Red Hot Pokers

Looking over the fence at my neighbours Red Hot Pokers!

Poking around through the Fence

I don’t have the usual photograph in this week’s article with me in the foreground.  I generally like to get my face in the Inishowen Indo every week but today I have been pointing the camera lens in the opposite direction towards my neighbours garden.

I started off earlier looking at a space where Julie cleared of rubbish and old shrubs and wondering if there was enough room to create a forest garden. It’s a bit ambitious of me, but I was influenced by a documentary I watched earlier about someone who grows enough food to last a family of four for every one of his 6 acres. What made this even more impressive is that he claims to spend less than ten days a year managing the land. I spend more time than that getting my tools out of the garage.

I decided that 3 square metres wasn’t going to be enough to plant nut trees, fruit bushes, ground cover berries and have the perfect eco system, so my attention wandered over the fence to my neighbour’s grand display of flaming red hot pokers and montbretia or crocosmia as they are also known. 

Montbretia

The variety of montbretia they have is the ‘Lucifer’ and it is one of the brightest flowers on the market. We usually see the common orange types growing wild on the roadsides near farms or in the countryside where desperate gardeners have resorted to throwing them out of their car windows in a desperate attempt to get the invasive corms out of their herbaceous borders. They probably fail as leaving just one corm in the ground will soon spread and take over again.  The plants can look great if you have big borders and the flowers are good for cutting because they last a long time in water.  They have their place I suppose and do look very pretty in the sunshine but don’t take your eye off them.  

Red Hot Pokers

The red hot pokers growing in next doors garden are the tallest ones I have ever seen, maybe I should have stood next to them to give a bit of perspective, but I can tell you that they are taller than me and I am 6’, a bit less now as I seem to be shrinking with age, but you get the idea. 

Knipfolia, to give the red hot pokers their real name, or torch lily in America, are really easy to grow.  They can be grown from seed but the favoured method is by dividing up the rhizome (bulbous roots) in late autumn and setting the cut pieces into pots or a well drained spot in the garden.  They can be grown from seed as well but this is a lot slower and fiddly. If you do plant seeds from an existing plant after they have dried on the plant in autumn and put them in a frost free place to germinate in spring. 

Red hot pokers are really showy and this helps to attract a wide variety of insects throughout the summer.  Bees, butterflies and birds all gather around the rocket shaped flowers.  The plant is an ideal addition to dry spots in the garden that get full sun. You will see these plants thriving where others droop and wither in the heat.

Facebook Friends

Having amassed about 3000 friends on Facebook, I am always amazed at the high quality of images that I see every day of peoples gardens.  I’m not in the garden design business any more but if I was I would never be short of inspiration and ideas from people all over the world who have designed and built places of real beauty.  One a daily basis I look at images so varied from tiny details like putting glass marbles into holes in wooden fences to catch the sunlight to massive landscaping projects that take years to create.  One of my favourites at the moment is the giant wooden clothes peg, which is probably twenty feet high ‘nipping’ the ground where it is stood on grassland in a park.  The whole design looks so realistic and delicate although it would have taken a digger a few days to move the tonnes of soil to get the impression of the clothes peg pulling the ground up.

I know I can spend a little bit too much time on the computer in the evenings looking at other peoples creations but I find it truly rewarding and there’s a saying about how you are who you associate with. Hopefully the fabulous global design elements will rub off on me and I will come up with a perfect miniature forest garden at the back of the garage, take a photo of it and share it around the world and have people say “Why didn’t I think of that!”

Exciting new Market Stalls for Inishowen

 Just a small selection of the fresh vegetables from Harry’s market stall in Muff last week.

Bedding plants

It’s been a bit of a mixed bag for the bedding plants this year.  They had a bit of a tough time of it at the beginning of the season.  The plants we had in hanging baskets on the garage wall have not done too well, they appear to be scorched and starved of nutrients even though the roots haven’t filled the space inside the containers where the soil is.  My theory is that the constant rain has washed all of the nutrients out of the soils and left the plants just sitting in something that just holds the roots in place.  The window boxes on the other hand have done really well.  The only plants to get leggy are the pansies, but they do this at any time of the year regardless of them being summer/spring or winter varieties.  The good thing about pansies is they will give you plenty of flowers no matter what conditions are thrown at them, as long as they are deadheaded.

Going Crazy in the Garden

Things have gone crazy in our vegetable plot this week, so much so we can hardly get into it. It might be the great weather we have had or the fact that the copious amount of well rotted horse muck has kicked everything into action, courgettes are growing in front of our eyes, the lettuce is reaching for the skies and the slow to start broccoli leaves could be used as umbrellas. 

The manure might be a bit too much for the peas, the lush growth is extremely impressive but at the expense of the crop I fear.  We are not sure if they are peas or mange tout though as for the third year running we forgot to label them when they were planted into the ground, thinking that there was no way we would forget which ones are which.  The crop we are getting is all being eaten like mange tout and everything is being scoffed. I’ll let a couple of them mature enough and see which one produces the peas in a few days, but regardless of which ones they are they are still delicious.

One of the glorious things about this productive time of year in the vegetable patch is being able to keep things simple and not to rely on anything processed or tinned.   If you haven’t grown any vegetables this year then you might like to know about the new exciting venture from Harry’s Restaurant in Bridgend. By the end of this month Donal from Harry’s will have set up their own market stall at the restaurant selling all of their own home grown crops from their walled garden.

Harry’s Market Stall

Donal initially took the market stall out for a test run last week and set up in the Squealin’ Pig car park , Muff as part of the festival . Donal was amazed at the response.  "The stall went way better than expected" he tells me.  “Most customers came because they saw us advertising the stall on facebook and twitter and everyone was commenting on how hard it is to get proper vegetables.” Donal gave customers a taste of things to come “We just had to give people a taste of a proper season tomatoes and they were sold (they are as sweet as strawberries)!”

“We will definitely be doing it again. We are going to start a weekly vegetable and food market in Harry’s every Saturday morning. There will be an added bonus of a few other Inishowen producers coming along and selling quality produce too,” he tells me. “With the help of other local growers including An Grianan Farm and Whiteoaks we hope to offer year round local vegetables from the weekly stall.”

Donal also thinks that their own grown chemical free produce from their own walled garden is why the restaurant received the accolade of “The Best in Ireland” food award last year and has been nominated in the Food & Wine Magazine Awards.  Donal tells us more “The magazine announced that we are the ONLY Donegal (or Derry) Restaurant Nominated this year in any category! Our Head Chef Raymond Moran is up against the cream of Ulster in the "Best Chef" category and we are up for "Best Restaurant" in Ulster Category! We are also one of 10 shortlisted in the ALL-IRELAND "Best Casual Dining" category. "Growing our own food is the best thing we have ever done in the restaurant and has lifted the quality and flavour of all our dishes."

It’s taken a couple of years but the walled garden has reached the stage where the fresh herbs and vegetables not only supply the restaurant, they have a surplus to pass on to customers.  No additives, no chemicals, no refined sugar or added salt. Just fresh tasty food ranging from a great selection of salad crops to tomatoes, turnips, beetroot, scallions, cucumbers, courgettes, spinach and broad beans.  The stall will be open before the end of the month so check out their facebook and twitter pages to be kept up to date.  

Hydroponics on the windowsill

Growing plants in jars on the windowsill.

Making the most of Water

I have Chris, my hydroponic friend visiting me this week. Chris has spent a lot of time messing around with houseplant cuttings (she calls is studying) and finding out the best methods of growing new plants in jars of water.  Chris has found that a lot of plants will grow quite happily in a container on the windowsill.

“I visit loads of people who don’t do gardening or like getting their finger nails dirty, Chris tells me. “They will almost certainly have a busy lizzie or some other house plant sitting in a jam jar on the kitchen windowsill with some roots sticking out of the murky water.” She says. 

 I have done that myself and even killed a lot of bare rooted trees and herb plants by leaving them outside in buckets for too long.  “Certain plants do really well in water and having them inside in the warm promotes root growth.” Chris is telling me why my trees die in a bucket outside “In winter when the plants and trees are dormant they don’t take up water and there isn’t any drainage so the roots don’t get oxygen and rot.”  She continues.  “Cut flowers are always destined to rot too as these are dying from the moment you put them in the water.

Beneficial to health

Chris continues to tell me more about houseplants “Certain plants are really beneficial to your health, some plants purify the air and visually they can be very relaxing.”  Hydroponics is a great way to grow loads of different types of plants and you don’t have the problem or getting soil on the windowsills, you can even grow your old vegetable cutting like the top of carrots or celery. There are three things plants need, Water, Nutrients and something to hold the plant up! Normally this would be the job of the soil but in hydroponics for the home we can just use an old jar.”  Chris has done loads of ‘testing’ and found that slightly opaque colours work the best. “I’ve tried most types of empty beer bottles and I think the slight tan colour is the best for some reason, maybe it’s because I leave a bit of the beer in the bottom of the bottle!”  The narrow neck of beer bottles also helps to support the plants”

How it works

Chris tells me more about how hydroponics works. “The plants don’t really need soil, that’s just for holding the plants upright.  If you use well water or rainwater then this has all of the trace elements and oxygen in it for healthy root growth.  Try and avoid tap water as this is usually chlorinated and has been stripped of all of its goodness.”  Chris continues “Take cuttings of your favourite houseplants and herbs, do this in the same way that you would take any cutting by slicing through the stem just below a node, this is where the biggest concentration of rooting hormones is in a plant.  When you do take the cutting, ensure that all of the leaves have been removed from the stems that will be below the water level.  You can even transfer small plants that have been grown in soil into water, all that is needed is to clean the roots first.”

Chris also tells me about how to make the jar or bottle more decorative. “You can add all sorts of decoration into the container, small pebbles vermiculite, sand, gravel, pumice, wood fibre, but it’s all for decoration really.”  

Pesticide free

One of the things that attracts Chris to this way of growing is the fact that it eliminates the need for pesticides “Most pest and diseases come from the soil so thuis eliminates the problem. Also research has shown that growing plants in this method saves water as it can be regulated so there is no loss.  Some methods are used commercially for decorative and edible crops, some roots don’t sit in water, they are just dangling into containers that either have a very high humidity for the roots to absorb the moisture or the roots are sprayed with a fine water mist to ensure that they don’t rot. The methods are very imaginative and they work, some plants are even grown in sealed units and fed carbon dioxide. The crop yields can be far greater grown in this way and the idea is spreading around the world very quickly,”  Chris enthuses. 

Easy maintenance

In the home though it’s a bit more basic and all I would recommend is to change the water a few  times a year to stop too much algae growing, there shouldn’t be any small from the water so it only needs changing when about half of the water in the container has evaporated.” Chris tells me some of the best plants to grow in this way.  “There are some really easy to grow variety of houseplants such as the bussie lizzy, spider plants, ivy, bamboo, impatiens, begonias, summer bedding plants like petunias, the list is long, try experimenting with some of your favourites, you could even try perennials or shrub cuttings.  You could even grow most herbs too and harvest the leaves as they grow, but after a year they will either need planting in the garden or throwing onto the compost heap, but not before you have taken cuttings and started the whole process again.”

“This type of growing has been around since the 15^th century, Chris concludes, it’s increasing in popularity now and there is a lot of investment and scientific research ongoing to find the best methods of growing.  It has a lot of advantages but also a few disadvantages such as high energy use to construct the growing units on a commercial level.  Just before we sit down for tea, Chris concludes by saying “The rice fields in China have got it just about right!”

Spreading the Seeds

 Just one clay seed ball for a start, but soon there could be millions!

Our last guinea pig died a few weeks ago. It had a good life; well as good as it can get stuck in a cage and being stared at through the bars by a dog who appeared to be deeply in love with the little ball of fluff ( I think it was probably a meal she was looking for).  Just before it died we had bought a large bumper pack of guinea pig food from the pet shop and not wanting to waste any, Julie decided it would be a good idea to boil it up with the other left over vegetables and old meat and use it as dog food.  This has been done before on a small scale and I must say the resulting mush is the most disgusting thing I have ever taken off of the hob.  The flattened maize and corn are all right, they cook quite nicely. The seeds on the other hand, eugh!

 I’m not squeamish by any stretch of the imagination; I was changing cat litter trays this week for the neighbour’s cat after all.  The smell that came from the cooked guinea pig food was even worse than the litter tray.  I had to take drastic action, so the bag has mysteriously disappeared and the contents have been scattered far and wide around the undergrowth in the park. I used the same method as the men in the Escape from Colditz Film who  scattered the soil from the tunnels by concealing it in their pockets and letting it drop down their trouser legs as they walked around the yard, or park in my case.

Seed Dispersal

I realised that I was inadvertently doing a bit of natural seed dispersal. Seeds are very clever at making sure they have the best chance of survival. I remember as a child I would strip down rosehips and take out the fine hairs to use as itching powder, the seeds would just be thrown back into the undergrowth, job done.  I still pull off grass seed heads as I am walking, it’s a lovely feeling, then I will just let the seed float off and settle anywhere, sometimes they will stick to my clothes for days until they drop.  There are quite a few methods of seed dispersal that ensures the survival of the species.

Wind

Dandelions and sycamores are amongst the most successful at this method in our garden. Just one of each can cause havoc, not only to your garden but all of the neighbours too.

Bursting

Seeds in pods such as peas laburnum or gorse will throw their seeds out on dry sunny days. The seeds land just far enough away from each other to grow without too much competition

Shakers

Relying on the wind or an animal brushing against them, poppies have perfected the art of distributing their seeds like a pepper shaker.

Floaters

Coconuts have a hard outer shell which floats the seed downstream and lands it on a muddy bank ready for germination.

Hooking up

Cleavers, burdock and certain weeds have small Velcro like hooke on them that will latch onto sheep or any other passing animal such as a mouse, dog or us going out for a walk.

Just passing through

Our dogs have been a favourite for this method, especially when they have eaten the uncooked guinea pig food.  Blackberries, gooseberries raspberries are three types of sweetly coated seed that disperse themselves by passing though the internal workings of the body.

Splitting

Some seeds split out of their tough outer casings when they drop from the tree. The most well known one being the Horse chestnut (conkers)

Seed Balls

Apart from scattering the guinea pig food in the park I have also been making a few clay seed balls to experiment with.  This idea came from a book called “One Straw Revolution” by Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka. The book is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. Trained as a scientist, Fukuoka rejected both modern agribusiness and centuries of agricultural practice, deciding instead that the best forms of cultivation mirror nature’s own laws. Over the next three decades he perfected his so-called “do-nothing” technique: commonsense, sustainable practices that all but eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizer, tillage, and perhaps most significantly, wasteful effort. 

It still requires work though, lots of it and mainly menial, but that’s a good thing!  

The clay seed balls were made to encase rice and clover (which was planted with rice to act as a nitrogen fixer) these were then thrown onto the fields. The clay protects the seed from birds and ensures that they will only germinate when the wet weather comes.  The idea has been taken up by some groups who need to plant trees and grasses on very steep unreachable areas, and of course the guerrilla gardening movement have taken it onboard too.  The seeds don’t need any special treatments to make them viable, nature does it all. All we need to do is mix clay, compost and seed together.  It looks a bit like dark cat litter I am putting in the neighbour’s cat tray. Now there’s a gap in the market, maybe I could incorporate the two together.