WESTERN DAILY PRESS SATURDAY NOVEMBER 17 2012 WEST COUNTRY LIFE 19WDP-E01-S318 WEST COUNTRY LIFE SATURDAY NOVEMBER 17 2012 WESTERN DAILY PRESS WDP-E01-S3

with ALAN DOWNCleeve Nursery Tips

Outdoors/gardening Compiled by Cleeve Nursery’s Alan Down Contact Alan at Cleeve Nursery, nearBristol, on 01934 832134. If you would like to ask Alan Down a gardening question,visit www.cleevenursery.co.uk and click on the Ask Us A Question tab. Alan cananswer only emailed questions. Visit Alan’s blog at cleevenursery.co.uk/blog

The Aquadulce broad beans, hardyonion and shallot sets are in, so whatelse can be planted in the allotment orveg plot?

The answer is perennial veg.We see most perennial vegetables

when we visit National Trust walledgardens but rarely do we make roomfor them in our less grand plots. Andt h at ’s a shame since they are cer-tainly easy enough to grow and, onceestablished, will give us crops formany years with just the minimum ofef fort.

Take artichokes for instance, theseare not especially fussy about howgood your soil is and once establishedwill produce a good crop year afteryear. Of course there are two sorts ofartichoke and very different they aret o o.

Jerusalem artichokes are close rel-atives to sunflowers and once estab-lished can be hard to get rid of sothink hard about where you plantthem. They are also very tall and give

excellent screening, albeit only inlate summer. After they die down youcan dig the edible tubers out like youwould potatoes, but it is best to do thisas and when you need them and toprotect them from frost in the soil bycovering and mulching them. Thereis no need to earth these up as theygrow and there is no risk of themgetting blight.

The edible bit of globe artichokeson the other hand, is the flower budand these can be delicious.

Looking like a thistle on steroids,globe artichokes take up quite a bit ofspace and the yield from each plantcan be light. However, it pays to planta named variety or proven clonewhere you can.

There is plentyto plant as longas it’s perennial

One of the most exciting things aboutgrowing fruit and vegetables is thatyou have an opportunity to try newthings each year.

I love experimenting with newvarieties and different ways of grow-ing things, just to see if they work.Often that’s the best way to find out ifsomething will suit your particulargrowing space, because the advicethat you otherwise find in books, and,dare I say it, the gardening pages ofnewspapers will, of course, be moregeneral. But experimenting isn’t justabout becoming increasingly effect-ive, or successful as a gardener, al-though that is always welcome. It isalso simply to have fun.

People can be a bit snooty abouthaving fun when it comes to garden-ing. I remember reading a review of awonderful Joy Larkcom book ongrowing vegetables, which more orless suggested that she was only“playing at it”.

Retiring to the allotment for a spotof therapeutic weeding, I ponderedthat statement, and wondered, well,what exactly would be wrong withthat? It’s my experience that peoplewho treat gardening too seriously areoften the ones who give up soonest. Ifyou can approach it with a sense thatenjoyment is what matters, ratherthan the size of a harvest, then everyyear will have the potential to be agood one.

One of my best experiments thisyear involved growing the wintersquash in a different way. I triedgrowing it vertically, rather than let-ting it sprawl over the growing bedsand taking up a lot of room. At thetime I decided to give this a go, therehad already been a lot of summerrain, and it seemed like a good idea tokeep the squashes away from thedamp and the slugs, by encouragingthem upwards. This turned out to besurprisingly easy. I wrapped chicken-wire around the posts that alreadysupport a grapevine, and tied in thesquash plant stems as they began toshoot away.

The variety I tried this year was a“Burgess vine buttercup”. If youh ave n’t grown winter squash beforeor have found them bland, I wouldreally recommend this one. It hasvery good flavour. It was also in itselement climbing up the posts, throw-ing out mighty coiling tendrils tosupport itself; it didn’t need my helpat all. The stems easily reached eightto 10ft high.

What I particularly liked about thisvariety is that the fruits don’t growtoo large, ours were between six toeight inches, which I think is just theright amount to use in a recipe.

Although the flesh is orange, theskin is a gorgeous glossy dark green,with minty green stripes. Suspendedat different heights on the vine theylooked beautiful.

In a year when lots of other cropsfailed, it was a singular encourage-ment to see these doing so well.

PlotLines

I recently visited the artichokegrowers of Brittany and learnt thatthey keep a sharp watch for any plantamong their hectares of crops thatgives an above average yield. Shootsfrom the base are then removed fromthese, propagated and multiplied toform the basis of their new stock.Important though this part of Franceis for artichokes, the world capital forthis crop is around Monterey, justsouth of San Francisco.

Cardoons, a very close relative ofglobe artichokes and more oftengrown among flower borders for itsdramatic leaves, can be forced and thenew leaves blanched to make themedible, although sea kale is morelikely to be grown this way.

However, the real perennial veget-able that we grow much more often isof course the rhubarb. This is a veget-able (although some classify it as afruit) that can be grown in the oddcorner and will tolerate being grownin shade too.

Now is a very good time to plantnew rhubarb crowns after digging inplenty of well rotted farmyardmanure. Let your new plants estab-lish for at least a couple of yearsbefore you even dream of forcingthose tasty colourful leaf stems.

Rhubarb and chard forcing pots,whether you use them or not, arelovely artefacts for the garden and Ihave collected several old ones forjust that reason. Of course, you canstill buy new ones and they would bea good item to put on your Christmaswish list.

Horseradish could not be easier togrow, indeed once you have it you willfind it hard to get rid of it. If you comeacross it in the countryside, thechances are it is all that is left visibleof an old dwelling that has long sincedisappeared. For horse radish willlast several lifetimes. Beware whenmaking your own horseradish saucefrom fresh roots of this one, it can bealmost as hot to the taste as its relat-ive wasabi.

Finally, the last perennial vegetablethat I recommend to you is as-para gus.

Slow to get going but very longlived, this is well worth the effort. Youwill need to earth this one up toblanch the new shoots as they emergein spring, and you need soil that iswell drained and free of perennialweeds too.

But asparagus is well worth theeffort and until recently one of thefew real luxury vegetables that youcould easily grow on your plot.

Almost all the books recommend thatyou plant in March or even April.This is far too late, unless you areplanting pot-grown plants, as estab-lished plants will be already croppingby then. Far better to plant this one,and all the other perennial vegetableswhen you have had time to preparethe soil well and the soil is easy towork, anytime from now until lateFebr uary.

Alan’s gardening tipsfor the weekend■ If you haven’t done it already, trimthe dead flower heads off summer andautumn-flowering heathers. A goodpair of secateurs such as Felco (anexcellent gift) is suitable for this.Trim a little of the shoot tips off too asthis will keep them nice and com-pact.■ Fork over borders and work intothe soil a slow release feed such asFish, Blood and Bone or Bonemeal.■ Pot up amaryllis (hippeastrum)bulbs. Use quality multipurpose com-post and leave the top third of the bulbstanding proud of the compost. Watervery little until leaves appear. Repotolder plants into fresh compost nowt o o.■ Wash the glass down with Jeyesmultipurpose disinfectant andcleaner to let in as much light asava i l abl e.■ Try propagating plants by takingroot cuttings now. It is surprisinglyeasy to do but not all plants can bemultiplied this way. Oriental poppies,border phlox, some primula, mullein,sea holly, bear’s breeches anddicentra are well worth trying. Dig upa healthy plant, cut thicker roots into5cm to 7cm lengths and “s ow ” them inpots filled with cutting compost.They root by late spring.■ Reduce the feeding of indoorplants to just fortnightly and reducethe amount of water too.■ Treat paths with Armillatox orPatio Magic Path Cleaner to controlalgae and moulds that make themslippery when wet.■ Control moss on the lawn withVitax Green Up Mosskiller.

Ask AlanQuestionI would like to move some well-estab-lished trees around my garden inFailand. Is there a best time to dothis?From A DensleyAnswerAfter leaf fall and before the budsstart to move in late winter is a goodtime but, provided that the trees aredormant, now is the best time.

I am a little concerned that youdescribe your trees as “well estab-lished” and if they are, they are lesslikely to transplant well. Nursery-men root prune their trees on a regu-lar basis to encourage fibrous roots togrow close to the trunk and thenthese are not cut off when a tree istransplanted. It is the hairy roots thatare the important ones and the thickones are more for stability.

Given more time I would have re-commended that you had root prunedyour trees in the late summer of theyear before you intended to movethem (about 14 months before) so thatthey had a chance to make newfibrous roots. Younger trees wouldnot need that treatment.

Get as much of the roots out as youcan, keep them moist until replanted,Now is the perfect time of year to get some rhubarb crowns in the ground

The Mahonia LionelFortescue – a tough plantthat’s easy to grow

The length in centimetres that you willneed for a root cutting

5 to 7‘Once established,perennial vegetableswill give crops formany years’

Alan Down

prepare the planting hole very well,support the trees with a stake andwater well next summer.

Alan’s Plant of the WeekMahonia Lionel FortescueMahonias are such useful easy-to-grow and tough plants. When mostshrubs are shutting down for winter,mahonia gets in to top gear.

There are three widely plantedtypes with the spring-floweringslightly invasive mahonia aquifo-lium now less popular with garden-ers than it was. This one has a clusterof scented blooms followed by blueberries, and will grow in remarkablyinhospitable places.

The other widely planted one ismahonia japonica which generallyflowers early in the new year and hasgorgeous lily of the valley scentedlemon yellow flowers that trail fromthe top of each evergreen shoot.

But the mahonia that is in bloomnow has upright scented yellowflowers and its growth habit is up-right too, so fits neatly into a borderand adds evergreen height.

There are several named varietiesof this hybrid type and Charity isprobably the best known. This is anexcellent choice, but I am fond of thevariety Lionel Fortescue which is, Ibelieve, just as good and with bloomsless hidden by the attractively sub-divided glossy leaves.

Events at Cleeve NurseryDecorations For Christmas – ademonstration by Felicity Down, ison Wednesday November 28, at7.30pm

This will be a charity evening.This popular demo is regularly

over subscribed. Tickets costs £5which includes a glass of wine. Tobook email info@clee v enursery.co.ukor call 01934 832134.

From top down, globe artichokes and Jerusalem artichokes can be planted now, as canasparagus. It is also a good time of year to take root cuttings

with FIONA SANDERSON

ForGoodAdvice&Excellent HomeGrown Plants

visit your local nursery!

Cleeve Nursery138 Main Road, Cleeve, BS49 4PW

01934 832134www.cleevenursery.co.uk