AtWaG - (All the World's a Garden)

Cooking carrots whole - keep the nutrients

I just heard a news item on radio 4 about new research that indicates the benefits from cooking carrots whole. Now, that sounds like very old news to me. I recall my first cell biology practical at Bristol Uni back in the 70's, we cut carrots into varying size pieces (with whole carrots as a control) and then after boiling them analysed the 'cooking water'. The very clear result was that the smaller the pieces the more concentrated the levels of salts etc. in the water - ie. the less remained in the carrots.
This simple experiment came close to proving the bleeding obvious, but heyo, us young scientists had to start some where and I guess a lot of important principles came out of the experiment.

The recent research discussed on Radio4 also shows that cooked, whole carrots have more flavour than cut ones - no surprise there either. So the simple message is cook carrots whole if you want to keep the nutrients, anti-cancer agents and flavour. 

The study, carried out by Dr Kirsten Brandt and researcher Ahlam Rashed, from the University's School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, found that "boiled-before-cut" carrots contained 25% more of the anti-cancer compound falcarinol than those that were chopped up first.

New seasons veggies

New seasons veggies
Originally uploaded by AtWaG

What a boon our poly tunnel is. We have Carrots, Summer cabbage, and new potatoes all about three weeks earlier than normal. The hungry-gap has been bridged by these early crops. The cabbage (Hispi) have done the usual thing of all being ready at once, they are so good that we have munched our way through them having had cabbage at every meal for the last fortnight!
The carrots were sown at New year in our usual way into 1 litre deep pots and then planted out later.
The spuds were planted in March and have always looked very fit despite some frosty nights in April.
All these crops have to be cleared soon to make way for Tomatos - the plants are ready now.

How to grow carrots - the sure fire way to succeed.

Carrots are probably the top vegetable in both popularity and versatility, and yet they are the crop that fails most often for a lot of gardeners. The seed is small, has short viability, germinates slower than weeds, new growth is loved by small rodents, and hand weeding is tricky because of the hard-to-spot foliage - so many reasons to fail!

After decades of frustration with hit and miss carrot growing Sue and I now use a technique that gives close to a 100% success rate. This simple technique gets round all of the above problems and a few more besides.

So here's how it's done:

Picasa comes of age

Google has a way of quietly working away on their products and without a big fuss they release a mature, user friendly application that is a million miles from the half baked application they started with. Picasa is one of these applications, it's always had some good features but with the release of version 3.1.0 most of the omissions have been addressed.

I'm please to see that you can now add text, that makes it possible to add plant names, locations and watermarks easily to your images.........remember Picasa is non destructive so your original images will not be changed in any way.

Most images need some sharpening and Picasa has been able to do this for ages, however it was harsh and uncontrollable, now you have a simple slider and the degree of sharpening is in your control.....this is a biggie and I'm so pleased to see it

Sync to webalbums is a new feature that keeps any edits you do on your local PC updated if those images are in your Google webalbums

This one you'll love............in the experimental

BBC Gardener of the decade

I wonder what other folks thought about the much hyped BBC gardener of the decade? I was majorly dissapointed by it, no criticism of the 'contestants' intended as they were a good bunch and deserving of their place in the programme. The let-down was from the content and the production of the 1 hour special.
It all semed a bit rushed (despite there being time for tedious reminders of the path to the BBCGOTD) and excessively edenocentric.

Both the P&D and tropical crops tests glossed over too quickly for viewer to participate in and that's part of the fun, seeing how you measure up to the contestants.
The border tidying test was weird as it was assessing the gardeners skill at doing something that was against their normal way of working - ie. making a rushed job look good - that's not the way that a top flight domestic gardener works.

Grafting......what a strange test, it might have been different if they had been shown the technique first, but clearly some of them had no idea what they were doing.
Then finally those tiddly little borders, not much chance to show design skills in what was not much more than a window box. If it was intended to test knowledge of plants suitable for 2040 then that could have been assessed from their plant choice for a theoretical site as a paper exercise....but the right one came out on top.

I felt sorry for Diana Guy, a very competant maker of gardens. I'm looking forward to hearing her take on the programme and the assessement tests. She was a favourite to win but with tests like that I'm not surprised she fell at the first hurdle.
Congrats though to the winner Katherine Crouch well deserved as she performed with a cheery smile despite the odd tasks and unfamilar territory.

Holly time

Holly time
Originally uploaded by AtWaG

November 20th 2008 saw the beginning of the holly gathering season in the New Forest. Hollyers are allocated areas that they can cut from so that the harvest doesn't cause any detriment to the holly trees.

The pruning technique used by the gatherers is a fine lesson in how to prune large bushes and trees. When a tree has been cropped you can barely tell anything has been done because no large branches are taken and the cutting is done in an informal way to retain a natural shape.

Hollyers have been part of the scene in the New Forest for hundreds of years, in fact back in the early 1900s folks who lived on my smallholding used to make part of their meagre living from that activity.

Much of the early cut holly gets used for the making of fresh wreaths, simple decorations that these days have a wire or plastic base, but in the old days the base was made from grass gathered from woodland rides.

If you see butchered holly trees in the New Forest don't blame the hollyers, chances are the trees will have been pollarded by New Forest Keepers who cut the branches in the depths of winter for the deer and ponies to munch on. The stumps re-grow and in a few decades get pollarded once again. This practice has moulded the old hollies into the characterful trees that can be seen around the Forest.

Sweet corn - victim of badger attack

Sweet corn - victim of badger attack
Originally uploaded by AtWaG

Our fattest sweet corn cobs looked as though they'd been exploded by little bombs, each one ripped apart and then munched insitu. At the base of the plants were the tell-tale signs of a large mammal stomping around. The only possible culprit is our friendly badger who cases the joint (our garden) every night looking to see which crops are ready for him.
We picked all the remaining cobs to save them from the destructive forces of the badger - the worry is that carrots are next on his menu. We may have to resort to peanut bribery to keep his attentions away from other tasty crops. If only he had a taste for tomatoes or perhaps courgettes - we have these to spare.

The Garden House

The Garden House
Originally uploaded by AtWaG

We wondered - would it be worth visiting 'The Garden House' this July 15th.......the loss of Keith Wiley, tough economics, lousy weather, an over-mature garden, well, we weren't expecting much.

What a joy to find that the gardens are better than ever and that several bullets have been bitten. Despite some upheaval due to removal of a massive old hedge and empty spaces awating new planting the garden is dynamic, vital and brimming with ideas and exciting new plants.

Little details that matter haven't been overlooked during the upheaval of new plantings and re-working. The labelling is excellent and the informative signs make it easier to comprehend the few gaps and curious activities.

The newly planted herbaceous areas down by the tower are lovely and both the meadows and South African beds quite stunning.

I'll add to this post with some more pics but I felt I must urge anyone who hasn't been recently to head off to Devon to see one of the best gardens in the UK. ....., Oh, Agapanthus, an 'in' plant and masses of buds July 15th so over the next few weeks some joys to come.

The winners

  The winner 
  Originally uploaded by AtWaG

Congratulations to Patrick and his team who won the Best New Plant in Show at the Woking show 2008 with Heuchera Midnight Rose.

This new form of Heuchera is available via Aline Fairweather and is a product of their collaboration with Dan Heims Terra Nova Nursery in the USA.

The award is timely as this year the nursery has assembled the largest collection of  UK available Heucheras for evaluation.

The display goes from the nursery on the 17th July to Fairweathers garden centre in Beaulieu where the public will be able to see the entire range.

Pictured - Patrick Fairweather and Sharon Lowndes Photo by DAS.

The Learning garden - opened by Chris Packham

The excellent learning garden in Beaulieu was opened officially on Friday 20th June by local media champion of wildlife and conservation, Chris Packham. Thankfully, dignitaries were thin on the ground, the 'do' was for the people whose input transformed the concept into reality. Designers, builders, diggers, and planters, many of them volunteers were thanked most sincerely by Patrick Fairweather and it was a great relief to all that the rain held of.

In just a few months a sea of mud has been transformed into a fine example of a well managed, atrractive and highly productive garden. Julian, the gardener has worked wonders in getting rapid results from a heavy clay soil.

If you can, you should pay the garden a visit, you can find out  more from the Fairweathers web site