Winter Musings by Maz Mystery

Volunteer multi-tasking gardener, Tatton Park Walled Kitchen Garden

You may recall in the last of 2011’s Musings that I said we garden volunteers would be some time, as we were asked to collect hundreds of bags of Oak leaves for the Pineapple House.   This task did indeed take many weeks, interspersed with the planting of myriads of daffodils – not easy amongst matted tree roots.   It also transpired that other sorts of mixed leaves were required to be gathered: there are a lot of trees in the 50 acres of formal gardens!  Still, fresh air and exercise are invigorating and lots of leaf mould to be gained from such activity.

As a now retired time-served gardener in the Victorian tradition, it is heartening to know that such good husbandry still continues.

On our penultimate day of volunteering for the year there was a cloudburst, so we had to abandon leaf gathering – Someone took pity on us!

Our last work day was spent pleasantly if prickly cutting a holly hedge back to neatness.    The hedge is planted on the north side of The Barn, so sees little sunlight and thus is more prone to suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous pest and disease attack – the darker side of nature!   There was ample evidence of sooty mould, which is aptly named, caused by a ‘mealy bug’ infestation secreting ‘honeydew’.  There were neat lines of eggs either side of the main rib of the leaves.  As the holly has a waxy coating on its leaves, it must be tough for the hatching nymphs to suck sap through, but no doubt tasty to them.

I mentioned in one of my musings that I had observed a wood mouse collecting the seed-heads of Clematis alpina.   Now that the clematis has dropped its leaves I spied a blackbird’s abandoned nest in its embrace.   On removing the nest, which was about to fall out, guess where all the seed-heads were?  Isn’t nature fascinating?  I put the nest with its cargo lower down, so the mouse doesn’t have to expend too much energy in retrieving its foodstore.

The special needs married couple in their 40s who I mentor, worked all the year on a slip bed in the walled Old Nursery, to make it look presentable to the visitors who can’t resist peeking through the hole in the high wooden gate where the bolt is for opening the gate.  The idea of this bed is to distract the visitor from the less than pristine state of the rest of the nursery.  We sowed some annual seeds and had a colourful display for many months.  One of the secrets to prevent nature reclaiming the bare ground is to hoe through every week; the other is to mulch heavily and plant through the mulch when required.

The Mansion was decked out with a Venetian theme for its Christmas opening, with wonderful displays by the Floral Team.   A perk for the volunteers is a free guided tour of the Mansion by one of the Mansion guides, prior to the annual Christmas Buffet Lunch, organised by the volunteers themselves.  Each weekday’s Team takes it in turn to host the lunch, so the enjoyable task comes round once every five years.  This is our last attendance of the year and we are then “laid off” – to grow our nails and recharge our batteries – until mid-January, depending on the weather, as always.

Third week of January: The snowdrops and crocus are up!  Each day is nearer to Spring

Market rental value of a Walled Kitchen Garden

I own a small company which leases 4 acres of walled kitchen garden near Tonbridge inKent. The garden, which was semi-derelict when I took it over 2 years ago, has been (exhaustingly!) cleared and ploughed and is now used to propagate plants, train fruit trees and grow vegetables – its original purpose.

There are no old glasshouses remaining on the site and all the modern greenhouses on the garden are now owned by the company.

The walled kitchen garden lease benefits from being  a secured business tenancy under the 1954 Landlord & Tenant Act, which, as well as giving security of tenure, includes an ability to have the rent for future lease renewals to be set or adjusted to a market level.

I am trying to find out what is the market level for the lease of a walled kitchen garden before I have a discussion with the landlord.

I would be very grateful if any other tenants of Walled Kitchen gardens (or indeed landlords) could advise me what they pay for their leased garden, preferably on a cost per acre basis. If the rent includes the provision of other assets which inflate the rent, it would be useful to know that.

If requested, I will keep the information confidential other than to the extent it is used to inform the Landlord etc of the position.

Please contact Mark Wandless  fettinger@btconnect.com

Small wooden conservatory needs a new home

Probably built around 1920, this conservatory is due for demolition. It is situated in a National Trust property in Herefordshire – The Weir.  It is understood that it has no real monetary value, but the recipient would have to dismantle it and take it away.

Please send expressions of interest to: fiona.grant@walledgardens.net

Autumn Musings by Maz Mystery

 Volunteer multi-tasking gardener, Tatton Park Walled Kitchen Garden

 A country saying is that ‘August does the work and September reaps the harvest.’  This is certainly true of the Kitchen Garden, as volunteers have been harvesting vegetables and picking fruit most every morning for the garden shop.  The hard winter provided complete dormancy for the apple trees, and the result is an over abundance of many old varieties of apple, for example: Bloody Ploughman, Miller’s Seedling, Hawkstone, Peasgood’s Red Nonsuch, and at least a hundred others in the formal orchard.  Most of my volunteer days in September and early October are spent gathering up the fallen apples, then sorting them out into those which are of use for juicing or making pies, and those which are destined for the pigs and/or compost heap.  I noticed there were many ladybirds and harvestmen in the foliage, all good predators of the ‘nasties’.  Harvestmen are arachnids, but not strictly spiders having no waist or united thorax and abdomen, but incredibly long legs.  Their Latin name Phalangium opilio is an ugly name for a delightful insect.

I was glad to spend a day away from apples, with the able help of two fellow volunteers who were able to get down to ground level, cutting out the fruited canes/vines of six loganberry plants (labelled as a Marionberry), and tying in this year’s growth which will fruit next year.  We use a two-wire system, so one wire has the fruiting canes/vines trained in ready for next year, and the following year’s canes/vines are trained on the other wire from which we have cut down this year’s fruiting vines, and which is now empty until the new canes start to grow in Spring.  This is quite an efficient system, but I wish we had taller posts and wires so we could use the serpentine method to give more space, light and air to the plants.  Next job is to cut down the summer raspberries and tie in the new canes to protect them from snapping in the winter winds.  Then it will be the turn of the beastly John Innes Blackberry.   I am convinced it is a vampire as it insists on extracting some of my blood with its vicious thorns before it allows me to prune it.

The tamarisk leaves and the asparagus ferns were bejewelled with raindrops this morning – a lovely sight.  One sight which wasn’t was the damage caused by jackdaws balancing on the wires of the espaliered pears and the pecked fruit within their reach.  The wasps were legion, as surprisingly were bees.   I presume the latter were after moisture, as it is too dangerous for them to try to drink at the dipping pond which has steep sides.  The weather at the end of September was gloriously warm, for us up here in theNorth West.

The little birds are back from the fields!   A flock of assorted Titmice chattered across the Kitchen Garden, looking for aphids and caterpillars.  It was fascinating to see Coal Tits, Blue Tits, Great Tits and the gorgeous Long Tailed Tits all working as a team.

Autumn colours are early this year, but then Spring was early, too.   There is a definite glow in the air and every day the colours get better and better.  The vines are really colouring up now, and the purple grapes get darker by the day.  I shall watch the wasps closely to see when the grapes are ripe.  At the moment they are busy, with other insects such as hoverflies, bees and the odd butterfly on the early flowers of the Hedera ‘Buttercup’.

The Walled Kitchen Garden has a north-facing slip bed (which does get sunshine in all but the winter months) where flowers for cutting by the Mansion florists are grown.  I went to collect some still green Agapanthus seedpods, only to discover that not one remained on the plants or on the ground – I suspect those pesky wood mice have been harvesting, too.

The annual Apple Tasting Day was held in early October – so many varieties of old English apples to try and such a bumper harvest this year. The visitors to the event were most impressed and realised how poor, both in variety and taste, are the apples offered to the shopper these days.

Once again towards the end of October we stage a splendid display of pumpkins and squashes in one of the glasshouses which is much photographed by the visitors.

As every seasoned gardener knows, Autumn is the start of the gardening year.  So mild days are a bonus for pruning, tidying away spent growth, digging the little weeds into the soil, planning crop rotations, pondering over the seed orders, and in November we thank a failed attempt at parliamentary reform for the opportunity to burn non-compostable wood and waste, to provide valuable wood-ash, high in potash, to be gathered dry and stored until Spring for use round soft fruit bushes.

The myriad spiders in the garden show their presence with their intricate webs sparkling in the morning dew, but the volunteers have no time to stand and stare as the gaffer “requests” 500 large bags of oak leaves for use in the Pineapple House – we may be some time……………….

Sea Kale and its cultivation at Penpont, Breconshire c.1828, by JPD Williams

I’ve been working on the history of the Penpont Estate in Breconshire for years and after such a long time finding something genuinely new is rare and really exciting – so I was delighted to come across an article from Loudon’s ‘Gardeners’ Magazine’ of 1828 which described a highly unusual method of forcing sea kale at Penpont.

It may be that the reason I’d never found this before was because the owner’s name was spelt wrong (‘Pendry Williams’ instead of ‘Penry Williams’) and it also may not have helped that the estate name was given as ‘Pen-Pont’ instead of ‘Penpont’. Differing spellings can be a particular challenge for those of us researching Welsh history.

This is still research in progress, but a WKGN Forum in Wales seemed too good an opportunity to miss, so I asked if I could make a short presentation on my findings so far, to which I added some background on this vegetable – now a very rarely grown delicacy, but once a vital component of the winter diet in many large houses.

I took the opportunity to take a straw poll among the audience – something like 10% of those present said they had grown sea kale and a slightly higher proportion had eaten it. I suspect that in a more representative cross section of today’s British public these proportions would be much lower.

I was also very interested to hear from one delegate that the engineer Brunel designed a heated outdoor garden for himself at Watcombe Park in Devon – something that it would be fascinating to find out more about.

Jonathan Williams

You can read a version of my presentation: sea-kale-talk

Couple seeking employment

We are seeking employment anywhere in the country. We have run our own business and so are self starters who take responsibility from day one. Whether you need someone to run a café or farm shop, a veg box scheme or a public garden you may want to talk to us.

Fenella can grow organic veggies, keep a happy flock of free range laying hens, manage ornamental gardens and also lead visits and short courses. She is also a great administrator with the full range of bookkeeping skills (including payroll and VAT), as well as experience of managing property, H&S, food safety, HR, operations and projects. She has designed rotations, planting plans and maintained records to keep organic certifiers, trading standards and environmental health happy.

 Chris is a big foodie, and loves sharing his passion with others, either by cooking for them or supplying them with great ingredients and the confidence to make the most of them. He has web skills, so could redesign your website (even to an online shop). For 7 years he put together veg boxes that were interesting and usable, and communicated weekly with the customers to make sure they knew what was in the box and what to do with it. His background is in Sales & Marketing, so he is very good with the customers. He has run a farm shop and a shop selling laying hens and related equipment, as well as an online shop.

 Jointly we have plenty of experience of running businesses (not just our own), we can write business plans, set and keep to budgets and supervise staff.  Our approach is commercial, but not to the exclusion of the other values that may underpin your place.

 If you may have an opening for one or both of us please contact us on 07971 705234, or via e-mail fenellaj@fastmail.fm.

 Chris Sadler & Fenella Lewin

Horticultural Officer needed.

Bedfordshire Rural Communities Charity seeks Horticulture Officer   (maternity cover)
BRCC is seeking to recruit a Horticulture Officer to deliver a range of horticulture-related learning activities for disadvantaged and/or vulnerable people in and around Luton. To succeed in this role, you will need to be experienced in horticulture and able to teach others, and committed to motivating and supporting disadvantaged people into learning and employment. You can view the job advertisement > here

WKGN Forum 1st October 2011

Gardener Ceridwen Davies leads one of the tours

This year’s Forum was held at Dyffryn Gardens, in the Vale of Glamorgan, our first in Wales.  We were, once again, blessed with fantastic  weather. You can read more about the day by downloading the report on the proceedings by clicking on the link below.

Report_on_proceedings_2011

Project Officer for Glenfinart Walled Garden, Ardentinny, Argyll.

Two weeks after receiving the necessary funding to purchase Glenfinart Walled Garden, Ardentinny Community Trust Ltd. has received additional grants from  the Scottish Government, European Community & Argyll & The Islands LEADER 2007-2013 programme and Highlands & Islands Enterprise (HIE) to fund a self-employed, part-time Project Officer to support the board of directors to develop a social enterprise. The total value of this contract is £10,000, to which the Trust contributed £1,000, with the remaining £9,000 coming from LEADER(50%) and HIE(50%), respectively.

 The successful candidate will identify funding sources, prepare funding applications and supporting information, including community consultations and engagement, and will update the Business Plan as the funding package develops. Applicants need to have experience of fund raising, community engagement and work in the public, private and third sectors. The closing date for applications is 26 October, 2011. The contract is currently being advertised.

For further information go to their website http://ardentinny.org

August Musings by Maz Mystery

 Volunteer multi-tasking Gardener, Tarpot Tank Walled Kitchen Gardens

Early August: One morning, quite early when all was quiet, I took a walk round the walled kitchen garden and formal orchard.  The cut flower border was looking splendid, as were the really giant sunflowers behind.

The beanframes had been erected with military precision by a retired engineer volunteer and were magnificent – a real work of art.

Squirrels were stealing apples from the orchard, the jackdaws were pecking at the fallen fruit, and the swifts were gathering ready to depart.

First jobs of the day: harvesting of the kitchen garden produce continues apace, always bearing in mind that as well as a productive garden it has also to be a show garden – a difficult balance at the best of times.

The borage and oregano still flower gamely on, with many flying insects visiting.   In shafts of sunlight through the trees myriads of insects can be seen flying about, backlit in the beams.  In bright sunlight they are normally invisible.

The Itea ilicifolia racemes are cascading down like a waterfall.  The racemes are similar to ‘love-lies-bleeding’ or Amaranthus except they are creamy white and smell of honey.   I recently discovered from an old book that the common name is Sweet Spire, but not sure how that applies as the ‘flowers’ all dangle.

The roses all have little semi-circles cut out of them – the work of the leafcutter bee making cosy tunnels in the soil for their offspring.   Little volcanoes in the earth or lawn are caused by another bee – the mining bee.

I spent two of my working days in the orchard, inspecting every tree for insect-damaged apples which had gone rotten, then thinning the over-laden branches on some of the trees to prevent the branches breaking, and finally gathering up the fallen fruit.  There are 89 apple and pear trees in the orchard lawn, and as many trained as espaliers – a quite tiring but satisfying job.

Late in the day I was standing by a Clematis alpina watching the buzzards and became aware of a wood mouse some six foot high in the clematis.  It was systematically harvesting the fluffy seedheads, and when next I passed by a few days later, all the seedheads had gone.

Late August: St Bartholemew’s Day (24 August) in country folklore is supposed to be the day when heavy morning dews start to appear, and is an indication of the seasons changing.   It seems to be so here.  The swifts have gone, the swallows soon to follow, and the incoming geese squadrons are now advertising their noisy presence,

The vine leaves are starting to colour up.  Little piles of peapods are discovered underneath the rows of pea plants.  The blackbirds are so full of autumn raspberries that they seem to find it hard to take off, but there is still plenty of fruit to pick for the garden shop.

Whilst clearing weed from and around the pond, a most exotic looking damselfly appeared.  It was blue with large blue spots on its wings, which when in motion was mesmerising.   I looked it up that evening and found it was a Banded Agrion, and apparently quite rare in this part of the world.   Nature is amazing and never fails to astonish and delight this ‘ancient’ gardener.