Fruit Ideas, Tips & Guides

When storing potatoes you need to exclude light and moisture but retaining an even temperature. Do not wash spuds before storing. Do not allow them to be stored too cold or the starch will turn to sugar and start to go black. A fridge is too cold.

Red food stuff is a popular trend at the moment. Good leafy crops add vibrancy to a salad and you are probably eating well if you grow them yourself.

Herbs to make a bouquet garni can be grown at home and used later for cooking. All these herbs you can grow in the garden or on a suitable windowsill. The ingredients for our basic Bouquet Garni are the herbs Parsley, Thyme, Bay and a clove of Garlic. Tie them together with undyed string. Then add other herbs that are specific to the dish you want to cook.

True nuts include Pecan, Sweet Chestnuts, Beechnuts, Acorns, Hazel nuts and Hornbeams. True nuts are a simple dry fruit with one seed in which the seed case becomes very hard on maturity. True nuts do not split apart like Brazil nuts or horse chestnuts but the seed and the fruit are one and the same.

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Think before you allow poppies to proliferate. Poppies rob a lot of goodness from your soil.

Plants of the thistle family and close relatives are particularly good for wildlife. When in flower they attract Bees and Insects and the fine seeds provide bird food particularly for Goldfinches. In many cases the Thistles can and have provided food and medicine for human consumption.

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Kiwi fruit known as the Chinese goodeberry grow on the woody vine Actinidia deliciosa and its hybrids. The vines should be grown on sturdy support structures as it crops more than the rather weak vines can support.This plant has a cold greenhouse for protection but they can be grown outdoors in a sheltered spot.

This is one of the many books in my collection but the only one to focus on growing big, bigger and biggest vegetables. If you want to grow giant vegetable for exhibition or to get large crops then there are many pointers in ‘How to Grow Giant Vegetables’ by Bernard Lavery and below.

If you want to help your  Rhubarb water it even when it is raining!

For gardening purposes Brassicas are a group of vegetables in the mustard family that includes Cabbages, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Calabrese Sprouts and Kale.

From the Ribes currant family I prefer the Red currant for making pies. However I also grow Black currants R nigrum for the intense flavour.

I hope my carrots will taste better than the pottery gnome variety. Gonsenheimer have not been grown in my garden before but as they are promoted as crack resistant I thought I would give them a go. The blurb says ‘a bunching variety producing heavy crops of smooth skinned, good flavoures bright orange roots.’  Just about what you need from a packet of Carrot seed. Sown now they can be harvested from end July until December.

Gourds are grown for the decorative fruit which come in weird and wonderful shapes.They are part of the curcurbit family along with cucumbers, courgettes, pumpkins and marrows.

Thyme has over 350 varieties and can make an interesting collection. Thymus is claimed to have volatile oils that have anti-ageing properties and good anti-oxidants to aid health. It retains its flavour after drying and can be stored successfully.

Late blossom arrivals in 2015 looked like being a good year for apple blossom and thus fruit in the North of England. And iut was with some great crops in my Yorkshire garden.

The Brown Turkey fig, Ficus carica, produces large, sweet, juicy figs even in British conditions.

Mesclun is a name for a traditional melange of salad leaves. The name mesclun doesn’t feature in any of my gardening reference books before 1980 so old gardeners may not recognise the term.

Encourage a better fruit crop by feeding your edible and ornamental fruit trees. Fruit trees are heavy feeders and need extra food to crop well.

Abelmoschus esculentus or Okra aka lady’s fingers or gumbo is a flowering plant in the mallow family.The seed pods are popular as a vegetable in Caribbean cookery.

The best Rhubarb is grown in the ‘Rhubarb Triangle’ in West Riding of Yorkshire. There are low brick buildings visible from the M1 around Wakefield that are used as the forcing sheds. Forced Rhubarb is kept in the dark so the stems are long thin pink and early to crop

The early insect damage on my runner bean leaves (above) has not damaged the crop of beans. Cool evenings and warm sunny days with adequate rain, has helped produce a bumper crop of tender beans.

Bug eyed but not spritely.

You can grow fresh relatively clean vegetables in containers. This is useful for gardeners with restricted space or where you want vegetables close to the kitchen door.

Vitamin D from sun to plate via well grown Carrots

There are numerous jobs to start in February and most gardeners will be very busy. Perhaps too busy to read this article. Still Gardeners Tips tries to help new and experienced gardeners with a series of tips and job lists that should save time in the long run.

Mild-flavored winter radish usually characterized by fast-growing leaves and a long, white fleshy roots

Lateral thinking can get fresh garden produce down the little darlings throats. The Ribena tree or apple juice tree can create drinks and breakfast cereal additions. Many veg can go in a blender or be added to favourite dishes in small quantities disguised as necessary.

Basil

I first went to a Leek show in the North East one September about 40 years ago and the Pot Leeks on show were really something to behold. It is an art, a science and a bit of black magic that helps create a show stopper in this region renown for its prize leeks. Pot leek exhibition standards require a blanch of up to 6†which can give a circumference of 28″. Intermediates are up to 14″ blanched length and Long leeks are anything in excess of this.

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So potato farmers were on the news complaining about the lack of rain which is a bit rich after such a wet winter. Planted seed has not broken the soils surface on some farms. ‘Potato crops will be ruined, prices must go up, spuds have had their chips.’ Short of spudding a new well it is up to the gardener to augment the normal efforts.

From this to this 

King slugs are feasting on my green and cream ornamental cabbages. It is late in the season and the slugs are helping to reduce the leaf waste from a variety of plants including the dying hostas. Still as I won’t be eating the ornamental cabbage I am not going to loose too much sleep.