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Alison's Blog

Alison Mundie

  • Date Joined: 15 Jan 2007

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  • The great Kitchen Garden move - the plot thickens...

    Alison Mundie on 19 Nov 2008 at 01:42 PM

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  • Final Feast

    Alison Mundie on 05 Nov 2008 at 04:13 PM
      The great kitchen garden move means that all the remaining veg needs to be harvested or replanted/moved – that’s quite a lot.   There are some gorgeous leeks, kales, leafbeets, and parsnips, all of which would normally crop over the winter.  Jerusalem artichokes usually would stay in the ground and be harvested as needed (the frost improves them), but we have lifted them, saved some of the good tubers for propagation, and distributed the rest among the hungry gardening hoards!   We are also picking lots of salads – oriental leaves, winter lettuce, chicories, and edible flowers  Despite a recent week of fairly severe frosts, these have all survived intact.   Chard or leafbeet is a really good spinach substitute, by the way – it made a great lentil and ‘spinach’ dahl the other evening (it doesn’t go as slimy as spinach).  You need to cut out the thick stems and just use the leaf for this, but the stem is also edible.   For the new veg area, garlic which would normally be planted around now in the ground has been put into pots to grow on over winter.   Also in pots are the overwintering broad beans, to give an earlier crop next year.   There is still a lot of colour in the 3x3 plot – purple, dark green and bright green kales, red chicories, blue-green leeks and multicoloured oriental leaves – veg gardens really don’t need to be bare and boring in winter. 

     

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  • Veg on the Move!

    Alison Mundie on 05 Nov 2008 at 02:57 PM
      

     

    Visitors to Harlow Carr will notice lots of activity in the kitchen garden over the coming weeks – veg growing is moving to a temporary site elsewhere in the garden, so that work can start on our new Learning Centre.  Gardeners are currently busy lifting perennial veg plants, taking cuttings, etc, and will move on to dismantling the existing beds and fencing, with the aim of recycling as much as possible.   Lovingly nurtured soil from the raised beds will be stored and reused in the new area.  The area is now closed to the public, but its possible to see what’s going on from over the kitchen garden fence.    We are going to be moving to an area just below the new Alpine House, and there are lots of positives, despite the work involved.  For a start it’s a more sheltered area than the current wind-swept hillside!  Its also an opportunity to redesign the raised beds, widen the range of plants grown and incorporate some new ideas.    Progress is good, with the main paths and drains in place, and some of the soil levelling completed.   Over the winter we will be preparing the soil, installing fencing and planting hedges, and building raised beds ready for spring.    Plans for the new area include raised vegetable beds, herbs, a cut flower area, containers, and more fruit, as well as some interesting new elements to link in with the developing forest garden, such as growing our own plant supports.   Watch this space…..    

     

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