Shrubs growing in shade perform a variety of functions – from serving as a leafy foil to other plants, to lighting up dark areas with bright flowers or impressing with dramatic foliage. Small or low-growing shrubs can even be used for ground cover.
07.08.2023 - 11:41 / blog.fantasticgardeners.co.uk
Photo by Agence Producteurs Locaux Damien Kühn on Unsplash
The humble potato has been a staple of the British diet since the end of the 16th century, it has earned its place in the pantheon of British dishes by adding tantalising delicacies such as mashed potatoes and roast potatoes, along with many others, to our palette.
It should come as no surprise then that, potatoes are one of the UK’s most farmed crops and have become a favourite among those who grow their own food. Normally potatoes require a lot of space to grow. When planted in the ground, it is recommended to leave at least 45 cm between each row.
This space requirement is off-putting for many gardeners as it means either removing plants to make room or giving up on the idea of eating tasty, homegrown potatoes.
We are excited to introduce you to a method of growing potatoes that doesn’t require a lot of space and is, arguably, easier than growing traditionally. This method is growing potatoes in pots, as mentioned previously the biggest benefit of this method is that it does not need a lot of space.
But this is just the first of the benefits, growing potatoes in containers will allow you to harvest them without hours of backbreaking digging, and the plants are much less susceptible to disease as well as harmful pests.
Before we embark on our potato-growing adventure, there are a few ground rules to cover to help ensure healthy growth and a plentiful harvest.
Now that the boring rules are out of the way, it’s time to move on to the guide for growing potatoes in pots.
When you have gathered the needed supplies it is almost time to start planting. First, you will need to prepare the potatoes. There are few ways people use to prepare their potatoes but none seem to have
Shrubs growing in shade perform a variety of functions – from serving as a leafy foil to other plants, to lighting up dark areas with bright flowers or impressing with dramatic foliage. Small or low-growing shrubs can even be used for ground cover.
Mrs Green has set herself a new challenge this spring – she’s aiming to grow her own luffa (or loofah) to use as zero waste pan scrubbers. Never one to shy away from new plant experiences, I’m going to join her!
It looks as though spring might be on its way in the northern hemisphere, and gardeners’ thoughts are turning towards tomatoes and potatoes. You may have already sown your first tomato seeds; your seed potatoes may be chitting on the windowsill. But what if you could get both potatoes and tomatoes from the same plant – a TomTato?
Grafting is a time-honoured technique for growing fruit trees – it allows gardeners and farmers to choose both the variety of fruit they want to grow, and the rootstock they want to grow it on. You can even graft more than one variety of fruit onto one rootstock, giving you a ‘family’ tree that saves space and spreads the harvest time, or gives you both ‘cookers’ and ‘eaters’ from one tree. Grafting vegetables, on the other hand, is something relatively new that has burst onto the home gardening scene in the last few years. Last year T&M gave us the opportunity to grow the TomTato, a tomato plant grafted onto potato roots that grows both tomatoes and potatoes – catchily nicknamed the Ketchup ‘n’ fries plant. This year they have added a new dual-purpose plant to their range: the Egg & Chips plant grows both aubergines (AKA eggplant) and potatoes.
There can’t be a more iconic symbol of Halloween than a witch riding a broomstick. In olden times it wouldn’t have been a problem to wander out into the woodland and cut a stout pole and then find sticks to make the sweeping end, and then you’d have yourself a fine broom, or besom. I suspect most of them were used for more mundane purposes – they are jolly useful things to have to hand.
Many years ago, long before my gardening obsession began, I spent a season or two living in a ground floor flat in Newbury that had patio doors that opened onto a backwater. Shortly after moving in we made friends with the local duck population, to the point where we bought poultry corn from the pet stall on the market for them – bread not being the best food for ducks.
There’s nothing quite as British as a nice cup of tea, and sitting down for a good cuppa can certainly brighten up your day. A tea bush is unlikely to thrive in most UK gardens (although there are a couple of tea plantations) because of the climate, but there are plenty of herbs that are easy to grow and make a refreshing brew. They’ll even grow well in containers – so they make ideal plants for a windowbox or a patio. Having them close at hand means you can harvest leaves as and when you need them.
Header image: The greenhouse at McMurdo Station in Antarctica is the only source of fresh food during winter. Eli Duke/Flickr, CC BY-SA
If you’ve ever wished you lived in a tropical climate, simply so that you could grow your own chocolate, then the future is looking bright. Last time I touched on this subject I mentioned plants that might add a chocolatey touch to your garden (with their colour, scent and even flavour).
COP21, the United Nations conference on climate change, has ended with a ‘landmark’ agreement that climate change is something we all need to tackle together. Last week I was talking about what gardeners can do to reduce their carbon footprint, and a lot of it is about being thrifty with resources – something that tends to come naturally to us! Over the weekend, Ryan has done his bit by recycling plastic plant pots in my direction. He came across a newly landscaped commercial building, where the unwanted plant pots were being discarded.
Last weekend, as the temperatures soared, I found a certain amount of solace in learning more about how plants are being grown in Antarctica – the coldest place on Earth.
Jill Edmondson, University of Sheffield and Jonathan Leake, University of Sheffield