) mainly in small plug cells where moisture and algae can sit making them perfect environments for them. When I repot or pack plant plugs I give them a few sharp taps on a hard surface and the springtails fall out and scuttle away.

When numbers reach outbreak levels springtails may be found indoors on floors and around windows. Ponds are occasionally covered with a fine scum made up of millions of tiny springtails floating on the water surface.

Control

Springtails aren’t usually an issue but they can take over your houseplant soil if it is wet and they do make you feel like scratching when you see them. They usually die off quickly when the soil dries out without the need for any chemicals.

Gunnera

Have you have ever come across a mature gunnera plant? 

If you have I’m sure it’s something you’ll never forget. From a distance they just look like a clump of rhubarb leaves, but get closer and this herbaceous perennial just seem to grow and grow. Reports of 3 metre high leaves with a 2m leaf span are regularly documented. 

It is one of those architectural plants, like the giant hogweed, whose scale astounded Europeans and made it the must-have ornamental/ edible plant for 19th century horticultural fashionistas and collectors. In Ireland, Kylemore Abbey (Co Galway) and Ilnacullin (Co Cork) planted them up. They were more recently introduced into the Irish gardens but then this triffid-like plant has escaped and naturalised along swathes of Irish coastline as well as along riverbeds, coastal cliffs and forest margins.

The biggest problems are now in particular on Achill Island and in Counties Mayo and Galway where they are classed as an invasive weed

There are two main types of large gunnera. There’s the manicata variety that isn’t invasive and sold in garden centres then there’s the tinctoria which gives us the problems. There are loads of others too down to tiny 10cm high groundcover called monoica but are overshadowed (groan) by their larger cousins.

Gunnera tinctoria produces a large cone-shaped flower head from spring to early summer, with small flowers. The fruit is orange. It is a deciduous plant whose leaves die back in autumn (October) commonly leaving the large brown rhizomes exposed. The flower clusters on the stems occurs early in the spring, with the fruits maturing in late summer/early autumn. Large numbers (up to 250 000 seeds per mature plant) of drupe like, red or orange seeds are produced. Small fragments of the rhizome have the potential to establish new plants.

Growth starts in early spring (March) It can reproduce by both sexual (seed) and asexual (vegetative) means.

Problems caused by Gunnera tinctoria

Due to Gunnera’s wide leaf span, large dense cover can have a dramatic impact on the local biodiversity by light exclusion. On rivers it causes erosion to banks, exposing them to fast running water after die-back in winter. When the plant dies back its dead leaves fall into watercourses and can block drains and watercourses, resulting in flooding. It can also alter the visual aspect of once beautiful landscape vistas, by rapidly colonising large tracts of fallow ground.

While Gunnera has become a major problem in the west of Ireland, INVAS Biosecurity believes in its mission statement of providing the “first line of defence”, and that preventative eradication programs should be put in place now by those stakeholders whose responsibility it is to protect our environment. This would be extremely cost effective both in the short-term, and save millions in the long-term. 

INVAS

Invas Biosecurity, a private company in Dublin are among a growing number of companies that want to control invasive species in the countryside. They can carry out baseline distribution surveys, risk assessments and develop comprehensive management plans, which include spraying, Rhizome injection, Cut and paint herbicide injections in much the same way Japanese Knotweed is controlled. Biodiversity Ireland would also like you to report any sightings of the plant if you see them in the countryside (not in your neighbours garden I don’t think).

Care for gunnera in your garden

Larger gardens can showcase the gunnera manicata and keep it under control without issues. One thing that stops the plant in its tracks are temperatures lower than -8°C, so a good hard frost will kill them off unless they are well wrapped up with dead leaves. If you have a smaller variety in the garden you will probably cover the crowns with dry mulch. The leaves of larger varieties could be cut off after the first hard frost. Inverted, the leaves provide excellent coverage for the resting crowns.

Another method to help keep out moisture is to remove leaves after the frost, cover the crown with  60cm of straw, cover with a burlap tarp, or large plastic container, such as a tub, and then add another 60cm of straw. Seasoned wood chips or sawdust will work even better. After all danger of a hard freeze is gone, in late March or early April, protection can be removed. 

Just to say again, it’s reckoned that G. manicata – the Chilean one – doesn't share its Brazilian cousin's invasive nature. So perhaps this should be your preferred Gunnera should you have the time and space to grow one.

Shoo Fly

There are many types of flies around at this time of year.  A few do a bit of pollinating but most of them are just a nuisance.

The two types we see more often are houseflies and bluebottles, which love to be around humans. You’ve probably got one flying overhead right now or bashing its head against the window. Although similar in many ways, there are some differences between a housefly and bluebottle, which may be important when it comes to dealing with the problems they cause.

Humans have pretty much sought to keep houseflies out of their lives as long as they've had houses for them to fly into. Even before advances in science allowed them to understand the risk of infectious disease, many people saw the fly as a harbinger of sickness and death. Some ancient civilizations made regular sacrifices to their respective fly gods to keep the swarms out of their homes and temples; we generally just get out the rolled newspaper. 

Houseflies lay their eggs in moist, decaying matter especially household waste, manure or compost – unlike bluebottles which exclusively lay on dead animal bodies, meat or cheese. 

Under ideal conditions the whole lifecycle – from egg to maggot to adult – can take place in less than a fortnight. As adults, houseflies can fly distances of five miles or more, so they have little difficulty travelling from these breeding sites, entering your home and landing on the cheese sandwich you have just made. Houseflies stay more local and don’t go more than a few hundred yards in their 10-20 days of life.

Houseflies have a series of stripes along their mid-section, while bluebottles are a distinctive metallic blue. The larvae are almost indistinguishable except for size, the full-grown bluebottle maggot being larger but it’s hard to compare really.

Houseflies are the flies with the erratic flight patterns, usually around lampshades. Both houseflies and bluebottles can seemingly come in the house though the smallest of cracks (But can’t get back out of them)

If you have a lot in the house with the windows closed, you might have something dead under the floorboards. 

It’s not all bad

You would think their only purpose was to wind us up and spread disease (there are a lot) but they do have a use in the food chain, they fulfil an important environmental role as scavengers. As houseflies and their larvae feed, they consume nutrients in rotting organic matter. They leave behind picked-over remains that other organisms, bacteria and enzymes can further break down.

Bluebottle maggots are sometimes used to clean wounds. These larvae were reared at a Chinese housefly farm, where experts believe they may be used to develop cancer medication.

Flies and their larvae are also an important food source for a large number of predators. Housefly pupae contain large amounts of protein and are thus especially beneficial to the various birds, reptiles, and insects that prey on them. You can even purchase frozen or freeze-dried housefly pupae to feed pet spiders. It’s still not enough to stop getting the swatter out though. 

Dealing with Fly Problems

My mother used to keep everything closed in the house when the flies were around. They still got in as people came through the door. I’ve compiled a few tips here and I can say with confidence that none of them really work for long.  

Cover your food and keep the kitchen tidy. Good hygiene and a few sensible precautions, such as frequent cleaning of the kitchen drains, disposing of scraps carefully and keeping waste and compost in secure bins, form the best approach to controlling fly problems in the long term.

There are some high tech methods you can use. UV fly zappers work well and larger buildings have air barriers where the constant flow of air outwards buffers the flies so they don’t come in.

The simplest example of this would be killing flies with a swatter. You can get electrical one with a small charge in them and look like a tennis racket. 

 Fly paper is something I tried to use in my polytunnel one year but I kept getting entangled in the sticky tape. You can use them around the rim of a hat which might work. 

The team of gardeners at Glenveigh walk around with tins of smouldering turf on them which is fine outdoors but not so practical in the house. You can get sprays but you’ll need to check if they are safe to use in the kitchen.

Maybe try natural methods.  There are plants and essential oils you can put near windows and doors. Ginger, basil, pepper, eucalyptus, geranium, tea tree even catnip lemon and cider vinegar are all said to work for a while.

If all else fails, get the vacuum out,

Plants that Move

 My 'Little Tree Plant'

Plants are moving all the time. Most move so slowly that we can’t see it, unless the wind is blowing or we brush past them. 

Many plants also have leaves that move on their own. Leaves will turn to face the direction of the sun, which is a slow gradual process. Some plants move for different reasons like distracting animals that might want a nibble.

A lot plants have leaves that curl up or roll down under stressful conditions like drought or cold, but recover afterwards. Hardy rhododendrons lose most of their moisture and both curl and hang limply all winter, yet recover fully when spring returns. It’s thought this habit helps keep frost crystals from forming and damaging leaf cells.

I had a prayer plant (maranta) which used to fold its leaves up at night, which I found fascinating. This effect is something called nyctinasty which is common in some plant families, such as the legume and oxalis family. Even the clover in your lawn does the same thing.

The movement is caused by a hinge-like structure at the base of the leaf or leaflet called the pulvinus that is filled with water during the day, but drains at night, so that the resulting lack of turgor (pressure in the cells) causes the leaf to fold.

Reacting to Touch

This brings me to my latest shopping purchase. I have bought two types of plants that have moving leaves, but this time, when they are touched their leaves fold up and collapse. I have bought some Mimosa pudica seeds to grow on and three ‘Little Tree plants’ (Biophytum sensitivum)

The phenomenon of plants that react to touch is known as thigmonasty or seismonasty, and occurs when something touches or shakes the leaf. And some will also react when you hold a match up to them. This is usually rapid and is certainly visible. 

Touch Me Not

The Mimosa pudica is a legume and also known as sleepy plant, touch-me-not or shy plant. They are short-lived houseplants and can be a weed in tropical countries where they originated. A light touch causes a single leaflet of the leaf to fold inward, a firmer touch will lead to the whole leaf drooping and shaking the plant will cause all its leaves to collapse. If you run a finger down the leaf, the leaflets will close like dominoes. They are easy to grow from seed so I’m having a go myself.

Little Tree Plant

Less well known is the little tree plant (Biophytum sensitivum), a small herbaceous houseplant that looks like a tiny palm tree and is sometimes used as a tree substitute in terrariums and fairy gardens. It is modestly touch sensitive, but its leaves move all on their own much of the time, albeit quite slowly. I couldn’t find the seeds so ended up buying three plants from an orchid grower in the Netherlands.

The plant originates from India and South Africa, where it can be found growing in wet, boggy soils near streams and waterfalls, where it is shaded by taller trees and shrubs. I thought it would live quite happily in the bathroom. The plant seeds are over a Euro each to buy so I will be collecting my own from these mature plants. The star shaped pods formed after flowering explode and can scatter the seed over a metre so I will need to either cover the plant with a fine mesh (think sandwich cover on a picnic) or encase the pods in plastic bags to collect the seed, there are a lot of flowers on the plant so even if I have to get the dustpan and brush out I’ll be sure of getting some to grow on.

The leaves of the little tree plant fold downwards and the stems rise at night. It’s said the plants produce many healing compounds and are widely used in Indian, traditional and Western medicine. They are usually grown as annuals.

Insectivorous plants

The other group that includes plants sensitive to touch are carnivorous plants or, more correctly, insectivorous plants.

The best known of these is the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), often offered as a houseplant, although rarely very long-lived in the average home environment. I’ve tried to grow these before but find they rot easily. It might be the house conditions or the fact that I keep prodding the fine hairs in the trap with a pencil to see it closes up. 

My resurrection fern (Pleopeltis polypodioides) is the hardiest sensitive plant I ever owned. It survived without a drop of water all scrunched up for years in a drawer, I watered the apparently dead fronds and they became completely green and opened up within a day after a good soaking.