Growing soft fruit, Mike Able August's meeing

Our speaker for our August meeting was Mike Abel on the topic of Growing Soft Fruit. Mike
had been a horticulturalist and taught Soft Fruit growing at college during his career.
Mike explained that all soft fruit is self-fertile meaning it doesn’t need another variety of fruit
to cross pollinate unlike for example apples. But the flowers will still need to be pollinated if it
is to produce fruit. As we have heard from several of our speakers, bumblebees rather than
honeybees are actually the best pollinators for a number of reasons. Their large fluffy bodies
catch a lot of pollen, they fly in colder weather meaning they are out earlier and later in the
day and they will even fly when the weather is wet. They are also willing to pollinate in
polytunnels. So, bumble bees are an important resource.
Soft fruit includes things like strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries,
gooseberries, and currants. They are propagated from plants (e.g. cuttings or rootstock) not
from seeds. Some useful tips about the various fruits were:
· Strawberries can be summer fruiting where the crop comes just once each year, or
continuous, but you get less quantity – so maybe not enough to fill your bowl! They form
runners after fruiting and you should peg these down so they root and create new plants.
‘Malling Centenary’ is recommended for good flavour.
· In raspberries you can get summer fruiting or autumn fruiting. The advantage of autumn
fruiting varieties is they are more self-supporting and don’t need to be tied up. You cut them
to the ground once they have fruited and they will fruit on the new wood they grow next year.
Whereas with summer ones you only cut out the stems that produced fruit this year and any
new stems will produce next year’s fruit. ‘Malling Minerva’ is a good summer variety and
‘Polka’ a good autumn one. All raspberries are very thirsty and need good watering.
· Blackberries – prune out the old wood once it has fruited but leave the new branches for
next year.
· Blueberries need acid soil (Ericaceous compost) and preferably rainwater.
· Gooseberries fruit on the old wood. A major pest is the sawfly whose eggs hatch into a
small green caterpillar and eat all the leaves before you even notice them.
· Blackcurrants fruit best on new wood. It is recommended that you cut out one third of the
branches each year. Birds are the major pest eating all your currants.
Mike brought samples of the plants so that we could identify them, and also brought a
selection of things for sale including fly traps and honeycomb.

 

 

Chestnuts Farm Allotments visit in Chingford Road 4, July 2025

For our July meeting we decided to do something different. We visited one of our allotments in Walthamstow to learn more about running an allotment, what it entails, what is the commitment and what you can grow. We had a very good turnout and the weather was lovely and sunny. We had an interesting and informative talk from Barbara Humm who has an allotment at the site and then a tour where we got to meet some of the people on their allotments. It was very interesting to see the different styles and how people arrange their crops and flowers. We finished the evening with refreshments, plant sales and networking.

Barbara’s talk:

Chestnuts Farm Allotments started in 1914 when there was a drive for people to grow their own food. It was originally much bigger, and covered the ground from Chingford Road to Forest Road. Some of the area was taken over by the council to build the Leisure Centre, and the site was extended beyond the original hedge. There are 65 plots, some divided into smaller plots. The minimum size is 4 rods, and the largest are 12 rods. Most are 10 rods. (A rod was used to control a team of oxen when working on the land and measures 5.5 yards (5.03 metres).

 

We form part of Walthamstow Town’s Allotment Association. There are 3 other sites in the Association, and we work together. We pay rent to the council and manage the site ourselves with a committee.

The building site behind the Town Hall is going ahead and the developers gave us a portacabin and a notice board to keep us sweet. They reduced the height of the flats because we complained that they would overshadow the plots at the top of the site.

We have a long waiting list, but because so many people want allotments now, we have introduced a helper scheme. This means people can sign up for a year to help someone who is struggling to keep their plot in order. It gives people an idea of how much work is involved in keeping a plot productive. People often take a plot on then give up because they don’t have time to come regularly.

There are a lot more families with young children on site now. When I took my plot on 23 years ago, it was mainly grumpy old men who didn’t really want women on the site. There were a lot of unused plots, so I could take my pick.

I was quickly asked to be on the committee. When I went to my first meeting, I asked where the minutes were, and was told, Oh we don’t bother with that. The accounts were written on a scrappy bit of paper. I started changing that, and have been trying to get off the committee ever since!

We try to grow organically, and don’t encourage weedkillers or pesticides. We have mains water, but try to encourage the use of saved rainwater where possible. No hoses are allowed. We have a school plot, and a toddlers group which meet once a month.

The cost of a plot is about £80 a year which goes towards all the costs, water bills, rent to the council, insurance, equipment maintenance and other expenses.

Contact Barbara if you would like to be considered for the waiting list.

Pictures of the visit to the Chestnuts Farm allotments in Chingford Road.

 

Sweet Peas, by Lesley Gambin a specialist Sweet Pea grower. June's meeting

Our speaker last month was Lesley Gambin who is a specialist Sweet Pea grower based in Essex.  Their garden at Blunts Hall Nursery (http://bluntshallgarden.co.uk/) is open for the NGS by arrangement for visits.  They grow mainly for the production of seeds.

We were told about the history of sweet pea growing and some historical growers who investigated and propagated sweet peas.  John Ray was a botanist whose mum was a herbalist.  He discovered the 'Cupani' variety which is small, red and mauve with lots of perfume and still popular today. He is followed by Henry Eckford who came from Scotland a horticulturist and reputedly the most famous breeder of sweet peas. There was a lot of competition amongst seed suppliers over the supply of seeds. Ernest King of ‘Kings Seeds’ who still exist today, had their extensive trial beds in Coggeshall Essex supplying 160 varieties of seeds. Ernest called himself the ‘Sweet Pea King’.

Blunts Hall Nursery have sandy loam soil with a ph of 7.5 which is slightly acid.  Its is generally sandy loam along the A12 corridor and so ideal conditions to grow sweet peas. ‘Painted Lady is one of their favourites. It is small and dainty and can be grown in a pot.

There are different varieties of sweet peas.  The older varieties tend to be smaller. Grandiflora varieties are medium sized and Spencer varieties are larger.  Grandiflora have a better sent. Sweet peas are annuals grown from seed each year.  You can either sow your seed in late autumn October/November or in early spring (January/February).  Plant them on wigwams or in rows up rows of parallel stakes supported at the top (an elongated wigwam). Add lots of compost and maybe a little manure if possible. In order to keep them flowering it is essential that you cut off the dead flower before it forms it’s seed pod. It is best to cut the flowers daily and put them in vase so they never go to seed.

Lesley recommended a trip to Helmingham Hall near Ipswich if you would like to see a good display of sweet peas growing. Helmingham Hall is open Sunday to Thursday.

Cupani  

    

                                       

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painted Lady

 

All about bees by Katy Langley. May's meeting

We had a wonderful and interesting talk by Katy Langley all about bees. Katy is a professional bee keeper. It covered everything from the early beginnings. We saw Egyptian pictures of bee keeping and cave paintings featuring mostly women doing the bee keeping.

There are various types of bees, the honey bees, bumble bees, solitary bees and while only the honey bee makes honey the others perform an important role in pollinating our plants and crops. In fact the bumble bee is a better pollinator as it has a wider rounded body and gathers more pollen on its fur which is distributed to other flowers. Without them we would have no food.

We learnt about their anatomy. They have 4 wings, 2 stomachs and 5 eyes and they see colour differently to how we humans see it. Female bees have stings, but males don’t although I’m not sure how we will tell which we should fear. Although in fact a bee isn’t going to sting unless it feels threatened. And they communicate with each other with smell which is why bee keepers use smoke when they want to retrieve the honey so that they bees can’t alert each other.

Each hive would have one queen bee who lays 2000 eggs a day. The eggs turn into larvae after 6 days. The queen mates with various male bees while flying. Male bees are called drones and their job is to collect the pollen to make honey. They also keep the hive clean removing any dead bees or plant litter. The hive will identify a new queen and then the bees will swarm when a new home has been found.

Some threats to our bee populations include pesticides and the Asian hornet. If you want to encourage and care for our bee population (and remember we rely on them for our food) then plant trees where possible (Kew Gardens

is currently carrying out a study to find out which trees bees prefer), have shallow water in your garden for them to drink from (a dish kept topped up with some pebbles in is ideal), and some shelter for them to overwinter. Remember only honey bees want hives other bees nest in bird boxes, containers with straw inside, underground in piles of leaves etc. I’ve had bumble bee nests in my compost heap a couple of times. 

 

We also had an opportunity to buy some local honey. We learned that honey is only legal if it contains less than 20% water. Honey is made up of fructose and glucose. The higher the content of glucose the quicker it will solidify. However, we were told all honey will solidify in time. If you want to return it to a liquid/runny honey then stand your jar in boiling water to heat it up and it will turn runny again. The taste of honey will vary according to the plants that the bees collected the pollen from.

‘It ain’t rocket science, it’s a lot more complicated’. Alan Clark, April's meetng.

 

Our talk in April was by Alan Clark who returned after his talk last year on the trees at Kew Gardens. This month his talk was on the subject of ‘It ain’t rocket science, it’s a lot more complicated’. It was a very different talk and left us all wondering about the meaning of life! Alan told us that his interest in the natural environment started when he was a child. He was very interested in the creepy crawlies. Alan has an interesting take on the modern philosophy when we are told that biodiversity is about all the wildlife working together, but instead Alan suggested they were all competitors, eating each other. This raises some interesting philosophical considerations. E.g. Should we be vegetarians or is eating animals the normal way of things. Alan’s talk contained a lot of science for us to consider. How do seeds know which direction to send their shoots? If you plant a seed or bulb the wrong way up, the shoot will still find its way up to the surface. He told us the ‘big bang wasn’t actually a bang and it wasn’t very big. The universe has since been stretching and is still growing. I myself have heard another talk and the scientists have no answer as to why this is. We also learned that most of our energy comes from light and all life as we know it needs water to survive. You have probably never considered this but, plants don’t pee or poo they instead recycle everything. The only thing they expel is oxygen, which of course humans need to survive. Some further food for thought is that plants can self-regenerate unlike humans. If you cut off part of a plant, it can often grow new roots. Alternatively, if you cut the top of a plant and leave or replant the roots, they will often grow a new plant.

The Great Gardens Of Great Britain by Andrew Babicz, March's meeting

 

Our speaker for the March meeting was Andrew Babicz on the Topic of 'The Great Gardens Of Great Britain'.

Andrew told us a little of his background. His dad came from Poland and was a head gardener. Andrew learnt his gardening from his dad since the age of 5 and when he was leaving school a teacher helped him secure an apprenticeship with the National Trust  at Inverewe Gardens from where he then moved to RHS Wisley.  

The public visit these large properties for a variety of reasons; the big house, the gardens or the education.  However, Andrew interspersed his talk with lots of humour and particularly jokes about his wife who reluctantly visits the gardens with him, but then takes herself off to the cafe for tea and cake.

Andrew's talk included pictures and useful snippets of information about what was particularly outstanding or notable at some of the properties that were located around England and Scotland (Wales is going to appear in his next talk).

Hampton Court has a wonderful display of tulips when in season. Great Dixter is famous for its quintessentially English gardens. Hyde Hall in Essex has a good example of a dry garden that is never watered.  Benmore in Edinburgh has a fantastic monkey puzzle tree.  Geoff Hamilton's garden (A former Gardeners World garden) is divided into rooms so it is easy to take inspiration for our smaller gardens.  RHS Harlow Carr has the famous 'Betty's Tea Rooms' within the  gardens. Kew Gardens is vast but quite expensive to visit. Levens Hall (south of Cumbria) has fantastic topiary.  Edinburgh Botanical Garden has fantastic glass houses.  The Thames Barrier Park had originally been planted with hedges cut to shapes to signify waves.  Tottenham Hotspur Football Ground, very close to us, has very good gardens if you get the opportunity to visit.

Andrew included some interesting facts in his talk that we may not know. The Monkey puzzle tree is so named as they are so spikey it is difficult for the monkey's to climb them. In Chilli they eat the stalks of the Gunera plant as a vegetable.  It is a type of rhubarb. You may recognise the Gunera as the enormous leaved plant that grows in bog gardens or at the side of very large ponds.  In the UK we sweeten rhubarb and have it as a desert but it is actually a vegetable.  In the Edinburgh Botanical garden is a lily which is carnivorous. The flower opens white, the fly goes inside to get the pollen, it closes round the fly and sinks below the water but all the time protecting the fly in an air bubble.  The fly buzzes around madly and in the process pollinates the lily. The following day the flower raises to the surface, opens up and the fly escapes but the flower is now pink.

It was a very interesting and friendly talk and we look forward to part 2 in the future.  Andrew told us that sadly garden magazines are no longer paying garden writers for their articles.  They use 'influencers' who really don't have the experience but make a career out of publicity.

Shroedinger's Garden, Guy Deakins February's zoom talk.

In February 2025 we hold our monthly meeting on Zoom. The weather can often be poor and it is also a chance for us to share our meeting with Tendershoots. In exchange we are entitled to attend the talks that are arranged by other clubs in the Tendershoots network. This is the website address for Tendershoots if you would like to see what else is on offer: https://tendershoots.uk/ Check out the ‘Programme’ tab. Some talks are recorded and available to watch on catch-up.

Guy Deakins was our speaker who spoke to us on the topic of ‘Shroedinger’s Garden’. Shroedinger came up with the philosophy of ‘If you can’t see something it doesn’t exist’. Guy himself had studied psychology but now lectures at Capel Manor Horticultural College (our nearest open garden which many of you have probably visited). Guy’s talk was about the psychology of gardens, how we look at a garden and what we see because of the way we look at the garden.

He told us that different parts of our brains have different memory stores and we see how we are taught to see so we use preconceptions. The famous historic landscape gardener, Capability Brown arranged spaces to get us to see his gardens as landscapes, but they were an illusion. Gertrude Jekyll, another famous garden designer worked with Lutyens. He used mathematics to design the structure of gardens while Jekyll who apparently was very short sighted and could hardly see further than a few inches in front of her used tone and colour to design the planting.

Some psychological thoughts on gardens. If you are trying to hide something e.g. an ugly wall, then you are denying the reality. You should try and work with it (we may not agree). Japenese gardens are designed for the soul and the rocks are there as they are said to have a soul The more unhappy you feel the more you will seek unhappiness whereas in reverse if you feel happy you seek more happiness.

It was a very different type of talk. Thought provoking. It may make you look at your garden or any garden you visit in a different way.

 

 

Christmas Social/The Christmas Garden, talk December's meeting

For our December meeting this year we did our Christmas social slightly differently. Our falling   attendance numbers at meetings and the uncertainty of the weather at that time of year mean that we decided not to have an entertainer, but instead we had one of our favoured speakers to give us a talk on ‘The Christmas Garden’. This was followed by an opportunity for members to get together and mix and socialise while enjoying a bring and share buffet. Our thanks to Veronica Perry for suggesting the idea of the shared buffet and to everyone who contributed by bringing a dish or two.

The talk was an enjoyable tour of both indoor and outdoor plants that may grow and flower at Christmas, but also those that bloom at other times of the year but strangely have names suggesting Christmas. So we have the Christmas Rose (it’s a hellebore), Christmas box (Sarcococca), Christmas cactus (Indoor plant) and Poinsettia which do bloom at Christmas time. But then we have other plants like the fuschia ‘Hollys Beauty’ and ‘Santa Claus’, Tulip ‘Christmas Dream’ that as we all know don’t flower at Christmas at all. One of the most interesting facts that I learned was that in their natural habitat of Mexico and Central America Poinsettia’s can grow into 12 foot/small trees. In the UK they are sold as house plants that most people find difficult to care for after Christmas.

The bring and share buffet was fantastic. We had a range of dishes, many home made including Barbara Humm’s home made mince pies, Pasta salad, Barbecue chicken wings, special friend rice and Cheese Puffs (The recipe can be found below and is very east to make. They can be made in advance and frozen and cooked straight from the freezer).

We take on board that it would have been good to have some music accompaniment to the socialising and we will bear this in mind for next year.

We hope all our members had a good and healthy Christmas and New Year.