Companion planting

I’m in two minds about this. I do undertake some companion planting: mainly things I remember my granddad doing such as plant French marigolds between tomato plants to deter aphids, growing carrots and leeks together (I think the leeks smell strongly enough to confuse carrot fly, although it could just be that he liked the look of carrots and leeks together, isn’t it odd how we pick up habits without really thinking about them?) and using nasturtiums as a sacrifice crop for cabbages – because the caterpillars eat the nasturtiums and leave the cabbages alone.

But can it really be true that those same marigolds can smother bindweed? I don’t think so. Not on any allotment I’ve come across, anyway. And does celery really deter cabbage white caterpillars from brassicas – I’d love to believe so, but I don’t think I’ve come across anything, except horticultural mesh, that really keeps the caterpillars off. Or rather, keeps the butterfly from laying the eggs that hatch on the plant and become voracious eating machines aka cabbage white caterpillars.

But I’m prepared to be convinced. Especially if it reduces the need to weed between rows and pick or wash off pests. So tell me - do you companion plant, and if so, what works for you?

Marigold by *micky

Labels: allotment-companion-planting, allotment-flowers, allotment-pests, allotment-vegetables

October is Sweet Pea month ...

Sowing sweet peas in autumn produces bigger and better plants that will bloom earlier, and go on for longer – and the best sweet peas I’ve seen for decades are grown by our very own Ronald Buckman. At the end of October he starts a process that allows him to have the most beautiful flowers I’ve even seen.

It’s well known, horticulturally that sweet peas started in the cooler months put all their energy into a rigorous root system to sustain them over the winter, resulting in strong, stocky plants when they come to be planted in their final positions in mid spring. Ron improves on this system by having developed his own germination tricks that seem to guarantee huge and perfect blooms. Here are his secrets …


1. Dig a trench one foot deep and wide and fill it with your own compost or farmyard manure – let it ‘mellow’ over the winter and you’ve got the perfect home for your sweet peas come spring

2. Choose the best possible seeds, Ron prefers to go to garden shows where he can see the flowers the seeds will produce, not to rely on catalogue descriptions. Sadly, many specialist sweet pea suppliers have gone out of business, but you can still shop around for good varieties if you put in some effort.

3. Plant seeds in a tray filled with moist peat. Lay the seeds on top and press them down, don’t sprinkle peat over them. Cover with glass and then newspaper. After three days, many will have shoots, and those can be put in modules in compost, one shooting seed to each module.

4. Keep the rest of the tray covered and as the seedlings appear, lift them out into modules, because they are uncertain generators, you can find it takes several weeks for all the seedlings to appear, but this doesn’t seem to affect their flowering time or rate.

5. Pinch the tops when there are two or three true leaves to ensure you get a stocky, flower-filled plant.

6. In spring, plant your sweet peas, each plant to an individual cane, in your trench. Take off all the flowers until they are three feet tall, then at three feet, remove the plant from the cane, lay it along the ground and bring it up the next cane! For show quality sweet peas you need four blossoms on each stem, and that means pinching out all the side tendrils … but just look at those flowers, it’s got to be worth it, to have sweet peas like Ron’s!

Labels: allotment-flowers, allotment-holder-interview, allotment-personality, flower and vegetabel show, sweet peas

Allotment marvels

Just a quickie today, as I’m about to leave home to do something very interesting, ie interview my local allotment officer, but I’ve been pondering the wonderful – and sometimes weird – things that people grow on allotments. Up and down the country I’ve seen fields of dahlias, fiery horseradish, tobacco, orchids, living stones. I know one allotment holder who is hybridising a green tulip on his plot and another who has an informal tortoise sanctuary. But I had to share this. It’s Andrew’s echium, and it’s the most astonishing flower I’ve ever seen. It’s Echium pininana, which is usually found in sheltered south-facing borders and it’s a two year process to grow one, because in the first year echium simply grows into a rosette of silvery leaves – only about a foot tall - but in year two it rockets off and becomes a flower spike festooned with blue, funnel-shaped flowers, which may be as much as fifteen feet tall. After this impressive flowering it dies, but not before scattering its seeds like somebody throwing balloons off the top of a tall tower.

I think it’s gorgeous. But I'm sure there are even more impressive allotment marvels out there ... let us know if you have one!

Labels: allotment-flowers, allotment-secrets

The Sweet Pea man of Hurstpierpoint

I haven’t managed to interview my own resident sweet pea expert, Ron, yet, but my recent visit to the Hurstpierpoint allowed me to meet another sweet pea man – another genius with these gorgeous, highly-scented flowers. As you can see, his sweet peas are second to none (except, maybe, Ron’s!) and he agreed to share some of his secrets. The key to producing huge blooms like this is cordon growing. And it is quite a lot of work – but the evidence suggests that if you like sweet peas as much as I do, it’s well worth it.

Here’s what you do:

1. Choose a sunny spot and hammer two stakes into the ground to make a row.



2. Attach parallel wires between the posts, one at the bottom and one further up. Push canes into the soil every nine inches or so and secure them to the wires.



3. Plant one sweet pea in front of each cane – the Sweet Pea man of Hurstpierpoint has actually colour-coordinated his along the rows, but you might choose to mix the really highly scented varieties like the grandifloras amongst the others (the Spencer varieties usually have bigger flowers but less scent) to encourage the pollinators who will be drawn by the fragrance and then travel around the rest of your plot.



4. Let the plants grow to a foot tall and then select the strongest shoot and remove the rest – painful, but necessary if you want really strong flowers.



5. Tie this shoot to the cane and regularly pinch off side shoots and tendrils – this step means the plant gives all its strength to the flowers rather than dissipating it in side shoots and climbing growth. You will need pea rings or horticultural tape to keep tying the primary shoot to the cane.



6. When the plants have reached the top of the canes, untie them and lay the stems on the ground, parallel to the row.



7. Now re-tie stems to a cane further along the row, so the tip of the plant reaches about a foot up its new cane.

This is why so many people grow sweet peas on the allotment rather than in the garden at home - it's just too much to be expected give up so much garden space for a single plant, but on your plot you can extend the cane row as far as you like without losing much in terms of space.

Labels: allotment-flowers, allotment-secrets, allotment-tips, sweet peas