have you gut a forcing pot? Got one on spesh last year at Trebah gardens. It’s all terracotta and Monty Don… and surprisingly didn’t break on the way home…
I don’t know…quite possible there’s one knocking about in the garden (I’m finding all sorts of things now that the foliage has died back). How tall are they?
mines about thigh height I think? I’ve no idea how they are supposed to be used tbh. I just put it over my rhubarb crown in about November hoping that might do it!
well otherwise an old box or something might do it? I have no idea how special this forced rhubarb is sposed to be. I mean the emperor might be naked here 😀😀😀
it was really pink, almost translucent, and tender. I think it was a Nigella recipe - rhubarb polenta cake - great warm as a pudding with cream or custard, or cold as cake!
I mean! Stoppit now! I’m in a dodgy little flat for work in Zurich, couldn’t be arsed to go shopping today and therefore had leftovers-omelette for tea. Rhubarb polenta cake sounds excellent right now 😀😀
I’ve just looked at the special pots…super fancy! I’m pretty sure I can find something knocking around in the garden this time. I’ll try and do that tomorrow lunchtime if I can.
I have just rigged up something that is so Heath Robinson my dad would have been proud 😂. I found an old iron frame - maybe a plant stand - put that over the rhubarb crowns then covered it in a double layer of bin bags. The bin bags didn’t reach to the ground though so I’ve wrapped some thick agricultural fabric (spare from log store cover) around the sides and put a bit of slate on the top for good measure 😂. Monty Don it isn’t. A couple of crowns wouldn’t fit inside either.
I've seen a fair few threads on use of soot in the garden. Eventually Ithink someone knowledgeable wades in and says: yeah - they used to do that. Don't do it tho...
Soft fruit can use it, I think. I have added it to my gooseberries but that wouldn't be an advert...they're rubbish and the bull finches get the flowerbuds most years...
This whole thread is fascinating to me because my rhubarb won't make an appearance for months (April) and I have no idea what the forcing is about? Longer stems?
Forced rhubarb is earlier, a delicate pink and far less acidic than later rhubarb. I used to use it to make a lovely tart a bit like a Bakewell but with rhubarb. My sister used forced rhubarb to make rhubarb gin. Don’t mistake me for any kind of expert though. My mum had a lovely old terracotta rhubarb forcing pot.
I got one of those terracotta forcing pots last year - trying it now for the first time. Like so much in my garden I have absolutely no idea what it’s going to do…
oh! We’re all education here today! I love this: Mastodon can be ace sometimes. We’ve got a fella who clearly knows all about it, some folks who’ve sort of heard of it (I’m in that group) some ‘what is it - never heard of it’ here in this thread. And all except the first (sorry @Lionelb ) are going to learn some useful stuff!
only question with blueberries: are they worth it???? I eat them by the billion when I’m fishing in #Norway (they grow wild by the kilo). But in a garden?
these are kind of no bother, space wise. They are in a large planter alongside the house - about four bushes - and they’re in a cage to stop the birds getting at them. Quite nice to go out and pick a handful to go with a bowl of yogurt and muesli…or pancakes.
so I have this funny mix of oats and milk powder in a big bag in the cupboard (periodically the moths get in and…hmmm..start again time) which I take away to the hills when I go. But the question is always: what else? In Norway or the Scottish isles from late August, then blueberries are abundant. But it turns out… you need a bit more! Like honey or a banana.
I’ve been know to! 😀😀😀. I love the hills but I’m not addicted to discomfort. I feel if I’m schlepping for miles and kipping in a tent in a gale then decent grub (and maybe a dram) is ok…
I’ve got into ‘overnight oats’ and birscher muesli with local Swiss influences and blueberries are great there. But it feels like you have a great bit bush and get 3. That might be a bit exaggerated…
I’m not!!! I started wondering if I should split my crown or get a new one. Space is very limited for me though and rhubarb isn’t exactly small! But maybe two which I force alternatively would be a good idea.
That's a great journey of discovery tho! I inherited what I thought was a blackcurrant. Turned out to be non fruiting (and therefore... compost material)...
there are lots of what look like fruit bushes about. I could ask my neighbours to help identify them - veg farm on one side and smallholders on the other, both with fruit bushes - or wait to see what appears!
I love the sparkly winter. I work in #Switzerland and we get a bit of that - specially in the mountains. It’s exquisite actually. Privilege to be alive territory as opposed to - oh fuck, another grey drizzly Northern European winter’s day… which we get *A LOT* of at home in #Jersey
many years ago we rented a house with a fabulous fruit garden. It had all the currents. I remember making a fruit tart with all different types piled on top. Very pretty.
Grew up with that. Dad was a rural primary school head and the job came with a rambling old house and massive garden. Being skint, they grew lots and had an epic fruit cage. Don't think we had white currants but had the rest. Idyllic in hind sight. But space needed!
Tell me about hazelnuts? We have several native varieties here but I’ve not got them in my garden. Are they worth trying to establish on an edge? I think they would be a challenge here with the deer.
I've got a 3 year old hazelnut (I assume this is the same as a cobnut??) and it's lovely (copper leaves) but does not fruit (hopefully yet)
We don't have any deer on the island (or foxes, badgers - or any large wild mammals in fact) so can't help with that one.
Hilariously (for those of us who don't have them next door), we do have a sizeable population of feral chickens, released by farmers to avoid slaughter costs. Not so funny for neighbours
I was chatting to the wife of the egg man up the path and she said the cockerel they adopted is tame but fearless and pecks at their heels. She tells it ‘No!’ very firmly and goes off in a huff.
We always had 12 when I was a kid - and they did have distinct personalities, for sure. Feeding them was a good job (among a list of rubbish ones 😀) because they were so funny.
I have a contorted hazelnut in a pot. Have had it nearly 20 years but it doesn’t ‘nut’. At our last house though we had a couple in our hedge and they did well although we never benefited as the squirrels got there first. We’d regularly find little hazel trees popping up in random places.
I've got a bit laissez faire about sharing with the garden wildlife. Not completely: the bloody snails and slugs can bugger off. But the birds...? And I'd love a squirrel: we only have the red ones, but I've never seen one near where I live, I suspect because it's a bit too cultivated maybe. Still - I get about 3 cherries each year for eg - but that's fine somehow.
we definitely share! I do need to think about preserving fruit next. I can only eat so much jam and don’t have enough freezer space for everything. Any suggestions?
Mum used to clip their wings to stop them flying away. Periodically we'd come home to find it needed doing again and they'd all be sitting in a tree by the coop! Everything about them was a drama.
A weird thing to try is medlar. A small tree with big white flowers and crinkly leaves. The fruit is like a flat unripe apple and before use you have to let it almost liquefy or 'blet'. In that state you can use it to make something similar to crab apple jelly. Very aromatic and intense, like date or fig.
It's a very good idea! No idea how to do it though... but I should have too many apples this year. As this coincides with everyone else around me having too many apples, I would love to dry some...
the trees were lovely in a hedge with other native species. I have no idea how we’d keep the squirrels off them if we tried getting a proper crop. We have walnut trees grown from the ‘family tree’ that was in the garden of my parents’ first house in the 1960s. They’re in large pots atm. I was hoping to have space to plant them out here but not unless another tree goes first. I’ll repot them (they need very deep pots apparently) and maybe one day…
I’ll be in the same position again with apples. The birds had most of ours. Apparently there is somewhere locally that will juice them so I’ll investigate that. Maybe a cidrerie near you?
Top family favourite. Cheap cooking brandy works fine for me. Big kilner jars - bottle in June/July I think. And then produce at Christmas.
Sent my daugher off to uni the Netherlands with a big jar of them - without thinking about it too hard. Turns out it was a big hit, but also...a big hit in her halls.
Ditto - aquilegias and fox gloves can fill their boots. My thug is valerian who's seedlings need heavy culling each year. I love the parent - and try to cut the seeds before they drop. But still...
Can vouch for the clay with currants (of all hues with us), although as we adopt a fairly haphazard food forest layout, our cropping isn’t particularly heavy. Works fine with raspberries also - we just let the canes sprout up wherever they wish.
We find by letting them wander around the garden at will, they naturally extend their season as no two canes inhabit the same micro-environment! Ours are never for harvesting bowlfuls anyway, just for interest along the way.
Yes - massive loganberry fan. I have them growing along 4 stretches of wall, and train them in carefully each year. Two of them died very suddenly last summer, just before a big crop of fruit ripened. Best guess was mice or voles had taken the root, as there were long underground hole through them - but I don't really know. Was a bit gutted. But thankfully I've got others so am going again this year. Freeze them and use in gin
Our big issue with valerian is that it’s adapted in Cornwall to spread through the Cornish hedges (which are stone walls packed with earth) - so the root system is impossible to eradicate by natural means. They literally pile up around the boundaries and constantly throw new shoots into the garden - it’s a Sisyphean task, keeping it out (but then, so is most of gardening…).
I'm in Jersey - we have exactly the same though I have ugly breeze block walls where they can't establish. The original invader must have been wind blown - they are everywhere around us in the hedges and walls. Same across the water in Normandy and Brittany in fact. Beautiful but one can have too much of a good thing...
oooh! I didn't know that! I might let a few more grow then. We get Hummingbird Hawk Moths in the greenhouse sometimes and I try hard to get them out of the spiders webs. It's always a bit gutting to find a dea one. They are so ace.
We have some friends (thankfully they’re not next door) who have convinced themselves that bindweed is both beautiful and wildlife-friendly, and must be encouraged. Their poor neighbours…
Oooh - that's not very neighbourly at all. Bindweed is great for wildlife - it's true. And the flowers are lovely. But plenty of other plants are too, and its invasive nature is a nightmare. I have one small area with it - which I really try to hit hard each year by hand.
What’s galling is that over the course of a few years, I spent a lot of time restoring the garden boundaries, and largely freed them of invaders. But they’re all back with a vengeance, as we border open countryside (and non-gardener neighbours)
Had no idea valerian was such a problem. Planted it on purpose last summer for the first time hadn’t seen it in garden shops before. Bees love it, it looks great in flower arrangements.
Well - it's only a problem in that it's promiscuous! Is that a problem? A little weeding deals with mine. I love the flowers. And of course it is reputed to have medicinal value. Headache I think?
What Lionel said! The invasive thing we call Valerian (red or white) is Centranthus Ruber; the medical valerian is Valeriana Officinalis. Very different plants!
Used often as an anxiolytic. We used to get scullcap and valerian tablets from a veterinary supplier called Dorwest, who made a range of herbal supplements for pets. They certainly helped calm the owners down, I know that. My wife has used valerian drops as a sleep aid (with no discernible effect, unfortunately).
Valerian officinalis has a beautiful early season ferny crown like Osmunda. The flowers have a luscious exotic scent that carries, just like white jasmine. Seeds around but quite restrained.
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http://trufflebird.blogspot.com/2008/03/nigellas-rhubarb-cornmeal-cake.html?m=1
Nigella's Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake
trufflebird.blogspot.comJimmyB (he/him) •
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The crowns outside the ‘tent’ can be my control I guess.
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😀
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@IcooIey @lionelb
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So blueberries, discuss…
Just kidding, but I do know that I have blueberries! We came here in time for their harvesting.
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Shame.
But true.
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Night all…
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They mostly lack the big redcurrant pips that stick between your teeth and they are counterintuitively quite sweet.
Blackcurrants are particularly good on heavy clay soil. White currants like redcurrants do well in light, sandy soil.
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Grew up with that. Dad was a rural primary school head and the job came with a rambling old house and massive garden. Being skint, they grew lots and had an epic fruit cage. Don't think we had white currants but had the rest. Idyllic in hind sight. But space needed!
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@lionelb @IcooIey @Sarah111well
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We don't have any deer on the island (or foxes, badgers - or any large wild mammals in fact) so can't help with that one.
Hilariously (for those of us who don't have them next door), we do have a sizeable population of feral chickens, released by farmers to avoid slaughter costs. Not so funny for neighbours
@helenclayton @lionelb @Sarah111well
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JimmyB (he/him) •
We always had 12 when I was a kid - and they did have distinct personalities, for sure. Feeding them was a good job (among a list of rubbish ones 😀) because they were so funny.
@IcooIey @lionelb @Sarah111well
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@helenclayton @lionelb @Sarah111well
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I too need some pointers!
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I made pear cider a few years ago and it was great!
@IcooIey @lionelb @Sarah111well
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Sent my daugher off to uni the Netherlands with a big jar of them - without thinking about it too hard. Turns out it was a big hit, but also...a big hit in her halls.
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We have a couple of hazels, intended more for coppicing than fruiting. They’re pretty hardy in the wind, which is our major challenge.
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Summer evenings.
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I've seen them grow wild - in great carpets - in Swedish forests. I love aquilegias - and especially the simpler wild ones
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Used often as an anxiolytic. We used to get scullcap and valerian tablets from a veterinary supplier called Dorwest, who made a range of herbal supplements for pets. They certainly helped calm the owners down, I know that. My wife has used valerian drops as a sleep aid (with no discernible effect, unfortunately).
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Anyone know which one the Hawkmoths like???
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(I don't know how poisonous Centranthus is, but it has a general 'best not' vibe about it)
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Verbena's big over here, though. Think it won plant of the year a few years back.
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