Longan Fruit

 Longan and Lychee

We’ve finally got around to planting out the summer bedding and small cells of vegetables this week. 

Sweet peas, sunflowers, pansies, geraniums and fuchsias have all gone into pots for a bit of summer colour and the broccoli, courgettes and kale have gone into their growing positions. We still have a few places to plant up but the old broccoli plants from last year are still both producing tiny florets and the yellow flowers are a magnet for the local bee population. I’ve promised the spent plants to a horse owner in a couple of weeks when the flowers have died down which will save me having to chop them up to fit into the compost bin.  

It was a great idea to plant out the peas, beans, coriander, lettuce and chives straight into the garden as they are all thriving and haven’t been kept in check or neglected by being in small potting cells.  We might have lost one or two seeds to the mice and plants to the slugs and snails but you would never notice unless you were counting stems.

Longan Fruit

Hands up who has heard of a fruit called ‘Longans’?  Up until this week my hand would be flailing in the air too.  

A pack of them caught my attention in the local supermarket and although they have travelled all the way from Vietnam and not grown locally, I thought I would buy a pack to see what they were like. You can put your hands down now.

The longan tree is actually one of the better-known tropical members of the soapberry family (Sapindaceae), to which the lychee also belongs which has been a popular dessert for years in restaurants. 

Longan fruits are similar in structure to lychee but more aromatic in taste. It is native to Southern Asia. The translation from Cantonese literally means "dragon eye" which is so named because it resembles an eyeball when its fruit is shelled (the black seed shows through the translucent flesh like a pupil/iris). I tried not to let the fact it feels like you would expect an eyball to feel put me off trying them. Dried longan fruit are often used in Chinese cuisine and Chinese sweet dessert soups. In Chinese food therapy and herbal medicine, it is believed to have an effect on relaxation.

They go back a long time, its earliest record of existence draws back to the Han Dynasty in 200 BC and are now grown all over the world but I doubt they will do well in Ireland because of both the weather and labour needed to pick the fruit.  During harvest, pickers must climb ladders to carefully remove branches of fruit. It has been found that longan fruit remain fresher when still attached to the branch, so efforts are made to prevent the fruit from detaching too early. Mechanical picking would damage the delicate skin so the preferred method is to harvest by hand. Knives and scissors are the most commonly used tools.

Apart from being eaten fresh and raw, longan fruit is also often used in Asian soups, snacks, desserts, and sweet-and-sour foods, either fresh or dried, and sometimes preserved and canned in syrup. 

Folk medicine

Longan is commonly found in traditional Eastern folk medicine as opposed to modern Western medicine. In ancient Vietnamese medicine, the "eye" of the longan seed is pressed against snakebites to absorb the venom; this method was ineffective but it is still commonly used today.

Saving the Seeds

I decided to plant up the large seeds along with a few lychee seeds I have. It’ll be interesting to see if they germinate and grow under protection in the tunnel. I thought well drained, sandy soil would be ideal to replicate their natural conditions. I don’t think there’s much else to do to get them growing other than keeping the post watered. 

Carn Show 2017

The 105th Inishowen Agricultural Show in Carndonagh is all set for the 15^th of July. The last date for all entrants is this Saturday 17^th June so if you haven’t filled in the entry forms for your category it’s time to get the pen out.  It’s a few years ago since our dog won the “Best Large Dog” category but we still have the rosette.  There are loads of categories to enter ranging from Horses, Cattle, Sheep, Goats, Donkeys, Dogs, Butter, Eggs, Honey, Fruit, Vegetables, Flowers, Pot Plants, Cake Making and Scones. Homes Industries Exhibition, Photography, Amateur Painting, Carriage Driving and many more. Something for everyone!

The Thinking House - Monitoring your Garden Habits. Also a Cute Dolphin Succulent

Did you know there are approximately 1.3 million regular gardeners in Ireland?  We have an average age of 49 years and of which 63% are women. 

 

How do I know this? I hear you ask.  It’s because we are being watched, monitored and assessed by Bord Bia’s Insight Centre with the catchy title of “The Thinking House” 

Their latest state-of-the-art Consumer Research Centre was set up a while ago to find out just what we like and how much money we have in our pockets to spend on the garden in the kitchen and on other “lifestyle” products.  

Gardening in Ireland

The gardening aspect of it has been specifically set up to help garden centres and companies in the business to know their market and react accordingly, which stretches to exports too.

 'The Thinking House'  in their consumer research titled The “Gardening in  Ireland” summary report revealed the most popular types of gardeners have mature families or are in (as they affectionately say) the ‘twilight’ stage of their life, accounting for 44% of all gardeners. The report also broke down the gardeners by their activities:

• 83% Plant flowers and shrubs
• 74% Carry out lawn maintenance
• 66% Design & Place hanging baskets / window boxes
• 60% Sow or plant herbs
• 57% Carry out hardscaping, paving, and maintenance
• 52% Sow or plant vegetables / fruit
• 52% Plant hedging or trees

Planting flower and shrubs is the most regular activity of the Irish gardener. Designing and placing hanging and window boxes came in second with lawn care, and sowing or planting seed tied for third.

Gardener of the Future

The gardener of the future will be eco-aware and see anything that will maintain a “good looking” and “productive” garden with less effort as more appealing, said the report.

The gardener of the future will also have a compact style, but that is up to the trade world to provide them with the means to garden in compact spaces. A third of all pre-family life stages have “limited or no” gardening space to grow and 59% say that 59% say that if they could garden in a small space it would encourage them to garden more.

The gardener of the future will be connected and utilise online forums and support to curate ideas and develop solutions for their garden. The online retailing sector is still in its infancy according to the report but as technology usage amongst gardeners grows this market is set to expand.

57% of adults see their garden as another room for entertaining and 80% of adults with children see their garden as a playground, according to the report.

Bord Bia’s report provides retailers and trade professionals with a key insight into the current gardening industry and the future of the everyday gardener. With the online marketplace for gardeners expected to expand as connected gardeners do, the trade industry feel they are in a great position to capitalise on the findings. 

One thing that the report doesn’t seem to highlight though is most people now shop at pound shops or “Bargain” stores for their gardening products and plants. Garden centres, manufacturers and growers will need to be very competitive if they want some of our hard earned money which won’t be an easy task as the “Buy Cheap, Buy Twice” motto seems to be getting more common.

Cute Plants

We humanize animals and now plants are becoming anthropomorphised. There are a couple of succulents doing the rounds that have the cute factor. These quirky little plants have gone down a storm in Japan, a country where cuteness (or “kawaii”) is a prominent aspect of popular culture. One is called Monilaria obconica and looks like small bunny rabbit ears popping out of a tube when the leaves are young. 

Another cutie is called the Senecio peregrinus, this plant has a bunch of tiny leaves that look like little dolphins jumping in the air. Of course when I saw this plant I thought it could be another one of my “get rich quick” schemes and sell them on EBay but try as I might I couldn’t get a hold of any to propagate. 

It was only today when I was in the polytunnel that I realised I have had a couple of poor, neglected specimens of the plant for the last four years! Indeed, they do look like dolphins if you use your imagination at a particular angle, but it’s too little too late for selling as it’s take at least six months to produce offsets and by that time the fad will have passed. They are the Fidget Spinners of the gardening world.

Marvellous Mayflower

Thanks to Carol Gilroy from Tuar Ceatha Photography for the lovely images of Hawthorne flowers.

Driving down the country this week I couldn’t help but notice the fabulous display of Hawthorn (mayflower) Mile after mile of hedgerows that seemed to be covered in a snow white cover shimmering in the sunlight.  It wasn’t just me that noticed the display.  The following day a friend of mine posted a comment about this in a wildflower Facebook group and within hours had a stream of people across the country saying exactly the same thing.

I’m not sure if it’s anything to do with how hedgerows are cut (or not) this year or if it’s a climatic reason.  Mike Collard from the group thinks that it could be a winter without stress, and a kind spring, also we are seeing the result of the last 20 years of hawthorn hedge planting. He says that more hawthorn has been planted now than any time in the last 100 years, thanks to reps schemes.  All I do know is that it’s generating some lovely photographs such as the one pictured here from Carol Gilroy from Tuar Ceatha Photography based in Carndonagh here in Inishowen.

The spectacle has also inspired some very lovely descriptions.

Taragh Cosgrove says "Mayo is thriving with hawthorn; it's like someone poured cream over the tree tops!"

Kate Penn Limerick: Last time I saw it this prolific we had a nice summer so fingers crossed!!

Finola Finlay in Cork: For both hawthorn and cuckooflower.

Beryl Quayle: I was only saying yesterday it's the best year isle of man.

Gordonski Boxwellawich: Westmeath is absolutely unbelievable. I wasn't sure it was hawthorn at first. I had to double check. It's like some sort of outrageous Cherry blossom.

Anne Narkist: Lots of jam and wine later in the year, yaay!

Wasteland

I have noticed a growing amount of areas in built up areas being set aside for wildflowers and grasses. With austerity cuts to local council services our understanding of biodiversity has come at a good time as more and more grass verges remain uncut in the summer.  It can be a bit of a shock to people who are used to and love the closely manicured lawns and public spaces but when this type of twice yearly cutting is seen as a good thing for the environment we can see through the ‘untidiness’ of it all. 

Changing from a mono culture grass planting will allow the use of colour through wildflowers and bulbs to provide a changing splash of colour through spring, summer and autumn.  Closely mown grass along edges and paths, and cutting wide meandering pathways through the tall grasses as they do in our local park, improves aesthetic appeal and encourages people to wander in and out of the meadows. 

Tall grasslands and wildflowers may not always be appropriate and can be seen as unsightly and unattractive both before and after flowering. Others see tall grasses as a fire risk in much the same way that gorse can be; and others as a dog loo or a focal point for littering.

But there are benefits of tall grasslands that merit their wider consideration.

Biodiversity - while short grasslands attract birds and invertebrates of grassland and open habitation, tall grasslands will also tend to include nectar-rich plants, in turn attracting hoverflies, butterflies, moths and bees. The habitat will also be more likely to support small mammals and even reptiles.

Social benefit - tall grasslands are particularly attractive to young children, stimulating the imagination and natural play, educating with respect to insects and other invertebrates associated with the habitat, and introducing them to wild habitats. 

Economic sustainability - The management regime for tall grasslands and wildflower meadows is less intensive than for closely mown grasslands, so they can be a cost-effective alternative.

Even though some urban areas seem a bit untidy they have probably been well thought out and planned and been assisted by organizations such as the Conservation volunteers. There are many types of grassland: amenity grassland (lawns and recreational fields), grassland habitats, agricultural pasture, waste (grass) lands and common land. All have an importance, even the piece of waste ground full of plats such as coltsfoot and nettles will have more biodiversity than a manicured garden.

The maintenance of amenity grasslands is surprisingly high, forcing many local authorities and land-owners to seek cheaper management protocols or regimes (not burning though)!

 Allowing grassland habitats in urban settings for the provision of native or naturalised grasses and flowering plants offers several advantages such as plant diversity, insect and wildlife and education. One of my most memorable field trips at horticultural college was a trip to the local supermarket car park to see the planting schemes and impact it had on the environment. It doesn’t take much to keep me entertained.

Perennial Cornflower and Ground Elder - one of them you can eat...

I’ve noticed a distinct lack of colour in our garden this year, well other than green anyway. Every pot and free bit of space is being taken up by my obsession to grow more lawn chamomile. Containers that would normally be used for glorious annual bedding plants have now gone monotone. I’m sure it’ll be noticed very soon and a bit of colour will creep back into the garden when Julie takes a trip to the garden centre. 

There is an herbaceous plant managing to break the monotony, a small perennial cornflower (Centaurea Montana) . This feathery purple flowering plant arrived unannounced a few years ago and is managing to pop up in various places. 

Perennial Cornflower

Centaurea montana is a variable but attractive plant native to the mountain meadows and woodlands of continental Europe, so it’s an ideal addition to our gardens. It grows best in a moisture-retentive soil in sun or partial shade. It's perfect for growing in sunny borders and gravel gardens. It's easy-to-grow, bearing clumps of mid-green leaves that perfectly complement its summer flowers.

Most flowers have a meaning behind them. Take the red carnation, this symbolizes an aching heart or admiration, jasmine says sweet love, geranium says true love, yellow rose means jealousy and so on. In the case of the perennial cornflower though it was used as a secret symbol by members of the Nazi party in Austria and was the German Kaiser Wilhelm's favourite flower. Who would have thought gardening and growing flowers was so political, although there was the War of the Roses that lasted over thirty years.

Ground Elder

Every year around this time I am reminded that there is ground elder in the garden. It tends to hide behind the polytunnel and occasionally pops inside the tunnel to say hello via its long spreading roots coming in from under the plastic. I tolerate the plant, mainly because like a lot of things, we can eat it. 

Also known as goutweed, ground elder is one of the first abundant edible greens that appear in spring time, together with cow parsley and nettles. It has a long history of being used as medicine-food. It was cultivated as food crop in the middle ages (probably before that too) The plant grows strongly in harsh conditions and can become a real problem in the garden if not kept under supervision as it’ll survive most attempts to clear it altogether. 

When you decide to nibble on a bit, the young tender leaves are preferred, before the plant is in flower. The flowering point can be postponed however by harvesting the top of the plants regularly. When the leaves are a bit more mature they can get a less appealing taste and they may act as laxative. They can be prepared as spinach, in stews, soups, sandwich and pies. Just a word of caution though (apart from the usual disclaimers about checking for allergies etc) is to only nibble on the young fresh leaves from a place you know the dog hasn’t been. It can make the taste that little more bitter.

Progress in the garden

My vegetable seedlings are shooting up now. I’ve planted out three large rows of pick and come again lettuce, along with some rocket for that savoury addition to a salad. The coriander and spinach has come up, I planted those straight into the garden along with the peas and beans which are now attaching themselves to the bamboo poles I put up for them.  The courgettes will be planted very soon too if I can find a space in between my clumps of chamomile (I’m selling them one-bay now to reduce my collection- or you could pop in and collect a few if you are passing)

Secret

I was also told of a place here in Inishowen where we can get free mushroom compost by the car load as long as we shovel it ourselves. I got thirty large coal bags full the other week and I’ll let them heat up over early summer and then use it as mulch around the mature plants later in the season as it’d be a bit strong year to put near younger ones. Some of the bags have been emptied straight into the compost bins to keep the worms happy.  

Where do you get this fabulous spent mushroom compost?  I hear you ask. If you go past the Rock Bar out of Muff, you’ll see a small sign on the right saying “mushroom farm” That’s inishowen mushrooms, Drumhaggart,Muff. See you there!