Pickling Vegetables

Dill pickles go well with a cheese sarnie

January and February are seen to be the favourite time for us gardeners to browse the seed catalogues for this year’s crops. There is something very satisfying looking at the pretty pictures of healthy vegetables, then ordering far too many varieties to be able to grow without totally ignoring the spacing recommendations. Or is that just me?

There is an element of wishful thinking and forward planning though when ordering seeds and what better time to think about ordering a few vegetables that you will be able to use for pickling so you can enjoy the fruits of your labour all year around from the convenience of a glass jar. So not only could you look for particular pickle friendly varieties of your favourite veg, you can also start saving any glass jars with sealable lids that you find – You will need them.

Pickles

You can pickle most vegetables. Someone gave me a lovely jar of home grown pickled beetroot this week which got my thinking I should do my own again. I did make pickled onions and beetroot for a long time but eventually took to buying the mass produced ones from the shops as they were more convenient. They aren’t the same as your own home made ones though. Cheaper to buy than make maybe but you can’t put a price on the smug satisfaction you get knowing there are no artificial preservatives or added chemicals in the mix of your own produce.  So this year I’ll be doing at least a jar or two of onions.

Excellent pickles rely on high-quality, fresh ingredients. Producing your own means you can choose the very best produce and opens the door to exploring many different flavours and effects that can be achieved through spicing and fermentation.  Some say you can pickle almost any veg providing it is fresh and unblemished and others generally make their pickles from the oddments, mishapes and damaged crops  that won’t store well as they can be cleaned and chopped up so no-one is any the wiser.

Good pickling is about suspending veg at its peak in clear animation: to preserve and even boost its nutritional content. 

How long to keep your pickles before eating

Recipes vary enormously with some refrigerator or quick pickles being ready to eat within a day or two. Others, such as raw pickled onions, need six months or more to mature and delicacies like lime pickle can improve with years.

As a rough guide, veg sliced thinly or with a high water and sugar content requires less pickling time than those with more starch and larger proportions. Pickles matured for less time will generally be crunchier and punchier than those that have been left to mature, so a good rule is to go with what you like. Provided the pickles have been prepared and sealed carefully they will keep for a long time

You might only need around four or five cups so of cut vegetables to make enough jars to last the year.

Making the Pickles. An introduction

Salt Soak

The first step in making pickled vegetables is to soak them in salt or a strong saltwater solution for at least 3 hours, or sometimes overnight. Some moisture is drawn from the tissues, which helps to preserve crisp texture through the pickling process. Sea salt is preferred, then rinse the vegetables in cold water several times to remove excess salt when the soaking time is up. 

Vinegar Brine

The liquid in pickles is comprised of vinegar, sugar and sometimes water, along with subtle spicy flavours that give pickles their tanginess. You can use either clear distilled vinegar or amber-coloured malt or cider vinegar, depending on the results you want. 

Pickling Jars

After washing and removing the sticky label place the jars in an oven, you can get the herbs and spices ready for seasoning the pickles as the jars sterilize. There are all sorts of things you can use depending on your taste, garlic, dill, coriander, anything goes.

Sealing

There are methods to process the jars by placing them in hot water to seal them up. I’ve never done this so if you feel the need I would do a bit of research first.

Some Vegetables to Pickle

• Radishes- any will do
• Cucumbers - Small, firm-fleshed Kirby cucumbers work best here.
• Carrots – Cut them up into ribbons so the vinegar soaks through them.
• Red and white onions
• Red Cabbage
• Cauliflower – guaranteed to be crunchy
• Green beans -pickled for an irresistible snack
• Aubergine- Sliced thinly

As I mentioned, you could pickle almost anything so it’s a great opportunity to have a play when you have abundance.

Plants for Cats - Catnip and more

 Catmint Seeds

Houseplants are growing in popularity. Research has found (me asking around) that it’s millennials setting the new trend of rekindling the 1970’s popularity for spider plants, cheese plants and aspidistras. The common aspidistra has been a favourite of hallways since the Victorian era as they are shade, draft and neglect tolerant but since the 1980’s over 100 new varieties have emerged to tempt the new homeowners.

The range of indoor plants also caters for our feline friends. Not all cats manage to get outside where they can avail of the delights of ingesting grass, which is said to improve their digestion. Cats also seem to have a huge attraction to certain mint plants too and will happily sit in/on them all summer.  For this reason I’ve decided to grow some plants in pots especially for cats that live in the house and don’t get out much.

Plants for Cats

Catnip is the best known plant for a cats pleasure, many a toy has been stuffed with the dried leaves which in turn sends the cat into a frenzy. It affects cats in various ways, from a soft nuzzle to a fully blown euphoric meltdown.  Only about 80% of cats are effected but they might be partial to some other type of plant that contains Nepetalactone,  an organic compound that is the active ingredient. Nepetalactone also repels cockroaches and mosquitos so it’s a win win for you and the cat.

Here are the most popular types of plants to get kitty in a tizzy. I have just received the Catnip, Cat’s Grass, Catmint and Catmint Lemon and will be sowing the seeds now to give them an early start for spring. I’ll be testing them out of my mother in laws usually sedate moggie to see if it works. I’ll keep you posted.

Catnip (Nepata cataria) is a perennial. Cat's find it hard resist the intoxicating scent of this plant. The leaves have a mint-like smell.  Catnip can be grown in pots or the garden. Like most herbs in the mint family, catnip can easily spread and take over outside if allowed to. Responsive cats enjoy a psychosexual reaction that lasts up to 15 minutes, after which cats lose interest in the herb for at least an hour. The stems are as easy to dry as any other mint, and dried catnip retains is psychoactive powers for many months when stored in a cool, dry, dark place. Catnip flowers attract pollinators and other beneficial insects in droves so maybe I won’t let them flower in the house.

Cat grass -(Dactylis glomerata) is more commonly known as orchard grass, and it is also attractive to cats. It apparently helps to remove fur balls and maintain their good health and great for the indoor cat.  Cat Grass is a good aid to help add missing vitamins and minerals  so might be the favourite to grow indoors. Seeds of wheat, oats and rye also can be grown as cat grass.  

Catnip Lemon - (Nepata cataria Citriodora) is a perennial, that is very similar to catnip but with a more delicate hint of lemon aroma. Its natural habitat is on roadside banks but will hopefully do well in a pot on a sunny table in the porch.

Catmint mussinii – The last of my choice experiment plants. This Catmint produces attractive grey-green foliage topped with spikes of lavender flowers. Cats may flatten the plants so I’ll be careful with this one as it might have to be put outside. 

Other Plants to Delight Cats

Here are a few more plants which cats seem to enjoy in the garden - not in pots. I would have loved to have known about these a few years ago when I rescued a stray cat. I put it in the boot of my car and somehow it found its way into the chassis through the side panel. I had to drive around with it in the interior lining of the car for three days until it decided to show its face and have some food. If I had these plants I could have lured it out much sooner. It was non the worse for the ordeal and after a good meal it disappeared into the wild again.

Valerian (Valeriana officinalis)  Cats become excited when they encounter valerian roots, which contain a compound called actinidine that is thought to work as a semi-psychotic stimulant for cats.

Cat thyme (Teucrium marum) is not a thyme but a germander, a group of fragrant herbs that grows best when given fertile soil, full sun, and great drainage. Cat thyme can grow to two feet (60 cm) when protected from cats, which is nearly impossible.

Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) is surprisingly attractive to cats, plus you can use the leaves in cooking.

Micro Clover

I like to grow something new every year choosing both edible and ornamental plants. 

Over the last three years I have slowly grown my selection of ground cover plants from chamomiles to Irish Moss and then creeping thyme last year. All three are proving to be very popular so this year I am adding a new plant to the list- White clover.

Clover is seen as a weed in most gardens but this wasn’t always the case. Like the thyme, these plants were very popular in the past and whole lawns were made from them until the rise of herbicides to eliminate weeds in the grass in the 1950’s. 

With more awareness of how much energy lawns need these alternatives, which require less water, fertilizer, compost, herbicide, and weeding than conventional lawns are growing in popularity. They do however need a lot more maintenance!

There are two types of clover planting: pure clover lawns, which are best for areas with low or moderate traffic, and mixed grass-clover lawns, which are best for playing fields and other high traffic areas.

Advantages of Clover

It stays green all summer, with little or no watering. It is relatively drought-tolerant and it greens up early in spring and remains green most of the year. 

It requires little or no mowing. White clover grows just 2-8 inches tall and requires little or no mowing to keep it looking tidy. A cut in summer does keep the flowers to a minimum though if needed.

It attracts beneficial insects such as bees which, in turn, help pollinate your garden. It also attracts parasitic wasps which feed on aphids, scales, and whiteflies. 

It never needs fertilizer. Cover is a nitrogen-fixing legume, a plant that essentially creates its own fertilizer. Grass that is intermixed with clover will be healthier and greener and require less care than grass planted alone which is why it’s great in amenity areas.

It out-competes other weeds and is very persistent.  It has a dense root structure that allows it to easily out-compete most other weeds and reduce the need for herbicides.

Clover grows well in poor soil. It tolerates a wide variety of soil conditions, including the poor-quality subsoil common around many new homes.

Clover tolerates compacted soil better than grasses do and even tends reduce compaction, eliminating the need to aerate.

Disadvantages of Clover

It stains clothing more easily than grass.

It is not durable enough for playing fields or high traffic areas, unless mixed with grass.

It is a short-lived perennial and may require reseeding every 2-3 years to maintain an even stand in pure clover lawns. In mixed grass-clover lawns, clover will reseed itself adequately to maintain a consistent presence.

White clover isn’t really shade-resistant; in fact, it will not grow well in shade: it will sprout there, but it won’t thrive. (lawn grasses won’t grow well in shade either.)

My Choice- Micro Clover

The plants I have chosen to grow this year are a different variety to the regular invasive type. They are called Micro Clover. There are a few types around but this one seems the best and is called ‘Pipolina’ and are not unlike Shamrocks (Trifolium dubium)

Micro-clover has been around for a decade or so in Europe and has proved to be very reliable in amenity areas and also in lawn alternatives and on the edge of paths. Unlike the larger variety these plants don’t colonize whole areas. 

It’s really just an extra-small form of white clover (Trifolium repens) It can be used to create mixed or pure clover lawns that are shorter than Dutch white clover (the lawn industry standard) and that also require less mowing. If you have young children then the micro clover doesn’t flower much (or at all if you mow 4 times a year) which will keep the bees away.

A micro-clover lawn.

The plants only reach 6 inches (15 cm) high even if you never mow it. And if you mow occasionally, it will top out at 4 inches (10 cm). Its leaves are twice as small as those of white clover, three times smaller if you mow (regrowth gives even smaller leaves). 

Although micro-clover was designed for mixed lawns, it has been tested as a stand-alone groundcover and does fine when used that way. 

Top Tip for sowing the seed

Lawn specialists recommend using both clover and grass seed to establish the healthiest lawn possible. However, don’t spread these different types of seeds together. Since clover seed is so small and dense, and usually clumps together at the bottom of the spreader or seed bag, spreading with grass seed usually results in uneven coverage. Instead, determine your desired ratio of clover to grass and spread separately.

Mini Woodlands - William Robinson

I’ve dabbled if forest gardening occasionally. It’s a great way of utilising small neglected areas of the garden.

What is Forest Gardening?

Forest gardening is a low-maintenance sustainable plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems. The planting generally includes layers of fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines, perennial vegetables and ground cover plants which have yields directly useful to humans. The system will require some annual maintenance but not as much as a regular vegetable plot. 

If even that seems a bit too high maintenance for you or you don’t have the room then how about planting mini woodland?  You don’t even need to plant any edibles and you’ll still be helping the environment  as the primary reason would be to promote wildlife and reduce pollution. I think it’ll be the planting favourite of 2019 as we are going to see examples in most of this year’s flower shows.

Mini Woodlands

In the past, most horticultural show exhibits featured gardens with painstakingly pruned bushes, flawless flowers, weed free beds and manicured lawns. This has changed over the last few years with gardens concentrating on using recyclables, renewable energy, minimalist planting and after last year’s heat wave, drought tolerant planting. 

This year we’ll see planting schemes hoping to cool the gardens down with tree canopies, or at least give us somewhere to sit under in the shade when the sun does come out in force. With that prediction for 2019 I’d also think we will see cooling water features being a popular addition to the garden. 

Trees though are the single most efficient way for gardeners to improve our environment and help wildlife. Creating a miniature woodland will encourage wildlife and help reduce pollution particularly in urban areas.  Well-chosen small trees, such as ornamental and fruiting apples and cherries will be trouble free and for small gardens, shrubs can be used to good effect.

Birch trees are noted for pollution catching properties and also do surprisingly well in pots of soil-based potting media where space is very tight on a patio or back yard.  

This year at one large show there will be a Resilience Garden for the Forestry Commission, which showcases the ‘forests of the future’ and the trees that are resilient to the impending impact of climate change.  I don’t have any more details at present but have been told it will draw attention to the issues facing forests, woods and horticulture today.  Warmer climate facilitates pests and diseases, which can wipe out forests that are made up of only a few species. Because of this, the Forestry Commission is working to plant a greater variety of trees to safeguard our forests and woods for the future.  

William Robinson

I think it’s fair to say that one person who was and is a great influence on this new movement of wild gardening is a Laois born gardener and journalist called William Robinson (5 July 1838 – 17 May 1935) His ideas about wild gardening spurred the movement that led to the popularising of the English cottage garden.

He radically changed Victorian gardening, with his rants against bedding plants, his support of the wild garden, and his monumental book The English Flower Garden, which went into 15 editions in his lifetime.  

His most significant influence I think was the introduction of the idea of wild gardening, which first appeared in The Wild Garden and was further developed in The English Flower Garden.

The idea of introducing large drifts of hardy perennial plants into meadow, woodland, and waterside is taken for granted today, but was revolutionary in Robinson's time. In the first edition, he happily used any plant that could be naturalised, including half-hardy perennials and natives from other parts of the world, which meant the wild garden was not limited to locally native species. 

Robinson's own garden at Gravetye was planted on a large scale, but his wild garden idea could be realised in small plots, where the 'garden' is designed to appear to merge into the surrounding woodland or meadow. Robinson's ideas continue to influence gardeners and landscape architects today—from home and cottage gardens to large estate and public gardens. 

This year I think we’ll be hearing a lot more of William Robinson’s ideas in modern designs, with a few more trees thrown in for good luck.