Pick of the month: Cucamelon

30 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by sallynex in exotic edibles, greenhouse, pick of the month

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cucamelons, greenhouse, Melothria scabra, mouse melons, unusual plants, vegetables

Well. These are very curious little things.

Cucamelons are the latest Big Thing in veg growing: everyone seems to have one or two plants about the place somewhere. So I gave it a try this year, at last, after some years of wondering what all the fuss was about.

I’m still wondering, a bit: the main benefit I can see so far is the cute value.

Cucamelons, aka Melothria scabra, are related to cucumbers, but they come from Mexico. There is in fact lots of argument among botanists as to exactly which bit of the cucumber family it should belong in, as it also counts West African gourds in its ancestry: expect one of those annoying name changes before long.

I germinated the seed with ease, some time back in April, and they romped away, making slightly weedy-looking tangles of leaf, stem and tendril. They’re much less hefty than a cucumber: more like an annual climber in habit. As a result, they’re also much more difficult to train, quickly forming unruly nests of impenetrable tangle (in fact I gave up in the end and just tied them to their supports as best I could).

You don’t have to grow them in a greenhouse, as I’ve done: they actually prefer slightly cooler conditions than a cucumber, so are happy outside in a sunny spot, too. I decided to err on the side of caution, though, and popped them in on the opposite side to my much heavier-looking cucumber plants.

They started fruiting about a month ago. Teeny-tiny little watermelons, no more than 3cm long and 1cm across, striped prettily and small enough to pop whole into your mouth. They definitely taste of cucumber, but with a little tang of citrussy lemon that’s really very pleasant.

But snacks, so far, they have remained. They aren’t cropping that heavily at the moment (though we still have a couple of growing months and you never know). I’m a bit nonplussed as to what else to do with them, to be honest: a quick Google tells me you can sprinkle them on salads, serve them in cocktails or among olives as a bar snack, or (better) try them in a salsa – come to think of it they aren’t radically different from tomatilloes in flavour, just smaller. And you can pickle them, too.

Well – ours is not really a bar snack kind of household, so we’re mostly just putting them in lunch boxes and picnics at the moment or just leaving them lying around in bowls for people to pick at. Besides, I haven’t got enough fruits to experiment with different dishes just yet. On the plus side, they’re almost completely pest and disease free – my cukes are just starting to yellow with red spider mite (as they always do at this time of year) yet the cucamelons are still brilliant green and perky. And they’re the kind of thing that grows just about anywhere, so you can just see them dangling from a hanging basket, say, or in a vertical planting system draped down a wall.

But in a good productive patch of loam in your greenhouse? Well, just now, I’m a bit ‘meh’ about them so far. Pretty, yes; curiosity value, tick, and they really are very cute – but I’m slightly resenting having handed them good growing space. I’d rather grow watermelons. Or cucumbers.

Cosmos at Wisley

27 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by sallynex in new plants

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AGM, cosmos, Fleuroselect, flower trials, RHS Wisley

The trials fields, at the back of Battleston Hill at RHS Wisley in Surrey, are easy to miss. You have to turn your back on the temptations of double herbaceous borders, rose gardens and the rest and walk over a socking great big hill to put yourself through a battering from thundering traffic noise from the A3 just the other side of the hedge. But it’s actually the most important bit of the whole garden.

That’s because this is the principal place where the RHS does its trials (they also run trials at other locations, like Brogdale in Kent and other RHS gardens just to see how plants perform in different climatic conditions).

Long beds are planted with dozens of different varieties of one particular genus: on the day I visited the trials included hibiscus, rosemary, petunias, beetroot and strawberries (and those are only the ones I can remember).

It is rare that you get to see multiple varieties of the same type of plant alongside each other, so you can compare and contrast, and perhaps decide which ones you might like in your own garden. Even better, if you wait till the trials report (they’re published on the RHS website at the end of each trial) you’ll find out how your chosen varieties perform, too. If they get an AGM you know you’re on to a winner.

One of the most eyecatching displays this year is the bed of Cosmos, in full spectacular flower on my visit and looking just glorious. It is – who knew? – the Year of the Cosmos, according to ornamental plant industry people Fleuroselect anyway. It’s as good an excuse as any to explore what this surprisingly diverse group of plants can do – and to get a sneak peek of the new varieties coming soon to a seed merchant’s near you. Here are a few which caught my eye:

‘Casanova Red’ 3ft tall and delightful with three tones of flower on one plant

C. sulphureus ‘Cosmic Red’ I had no idea cosmos come in orange, too. C. sulphureus produces smaller flowers (about 2″ across) than the more familiar C. bipinnatus but there are loads of them.

‘Cosimo Red-White’ Quite short, at 2 1/2 ft, and very dainty with small, almost wild-looking flowers over sparse foliage: wouldn’t look out of place in an annual meadow

‘Xanthos’ This is, I believe, already on the market and I’ll be buying it next year: lovely palest lemon flowers opening deeper primrose

‘Carioca’ Beautiful clear orange over lush foliage, about 3ft tall

‘Double Click Rose Bonbon’ Already a favourite of mine, only confirmed by seeing it en masse alongside other cosmos. I like the variability of the flowers, with some fully double, others semi-double and others (like this one) hardly double at all

‘Cupcakes White’ A new shape of cosmos flower on the way with petals fused to make a large bowl-shaped bloom on a tall (5ft) plant. Not sure whether it’ll catch on: it loses some of the daintiness of a regular cosmos.

‘Pied Piper Red’ And another curiosity: this time quilled petals. I like the two-tone effect from the inner and outer petals, but it’s not as elegant as a single.

C. sulphureus ‘Tango’ Retina-searing shade of orange with quite small flowers but loads of them. Medium-sized plant, to about 4ft.

Wordless Wednesday: Red banana

24 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by sallynex in wordless wednesday

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Ensete ventricosum, photography

Ensete ventricosum: as seen at Woolbeding Gardens, Sussex

Life in the greenhouse: August

21 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by sallynex in exotic edibles, greenhouse, kitchen garden

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Aji chillies, aubergines, chillies, cucamelons, cucumbers, green peppers, heritage tomatoes, heritage vegetables, life in the greenhouse, overwintering chillies, tomatoes

Summertime… and the watering is endless….

Every day I am to be found in the greenhouses behind a hose – possibly my least favourite job in the garden. Ah well, I can’t be doing the fun stuff all the time.

It’s a good time, though, to take time just standing and looking at my plants (after all, there’s not much else you can do). Stand staring for a while and you’ll spot that early outbreak of aphids, or the yellow mottling that signals the start of red spider mite. And the earlier you spot trouble, the sooner you can head it off.

In this greenhouse – the cucumber greenhouse this year, which means there are also cucamelons, peppers and an aubergine or two in here, plus an almost-finished pot of mixed salad which really needs to go outdoors – I’ve also been peering at the weed seedlings and noticicing that several are actually self-seeded French marigolds, left over from last year when I underplanted the tomatoes in here with them.

This is very gratifying, as it means a) my tardiness with the weeding has paid off and b) French marigolds can self seed – who knew?! Saves me a lot of time faffing about with seed trays and propagators – all I have to do is leave the heads on to set seed and I’m done.

The cucumbers are in full production now: and that means I’m in the middle of my annual cucumber glut. I’m picking one or two a day at the moment, far more than we can possibly eat. The plan is to slice and pickle them instead of gherkins (which have – again – been an abject failure this year): must find a recipe.

And in Greenhouse no. 2 the tomatoes are at last really getting going: I planted them out far too late this year after getting distracted just when I should have been clearing the shelving, late-sown seedlings and containers out, so they hung around in pots much longer than they should have. Just green fruits so far but all looking promising.

These are heritage varieties, and rather special ones at that: they’re from a little packet of treasure sent me by the chap who looks after the 103-variety-strong heritage tomato collection at Knightshayes in Devon. On the right are ‘White Beauty’, aka ‘Snowball’ – a hefty white beefsteak; on the left, ‘Sutton’s Everyday’ which sound nice and reliable; and at the end ‘Jersey Sunrise’ which I’m promised offers exceptional flavour. There are about a dozen other varieties in the package I’m intending to work my way through over the next few years.

And I couldn’t possibly sign off without mentioning the newest arrival in this side. Over winter I lost my beloved rocoto chilli – it was coming into its fourth year, and last year was so vigorous and enormous it hit the ceiling of the greenhouse and I needed to construct a support frame for it out of 2×1 roofing battens to stop it muscling out the plants around it. Covered in lipstick-scarlet fruits, so many I gave them to family and friends and still had bags left over in the freezer, it was my pride and joy.

I hadn’t done anything particularly different from the previous three years, so I’m thinking that rocotos (also known as tree chillies) are actually just naturally short-lived and don’t last much longer than three or four years.

Anyway, there’s no problem that doesn’t also offer an opportunity: so I took the chance to ring the changes and try another chilli you’re supposed to be able to overwinter. Introducing my Aji chilli: aka Capsicum baccatum and another of the slightly hardier, earlier fruiting varieties. This one has yellow fruits, much more like cayenne types in that they’re thin-skinned, so I should be able to dry them (unlike rocotos which are too fleshy) and also not quite as hot as the tongue-blistering fruits on my lost plant.

As before, I’ve planted it in the greenhouse border; as before, I’m expecting it to reach a spectacular height and generally become a bit of a talking point. Watch this space!

Learning from the master

18 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by sallynex in design, garden design, garden history, landscaping

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Denmans, design, john brookes

Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ catching the sunlight: note the silver-variegated shrub echoing the effect behind

This week I made something of a pilgrimage, to the garden of John Brookes OBE at Denmans in Sussex.

I have a personal debt of gratitude to pay to John Brookes as it was the 1970s edition of his classic book, The Small Garden, that formed my first ideas about garden design. In fact I shamelessly nicked (slightly adapted) one of the designs in that book for my first-ever garden in London, at a time when I was still feverishly taking notes while watching Gardeners’ World (I know, I know).

He has broken new ground in so many areas of garden design we now take for granted that his legacy can’t really be overstated. He was the first to come up with the idea of the ‘inside outside’, making garden rooms – as advocated by Lawrence Johnstone et al – an extension of the living room in the house they surround.

He was – astonishingly – the first British designer to take his inspiration from modern art, specifically Mondrian via his revolutionary geometric garden of interlocking squares for Penguin Books at Heathrow. And he was the first to create a design-focussed garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, at a time when everyone else was just creating showcases for plant nurseries.

Denmans is still his home, and where he runs his garden school. It’s looking a little tired these days, mainly I suspect because there’s just one heroic gardener looking after four acres of intensively-garden landscape and do lone battle with an encroaching army of ground elder. A garden of this stature deserves a few more staff.

But the mark of good design is that it holds up even a slightly woolly garden and gives it bones and structure. And so it is with Denman’s: it’s a softer garden than John Brookes’s usual designs in any case, and the fluid, sinuous curves and gentle naturalism are deceptive as underneath it all lies the solid, well thought out geometry and subtle design touches which are a John Brookes hallmark. Here are a few tips from my notebook I’ll be trying out once I get home.

1: Don’t ignore the buildings. Reflect the materials used in the buildings in hard landscaping; and echo architectural features in the planting. Here a tall fastigiate yew emphasises the strong verticals in the Clock Tower.

2. Don’t get too hung up about giving beds clear edges. At Denmans plants flow over the edges of curving gravel paths, sometimes spilling over into the hard landscaping and self-seeding into the edges, giving a soft, organic, very natural look that also, incidentally, evokes the Sussex coastline of the wider environment.

3. Always be aware of the picture you are creating, and use sculpture to complete the scene. This sitting boy was delightful and added a focal point and a little vignette to an otherwise nice-but-ordinary wildlife pond.

4. Create a sense of mystery and intrigue by cutting curving (not straight) paths through the planting, giving a glimpse of another part of the garden beyond but not revealing it all at once. It makes it all but impossible to resist following the path to explore further.

5. Lawns are intrinsically boring. So make them more interesting (and save yourself some hours behind the mower) by only cutting the middle bits once a month. The outer paths you mow once a week – creating a contrast in texture and keeping the sensuous curves of the design at the fore.

6. Remember your backgrounds – in every direction. This Achillea ‘Moonshine’ shone out in contrast with the dark purple smokebush (Cotinus coggygria) against the wall behind it: what a combination. But turn around, put the smoke bush behind you, and the brooding effect is completely gone to be replaced by airy woodland:

Same plant, completely different effect. So as you compose your perfect combination looking one way, don’t forget to turn around and look at it the other way, too – and seize the chance to create a wholly new scene.

August flowers

15 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by sallynex in Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

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anemone, antirrhinum, coriander, cut flowers, daylilies, edible hanging basket, fuchsiaberry, gladioli, hyssop, inula magnifica, mallow, parterre, poppies, self-sown seedlings, wildflowers

August is a funny old month. All the splendour of June and July has overreached itself a bit and, in places, frankly flopped: yet it’s a bit early to start on autumn just yet. The kids are still on summer holidays, for goodness’ sake. And besides, the crocosmia are only just waking up and cannas are still in bud. There is a definite pause: a moment for the garden to catch its breath, so to speak, before the next big push.

That’s not to say there aren’t any flowers: you just have to look for them with a bit more determination. Here’s what I found in my garden this month.

I’ve been experimenting with some ‘Fuchsiaberry’ plants – bred for their edible berries. All fuchsia berries are edible, but most varieties major on flowers (understandably) so the fruits are a bit on the small side. The wild fuchsia, F. magellanica, is your best bet for jam-quality fruits, but earlier this year Thompson & Morgan started experimenting with fuchsias with berries as big and fat as the blooms. At the moment I’m just growing on the plug plants, so they’re still a bit on the small side, but what I hadn’t reckoned with was the lovely flowers – every bit as good as a bedding variety.

The poppies on the top terrace are looking as lovely as ever: but the wildflower mix I had in here just hasn’t really worked this year. Sporadic is probably the kindest way to describe it. It’s partly because I haven’t kept on top of the hedge bindweed that infests this bit of the garden; partly because a lot of the seed mix simply didn’t germinate. Hm. I’m thinking of doing something more formal here in the long-term: if only to stop it looking so messy.

In the same patch is a lovely clump of hyssop – all that remains of a batch of seed-sown hyssop I was hoping might become a hedge. Unfortunately the seedlings got swamped by the (then) exuberant wildflowers so this is the only survivor. It is, however, robust enough to have lots of promising looking greenery for cuttings: perhaps a better way to make me a new hyssop hedge. I feel a parterre coming on.

On a more positive note, the cut flower garden – one terrace down – has been coming into its own beautifully with froths of wallflowers this spring followed by willowy cosmos in lots of different colours. And this month we’ve been treated to stately gladioli: it was a mixed pack so I don’t have variety names but I particularly like this deep maroon.

The antirrhinum (excuse the fuzzy pic) were a giveaway from spring and I had no idea they’d turn out this raspberry ripple colouring. I can’t decide: some days I think, wow – that’s special; other days I look at them and think…. meh.

In the rockery the ‘Honorine Jobert’ are in full flouncy flower: this area used to be overrun with them (they can be quite invasive when they’re happy) and I’ve dug out most as it’s meant to be a herb garden here. But I can’t quite bring myself to get rid of them altogether as they are so lovely. And they don’t like being moved, it turns out, so I have them here or nowhere. So I just have to pretend they’re herbs.

I am so pleased with my hanging basket. It’s pretty simple: just a ‘Tumbling Tom’ tomato, some seed-sown basil from spring, and a cluster of French marigolds (you can see me planting it up earlier this summer in this video for crocus.co.uk). Tomatoes now slowly ripening: red on yellow and orange is going to be quite some combination.

This little mallow (Malva moschata, I think) arrived all on its own: nothing to do with me. I thought it might be a buttercup at first but something stayed my hand: I’m so glad I let it grow.

And here’s another voluntary resident: my giant and very handsome Inula magnifica must have arrived courtesy of a bird (I do buy some plants occasionally, honest!) and has been with me, growing bigger by the year, for about three or four years now. It’s a glory right now: eight foot tall, well above my head, and covered in huge spidery yellow daisies. Bees love it.

My orange daylilies have been under a stay of execution for some time now, saved only by the fact that I haven’t got around to digging them up yet. The buds are yummy – a bit like lettuce – and the flowers are quite nice, especially this time of year, but my goodness it is a thug. And there are so many nicer daylilies I could be growing instead.

So often flowers are an afterthought when you’re growing veg: but blooms are a big thing in my garden even though it’s mostly edible. Here one of the three troughs of coriander (one just sown, one growing and one to pick) has burst into bloom: even though it brings the leafy harvest to an end it’s still a welcome sight as it means seeds are on the way, for flavouring curries and resowing for the next crop too.