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Sally Nex

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Sally Nex

Category Archives: videos

How to plant rhubarb

10 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by sallynex in videos

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Tags

how to, kitchen garden, rhubarb, vegetable garden

img_4136

You can never have too much rhubarb. Well, actually, you can: it’s a monster of a plant, with mature clumps expanding to 5ft across, so more than two or three plants will gobble up vast tracts of your garden. But the actual deep red, spicy, fruity stems, first to appear in spring when there’s nothing else sweet to pick? No, can’t have enough of that.

I am currently a one-crown household, my ‘Timperley Early’ next to the fishpond a nod towards gunnera-like swamp plantings: rhubarb has a pleasingly exotic sort of appearance and is one of those edibles that sits well among more obviously ornamental plants. Mine has scarlet pineapple sage scrambling through it and a hardy banana (Musa basjoo) spearing up through its expanding leaves.

But I would like three: the ideal setup for the longest possible rhubarb season, providing one to force, one to rest and one to pick. I daren’t force my Timperley Early, perfect as it is for that treatment being first out of the ground in spring; I know I’d have to give up picking it the year after while the crown recovered and I couldn’t possibly deprive myself quite so absolutely.

Luckily, last year I got to make a video for the Crocus Youtube channel in which I got rather muddy planting a little crown of Champagne rhubarb. After a little house move to the other end of the edible exotics garden and a year left alone to establish properly, this is about about to become clump no. 2.

Now is just the right time to plant new rhubarb, while the crowns are dormant and don’t mind being moved. You can lift and divide an existing clump, making sure each lump you split away to replant has a fat bud plus a root; or you can plant a new crown of a different variety. You can watch how here:

Putting Biochar through its paces

07 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by sallynex in climate change, videos

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Biochar, Carbon Gold, compost, environmentally-friendly gardening, mycorrhizal fungi, peat, peat-free compost, seed composts

I’m mostly a peat-free gardener: life’s too short and the world too precious to ruin a peat bog for beans and lettuces, and besides I kind of accidentally started peat-free (long before it became a hot topic in gardening) so I learned to garden without peat without even particularly knowing the environmental implications. You do treat peat-free composts differently: they’re more open, for one thing, so I’m used to watering my pot-grown seedlings a little more often. I had a go at growing stuff in a peat-based compost once, just to see if I was missing out on anything, and everything drowned.

But that word ‘mostly’ is in there for a reason. I’ve never been able to escape the use of peat in seed composts: I’m kind of fussy about what I start my seeds in, mainly because it can be the difference between modest success and abject failure, so I’ve always taken the safe course of action and plumped for John Innes seed compost blends. These are soil based – but they also have a proportion of peat. I’ve not been able to find out what proportion (compost makers are notoriously cagey about exactly what goes into their recipes) though some John Innes style mixes give it at one part sphagnum moss peat to two parts loam. Still too much for comfort as far as I’m concerned.

I had been turning a blind eye to this, reasoning (slightly uneasily) that since I don’t use as much seed compost as potting compost in an average year it was only a small proportion of the compost I get through. I’ve been stewing up a plan to make my own as an alternative, but haven’t quite got the leafmould together yet (one year done, one year left to do) and I never have enough garden compost.

And then I came across Carbon Gold. It’s got two very of-the-moment things in it: the first is mycorrhizal fungi, which is to say types of fungal organism which can form symbiotic relationships with roots, plugging them in to the soil around them so they access nutrients and moisture better. And the other is biochar: basically, charcoal.

Biochar comes in soil improver as well as seed composts; it acts like a sponge in soils, absorbing moisture and opening up the soil (rather like any kind of organic matter). And best of all, it acts like a carbon sink – so you’re doing your little tiny bit to help the environment by gardening, instead of carving it up.

I thought all this sounded rather wonderful: so I decided to try it out for myself and see if it really worked as a seed compost (the acid test: whatever it’s got in it, there’s no point in using a seed compost if your seeds don’t actually grow in it). And I (or rather the hubster) filmed the results: click play for the lowdown, courtesy of the crocus.co.uk Youtube channel.

Herby adventures

10 Saturday Sep 2016

Posted by sallynex in container growing, herbs, videos

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

container growing, herbs, herbs in containers

I have been planting herbs. More to the point, I have been experimenting with herb containers: a gardening marriage made in heaven if ever there was one, as herbs like it dry and hot, and conditions in containers are generally…. dry and hot. And you can put your herb container right outside your back door so all you have to do when you want something for your cooking is open the door, reach out and… voila! You don’t even have to put your shoes on.

Anyway, I made a video of it (in which you also get to glimpse my house and bits of the extremely woolly garden too). Here you go – courtesy of the crocus.co.uk Youtube Channel. Enjoy!

This month in the garden…

12 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by sallynex in kitchen garden, videos

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

hyacinths, indoor gardening, microgreens, putting the garden to bed, winter

I’m not doing very much.

In fact so dreadful is the weather that I’ve been reduced to indoor gardening: I have three hyacinth bulbs to pot up, plus a packet of interesting-looking sweetcorn shoots which were a freebie from Suttons to try sprouting on the windowsill, a bit like microgreens. Should be interesting.

Just occasionally, though, there has been a gap in the clouds: and that’s my chance to finish doing my no. 1 task this month, putting the veg garden to bed for its winter snooze.

Video courtesy of the crocus.co.uk Youtube channel!

This month in the garden…

08 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by sallynex in kitchen garden, videos

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Tags

broad beans, garlic, late autumn, rhubarb, what to do in November

I am….

Planting garlic

Putting in some rather fine ‘Champagne’ rhubarb…

And sowing and overwintering broad bean ‘Aquadulce Claudia’

Videos brought to you courtesy of the crocus.co.uk Youtube channel!

How to grow blueberries in pots

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by sallynex in videos

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

blueberries, container fruit, container growing

I’ve made another video! Or rather, my talented hubby did (I just wittered on a bit and played about with some compost).

So if you’re growing blueberries in containers this year – take a look at this and I hope you’ll find a few tips which might help:

Brought to you courtesy of the crocus.co.uk Youtube channel!

How to make an A-frame bean support

05 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by sallynex in videos

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Tags

A-frame supports, Alderman peas, beanpoles, climbing beans, Crocus, French beans, plant supports, pole beans, runner beans, supports, Telephone pea, videos

If you’re about to construct this year’s A-frame bean supports for your runners, French pencils, Borlottis and (in my case) Telephone peas…. this one’s for you.

Brought to you by the Crocus.co.uk Youtube Channel!

How to plant onion sets

07 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by sallynex in videos

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Tags

onions, planting onion sets, videos

My first how-to video for the crocus.co.uk Youtube channel – all about planting onion sets. Enjoy!

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