Growing Soft Fruit - A Short Guide to the Most Common Soft Fruits

No allotment or vegetable patch should be without soft fruit. As well as epitomising all that is summer with their abundance of juicy berries, they make a very versatile crop to eaten in season or stored in various ways to be enjoyed over the winter months. Who can resist a handful of freshly picked raspberries on your morning cereal or a delicious blackcurrant jam. Here are some handy tips on growing and getting the best out of a few of the most common soft fruit varieties.

Blackberries

If you don't have the time to roam the hedgerows for wild blackberries in autumn, then have a go at growing a few canes yourself. Modern domestic varieties of blackberry tend to bear larger fruit than their wild counterparts and are more disease resistant. Blackberries are easy to grow and will clamber over a large trellis, tall fence or north facing wall. They produce on average about 4.5kg of fruit per plant per season and will last for many years. A favourite variety of mine is Blackberry 'Loch Tay' which grows on short upright canes and is therefore suitable for smaller gardens. It has the added bonus of being thornless.

Blackberries are simple to grow. Fresh young canes appear in summer. Tie them to which ever support you are using, taking care to remove any weak tips. Blackberries fruit on the previous year's growth, so you need to cut out last year's growth that has borne fruit right down to the base of the plant. Feed you blackberry canes with a fertiliser or compost in February and harvest the fruit between July and October.

You might also like to try loganberries which were introduced around 200 years ago by crossing blackberries with raspberries. Growing principles are the same as blackberries. There is also a thornless variety of loganberry you can buy.

Gooseberries

Gooseberries are one of the first of the soft fruits to be harvested - around the end of May to late July. There are many varieties of gooseberry bush available, with fruit varying in colour from greenish-yellow to red. A good green variety is 'Invicta' which crops twice as heavily as most other varieties and is resistant to mildew. A good red variety is 'Pax'. Also resistant to mildew, this desert variety has virtually spine-free canes.

To produce a good crop of fruit on a gooseberry bush, the aim is to build up flowering spurs on old wood. You are aiming for an upright bush with an open shape to reduce the risk of your arms being shredded by the sharp spines. As a general rule, prune a gooseberry bush between November and March.

Blackcurrant

Perhaps my favourite of all soft fruits, blackcurrants are great for pies, jams and even winemaking. A particularly sweet variety is 'Ebony' which is good enough to eat straight from the bush! Blackcurrant bushes fruit on last year's growth, so when pruning, cut the shooting branches back to a strong shoot. Feed with compost or fertiliser in February or March and harvest the fruit July to August.

Other currant bushes you might like to try are redcurrants and whitecurrants. The growing principles are the same as for blackcurrants.

Raspberry

Raspberries are normally supported on a post and wire fence. New canes need to be cut back to about 30cm from the ground. In subsequent years, cut down last year's fruiting canes to ground level. Feed with potash in early spring and harvest summer varieties from June to July, autumn varieties from August to October. Raspberries need plenty of water if they are to produce a good heavy crop. Try 'Valentina' for a sweet early variety or 'Autumn Treasure' for a later variety.

Strawberries

Although strawberries need no pruning, they can be a bit more demanding than other soft fruits to grow. Strawberries produce runners which can be cut off and propagated to produce new plants. Feed the plants with potash in January and harvest the fruit between May and October, depending on the variety.

Strawberries are prone to a number of pests and diseases, so it is best not to grow them on the same patch of ground for more than a few years at a time. Strawberries are also a favourite for birds and mice, so you will need to use some form of protection such as netting or cages. A well known and reliable variety to try is 'Cambridge Favourite'.

Soft fruit can be grown and enjoyed by anyone. There are compact varieties of most soft fruits for those with only small gardens and varieties that look both attractive and are also productive. They don't have to be confined to the allotment or vegetable patch, as most varieties can be grown in garden planters on a patio, or in mixed borders where they will happily co-exist with other garden plants.

Garden Planters source unusual outdoor and indoor planters, and other garden related gifts - whatever your taste, be it traditional, modern or just a bit quirky, we will have something for you. Run by two qualified and creative gardeners, Garden Planters will also plant up your chosen planter with an arrangement of your choice. We believe garden planters are an integral part of any garden - they enhance the overall design and say a little something about the person to whom the garden belongs.

View the original article here

Should You Only Use Organic Garden Plants

If you are an organic gardener you may be wondering if you should be using organic garden plants. That is a really good question and I can only say it depends.

We will take a look at the difference between the conventional vegetable plants grown for the local nursery and purely organic plants and where to find them.

The every day plants you will find at the nursery have been grown with lots of chemicals. They are spoon fed chemical fertilizer to keep them looking good for the customer. If you are gardening organically you must decide if that is an option for you.

Most people in our culture have not considered the fact that tons of chemicals are dumped on our food every day. The nursery that grows garden plants only for profit want to make as much as fast as possible and using chemicals are how they think is the best way to do that.

Using chemicals cut a lot of labor and that is a big cost for them. So, to the large company that is worth the use of chemicals and do not even consider any options. Plus, the average consumer does not ask for organic plants, because they are going home and pouring chemicals on the plants to get them to grow in their own garden. You can't really blame the companies giving the customer what they want.

As an organic gardener you may feel like you do not want to use plants started with chemicals. You do have other ways of getting good quality organic plants, here are a couple of ways to do that.

I garden organically, and do buy some plants from the nursery when I lose some plants or see something new I want to try that they have. I don't want to make that a full-time practice and if necessary I could do without the chemical grown plants.

You have the option to start your own plants before spring in a south facing window, under grow lights, or as I often do, start them in a cold frame. I really like sowing my own seeds so that I can get the varieties that I want, and I can stagger the plantings out over the growing seasons. The nursery usually only has plants available during the spring rush.

Another option is to look in the better garden catalogs for organic vegetable plants. They usually do not have much of a variety and they are pricey, but that is another way you can go.

To get serious about going organic and you want organic plants, you will have to do it yourself, just like most things in life. This article should help decide where you are with your organic gardening and what to do about your organic garden plants.

To get regular garden tips in a free newsletter just click here now! For a web site with more information go to http://solutionsfororganicgardening.com/.

View the original article here

Choosing the Best Little Fruity Tomatoes

Some of the most appealing little tomatoes on the market today come with names that make them sound ultra fruity and wonderfully tasty. And it's not just plain cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes that fit the bill. Today they come in so many shapes and colours, it's difficult to know what to choose.

So next time you want to plant tomatoes with a difference, and you are looking for small "fruity" tomatoes, check out the vast number of different seed offerings available from reputable seed companies on the Internet.

The Best Cherry Tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes don't taste like cherries - although some types are unbelievably sweet and juicy -and only some of them are shaped like cherries or are even the size of regular cherries.

Today cherry tomatoes are generally either round, plum-shaped (like popular Roma tomatoes) or even pear-shaped, like the gorgeous heirloom variety, Yellow Pear that bears huge numbers of yellow-orange bite-sized cherry tomatoes.

They also come in a vast variety of colours, from tomato-red to yellow, and even "black". For instance Supersweet 100 is quite a dark red, while Sungold is a kind of orange. Brown cherry tomatoes are a brownish colour, while Snow White and Dr Carolyn are kind of "white", or perhaps better described as very light.

If you're fascinated by the idea of "black" tomatoes, there's a relatively new Black Pearl Hybrid on the market. It's a tasty treat, and one that changes its flavour when refrigerated, taking on a super-sweet grapey flavour - even though they are characterised as cherry tomatoes and not grape tomatoes!

The Red Lightning Hybrid is particularly interesting in terms of colour. If you painted tomatoes to look like these people would laugh at you! A kind of orangey red, they look as though an artist has washed lines of dark red and yellow over the fruits. Better still, they are said to taste beautifully sweet.

Other examples include tiny Red Currant and Yellow Currant tomatoes that grow on a vine. They look like they sound and are, by all accounts delicious.

To top it all, Green Envy cherry tomatoes are intriguing little fruits that look more like emerald green figs than tomatoes.

All worth trying to grow.

The Best Grape Tomatoes

Not as well known as cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes (like some varieties of cherry tomato) grow in clusters on a vine. What makes them stand apart is that they are amazingly sweet in taste and very juicy.

One of the reasons grape tomatoes haven't attracted the same worldwide popularity as cherry tomatoes is probably because they have to be picked AS they ripen. This means that those who grow them don't normally do so commercially. Where they do make the stores, they are VERY expensive.

There is currently a lot less choice when it comes to grape tomatoes than any other type of tomato - cherry included. They are also more likely to be traditional tomato red in colour. But look out for Rosalita which is "pink".

If this doesn't tempt you to try growing little fruity-named tomatoes, nothing will. Have fun!

Annette Welsford is co-author of international best selling book in 83 countries How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes. She has also edited and published several other gardening related titles.

The book, which is available for purchase online in eBook and hard copy format, is considered to be the authoritative "bible" on Growing Tomatoes. It has been featured on TV, radio and reviewed in leading gardening publications and newspapers in 4 continents.

Visit http://www.bestjuicytomatoes.com/ for a wealth of expert tips and advice on growing tomatoes at your place.

View the original article here

Remedies, Perfumes and Beauty Treatments Using Plants and Herbs

In recent years there has been renewed interest in using plants and herbs as natural remedies and beauty treatments, alongside an interest in healthier lifestyles and a more natural approach to tending to our body's needs. Although some natural uses for plants and herbs can be perhaps a little too complicated for most people to tackle, there are a number of simple recipes and techniques anyone can try for themselves and experience some of the wonderful effects plants and herbs can have on our lives and health.

Simple health remedies using plants and herbs

Unlike many herbs and plants whose properties have been well known for hundreds if not thousands of years, it was only during the 1970s that the abilities of feverfew to sooth headaches was fully recognised. It is particularly effective against migraines. As with most herbal remedies, you can buy feverfew in tablet form. Alternatively eat up to five leaves a day between a slice of bread to help alleviate migraines.

Peppermint has long been prized for its ability to sooth indigestion and the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. Make a tea of peppermint leaves steeped in hot water. Peppermint also has anti-bacterial properties and this combined with it fresh aromatic flavour makes it a good mouth wash to combat bad breath. Peppermint oil can also be used in massage to help relieve muscular pain.

The astringent, anti-bacterial properties of witch hazel make it a very useful remedy for spots and pimples. You can make a simple gel by boiling up some young witch hazel twigs, mix the liquid with some gelatine to make the gel and add vodka as a preservative. It will keep for up to six months if refrigerated.

Marigold flowers have many healing uses. The flowers have antiseptic, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. A compress of marigold flowers can be used to treat burns and stings. They are also effective against chilblains. A cold infusion can be used as eyewash to treat conjunctivitis.

Juniper berries contain strong anti-inflammatory and astringent substances and can be used as oil in massage to stimulate circulation and help relieve back pain. A healing ointment can be made from juniper berries to help treat scratches and relieve itching.

The properties of sage, rosemary and wormwood are well known as insect repellents. Make a pot-pourri from the leaves of all three to help deter flying pests.

Lavender oil is probably the most popular and versatile of all essential oils. For hundreds of years it has been used for its soothing properties. The oil can be used as a remedy for burns and stings and its anti-bacterial properties can help heal cuts and scratches. A few drops on a pillow or burned in an oil burner can help promote sleep. Rubbed on the temples, lavender oil is also effective in soothing headaches. You can distil your own oil but the process is laborious so it is probably easier to buy lavender oil from a good herbal shop.

Simple beauty remedies

To strengthen your hair and stimulate growth make a simple hair tonic from the leaves of nettles and use as a final rinse after shampooing.

For an uplifting and refreshing bath, add a few drops of eucalyptus oil to your bath water. Or use as an inhalant by adding a few drops to a bowl of boiling water, place a towel over your head and the bowl and breathe in. It will both clear your senses and stimulate your facial skin.

Make a useful face scrub by mixing ground almonds and oat flakes with cider vinegar and basil essential oil. The basil helps to kill bacteria and the almond flakes and oats remove dead skin cells.

Strawberries have long been used by the cosmetic industry. Make a face mask by mashing the fruit to extract the juice and apply to the face to lighten freckles and other blotches. You can also apply sliced strawberries to your face to help relieve slight sunburn.

An infusion of chamomile can be used as a hair rinse to lighten blond hair. Likewise, and infusion of rosemary leaves has a darkening effect on dark hair. Many face creams contain extract of marigold. Marigold flowers, used as a skin lotion can help reduce the size of pores and nourish the skin.

The properties of aloe vera encourage skin regeneration and it is therefore be used in hand creams, shampoos and face lotions.

Plants and perfume

Perfumes made from plants have always played an important part in our lives. Perfumes stimulate the senses. Fragrant plants like roses and scented geraniums can be grown in garden planters and placed in places where there stimulating scent can be best enjoyed. They have traditionally been used in religious rites, in the promotion of good health and for aesthetic purposes. Perfumes can be flowery, citrus, woody, aromatic or sweet. Perfume from flowers and plants can be extracted and used in a number of ways. Drying plants helps to preserve scent and the dried material can then be made into pot-pourri to fragrance our houses. Oils from fragrant plants can be distilled to greatly enhance their scent. These essential oils can then be burnt or applied to base oils to rub into the body.

You can make a simple toilet water or eau-de-cologne from the leaves of your favourite flowers. Fill a small bottle with the fresh leaves of rose or lily of the valley and top up with vodka and leave for a week. Strain and replace the leaves for as long as they are freshly available and eventually the alcohol will become saturated with the scent of the flowers.

Make a soothing herb pillow by adding some of your favourite dried herbs to a small pillow or bag. Add a few drops of essential oil such as lavender or bergamot to promote a calming effect. Dried or fresh flowers and leaves from fragrant plants can also be made into bath bags and sachets and soaps.

Garden Planters source unusual outdoor and indoor planters, and other garden related gifts - whatever your taste, be it traditional, modern or just a bit quirky, we will have something for you. Run by two qualified and creative gardeners, Garden Planters will also plant up your chosen planter with an arrangement of your choice. We believe garden planters are an integral part of any garden - they enhance the overall design and say a little something about the person to whom the garden belongs.

View the original article here

Different Ways to Cook Spinach

Spinach is an incredibly easy vegetable to grow, particularly Swiss chard or silver beet. But what do you do when you are faced with kilo after kilo of fresh spinach?

Different types of Spinach

True spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is not grown as widely as high yielding Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris) which is, to many non-horticultural people all over the world, the only spinach there is. The most likely reason for this is that true spinach has a much shorter picking season, it doesn't like too much heat, and it simply doesn't produce the same sort of ongoing yields that Swiss chard and sugar beet produce.

The other type of spinach you will find is New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia expansa), which grows particularly well in the southern hemisphere, and makes an ideal substitute for other types of spinach.

The cooking methods and recipes discussed here are perfect for all types of spinach.

Ways to Eat Spinach

While raw baby spinach is a great addition to salads, and can be added to sandwiches instead of lettuce, Swiss chard is more commonly cooked, particularly once the leaves have grown and the stalk has widened through the leaf to form a distinctive white rib - or red in the case of ruby chard.

Probably the best known way to eat cooked spinach is the way it is prepared and frozen commercially all over the world - in the form of creamed spinach, often with the addition of Feta cheese.

But there are many more recipes, including quiches and tarts, and more complex and profoundly interesting recipes that combine spinach with eggs and/or cheese, and sometimes other vegetables as well. There are also a number of ways that you can cook chard ribs which are removed from the leaves before they are cooked, or in some instances after the whole leaf (stalk and all) has been blanched for a minute or two in boiling water.

So if you are producing a mountain of spinach from your garden patch (and that really isn't difficult to do), before you get bored with boiled and creamed spinach, try cooking this healthy vegetable other ways.

Preparing Swiss Chard

Open just about any older recipe book and you will find a multitude of recipes that tell you to cook spinach in lots of boiling, salted water. The instructions will change from there, telling you to drain and press through a sieve; drain and refresh with cold water; drain and liquidise...

The thing is that cooking any vegetable in too much water results in much of the goodness being thrown down the sink; unless of course you use the water as a kind of insipid stock. It is much better to sweat the veg in a pot, using only the water that is left on the leaves after you have rinsed them. Do this at a relatively low temperature on top of the stove, until the spinach has wilted and is super-soft. Then you can revert to the original recipe. Usually there is hardly any moisture to drain, ensuring you are left with ALL the goodness. It also tastes better in the long run.

Recipes for Spinach

Books and books have been written about cooking vegetables, and most contain at least a handful that feature spinach. You will also find hundreds if not thousands of inspiring recipes on good cooking sites on the Internet.

Here is an original recipe born from the need to cook mountains of this year's Swiss chard harvest (picture above).

Peel and halve one large white onion and two large red onions. Slice (not too fine) and cook in good quality virgin olive oil until transparent. While the onion is cooking, slice (about 10 mm thick) about a dozen young leeks (less if they are large) and add to the onion; stir. Now slice one red pepper, one yellow pepper and a green pepper (these add colour and distinctive flavour) and add to the onions.

While this is gently simmering away, trim the chard and remove the rib; don't forget you can braise these (after removing the thin membrane that covers the outer part of the stalk) and serve with a sauce, or cook as a gratin.

Rinse a hefty handful of leaves and chop coarsely. Add progressively on top of the onions and leeks after stirring. Season with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper; allow to cook until everything is nice and soft but not slushy.

Lightly butter a suitable dish and spoon a layer of the veg mix to cover the bottom. Place a layer of small black mushrooms over this layer. Don't use chunky mushrooms and don't try and squeeze in too many (you'll need about 150 g mushrooms in total). Add sliced (preferably garlicky) salami between the mushrooms (you could use lightly fried bacon instead, and will need only about 100 g). Top this with another layer of veg and add some more mushrooms and salami. Top with a final layer of veg.

Now whisk together a cup of cream and four eggs. Season with a pinch of salt and white pepper to taste. Grate about a cup-full of cheddar cheese (mature cheddar would be even better) and scatter over the top.

Bake for about half an hour in an oven preheated to 180 °C.

This dish is great on its own, but you could serve with a light lettuce and tomato salad and fresh brown bread or crispy rolls.

Annette Welsford is the co-author, editor and publisher of international best selling books How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes and How to Grow Great Potatoes.

The books, which are available for online purchase, are considered the authoritative "bibles" on Growing Tomatoes and Growing Potatoes. They've been purchased by many thousand gardeners in 83 countries, and have been featured on TV, radio and in leading gardening publications and newspapers in 4 continents.

View the original article here

With Spring Approaching, Are You Thinking of Your Home Vegetable Garden?

I am beginning to seriously study the seed catalogs (online) and read about all the new varieties. This gives me plenty of food for thought. Since no garden is perfect, I made a list last fall of all the things that did or didn't work last year and the things I had to change, even if it was the position in the garden plot. I am pouring over my notes from last year and striving to do better this year.

If you made notations on your garden's successes and failures, think at this time if you grew what your family likes to eat. Did you keep up with the harvesting of those plants or do you need to grow less of something this year? Did you use your whole garden plot productively? Personally, I like to seed in wide rows or square beds because I have the space to utilize. Some of my neighbors have reduced the size of their garden permanently now that their children have grown up and moved on. (If you have children like mine, they don't grow their own gardens and tend to raid my garden when they come home all summer long!)

Let's get realistic here though - it's time to decide which crops you truly want to grow, and in what quantity. Do you need just enough to eat fresh, or do you want a surplus to freeze, can, or dry? After you have made some decisions about your home vegetable garden, it is definitely time to lay out your garden on that piece of paper.

If you're like the author, you will only order enough seeds to match your plan and your needs. Make sure to choose disease-resistant strains of seeds. I tend to try new varieties of vegetables in my home garden based on the experts.

This time of year (cold as it may be) is the time to get as much done as you can before planting time arrives. Organize yourself (even if it's just your thoughts) in order to prepare. Gather your momentum so you are ready for the joy of placing that first seed in the moist earth!

Before ordering your vegetable seeds, if you are like me, you have half-used packages of seed left over from last year. Most gardeners are hesitant to use these. This is normal, but you can test their germination in an easy way before you decide.

To test their germination, dampen a paper towel. Lay about ten seeds on it (from the same variety) and cover this with another damp paper towel. In order to keep this paper towel moist, either spray mist occasionally with water or roll the towel gently and place it in a plastic bag. Keep this in a warm place. After the germination time (stated on the package) has elapsed, count the number of seeds that have sprouted. If fewer than 50 percent of your seeds have germinated, order new seed.

Now is the appropriate time to ask if it is really worth the trouble to start seedlings indoors, or is it more practical to wait until spring and purchase the few transplants and annuals you need? If you decide that you want to start the seedlings, be sure to order these seeds along with the rest of your seeds. I tend to purchase all my seeds from the same company every year, but this can be your choice.

As an avid gardener in the Province of Saskatchewan, I highly recommend going to http://www.ezyhomegardening.com/.

You receive encouragement at that website, and you are shown it is possible to succeed in spite of the weather.

The blog posts are ongoing and a great source of information. What you thought was impossible is not really impossible!

Check it out today!

View the original article here