Thoughts turn to spring

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A HAPPY New Year to all who happen upon this first contribution of 2009. That two-week break has just flown past, but then lots of things have happened in the interim. Hogmanay was quiet for us, and we are nane the waur o’ that.

What kind of gardening year do we have in front of us? I’ll tell you what. I have a hunch that there are going to be a few gaps in many of our borders come springtime. I have a feeling that some of the marginally hardy plants that have survived in our north-east gardens for a few years now will have been savaged by that period of snow/frost which we experienced towards the end of October before plants had really gone dormant. There followed a mild spell, then we had that extended cold snap in early-December. These weather patterns are not conducive to plant survival. Time alone will tell.

So we might be making a few extra trips to the garden centre come spring. It is more like going to a mega-store nowadays, a sign of the times perhaps, but with the same pitfalls, the most notable being a tendency to spend too much.

Another sign of the times, the dreaded credit crunch, may just put the brakes on. That said, gardening therapy is a well documented way of helping to cope in difficult times.

Some of the superstores have become very adept at selling cheaper goods that look like others carrying fancy designer labels. Why pay £100 for a pair of jeans when it would seem that you can get the same breeks for £20 in a superstore that will still keep your legs warm.

How do you recognise quality? Some would say that if you know you are wearing something expensive, it makes you feel $1million. Justification enough for some maybe, but others find it extremely difficult to know what quality is. At the end of the day, you have to trust the labels.

Does the same situation apply in the plant section of the superstore? How do you recognise quality in plants?

In my book, if a plant looks in good health, robust and obviously well cared for, attractively displayed and clearly labelled, you are on your way to making the right choice. The difference between a £100 plant and a £20 specimen with the same name is usually size and age. When you buy a much larger, older plant at significant cost, you are actually buying time.

This latter possibility has been fuelled by some TV programmes. Have you seen the new one with Chris Beardshaw in? Recently, I watched the programme from a garden outside Dundee and, looking at the size of plants used and the density of planting, he was able to go shopping with a blank cheque. He was buying time to get his message over.

For most of us, operating on a very limited budget, reason must prevail, but there should be no compromise when it comes to quality.

If you pick up a can of beans from a supermarket shelf and the can is bashed, you would put it back and select another one. If the packaging is damaged in some way, you would likely put it back, too.

You have to be just as careful when buying plants. In the spring, the plants on offer are just breaking into active growth. Some have just arrived from the production nursery. They are looking good and choosing a specimen is easy. Later in the season, it becomes a little more difficult.

To digress slightly, a word about hardiness. As I have suggested, many plants made available in March/April will have arrived from the south and, while they are quite hardy, their growth may be slightly advanced because their growing season naturally starts earlier than ours. In that respect, such plants may be prone to frost damage unless you are conscious of the danger.

Meantime, back at the ranch, what is happening? As soon as this frosty period is over, I will be getting down to the task of winter pruning fruit trees. Following that, in February, I will tackle the redcurrants and gooseberries.

I am still collecting leaves and adding them to the pile while, at the same time, taking out the mature leaf mould from bin number two to use as a mulch round the rhododendrons.

During the dreich days when you have to remain indoors, you can spend a bit of time looking through the catalogues – and, my goodness, there is a lot of temptation in them thar pages.

Have you decided on vegetable varieties for 2009? Behind the scenes at Beechgrove, we have been planning and plotting for the new series, and one of my rules is that we must not throw out the tried and tested varieties for the sake of keeping up to date, otherwise what can we compare the new ones against?

Despite the fact that taste is entirely subjective, it is becoming more of a talking point as we focus on healthy eating. Varieties that have proved to be reliable and successful should not be jettisoned. But, at the same time, using such favourites as the “control”, I would encourage you to try new varieties because, every now and again, you will find something that takes your fancy one way or another.

One crop that we have been trying out at Beechgrove is the sweet potato. In all honesty, if space is at a premium, it is not a vegetable I would recommend unless part of your gardening philosophy centres on challenges. You might be a person who “won’t be beat”, in which case, this crop will test you out, that’s for sure.

In 2007, we grew the crop very successfully, planted in ridges like ordinary tatties (no relationship whatsoever) in a polytunnel. My goodness, how they were cosseted.

We had a hidden agenda, of course, because our colleagues in the south were having a bit of a barney about sweet potatoes, eventually deciding that they couldn’t be grown successfully in their parish allotment. Well, the major British supplier grows his “seed” crop on the Black Isle – ’nuff said.

Although our 2007 crop was excellent, it did take up a lot of time, but moving on, we would try them in raised beds in a polytunnel in 2008. Achieving high soil temperatures is quite important for this crop, so I reasoned that the boxes would be ideal – maybe so, but it was an unmitigated disaster.

Early indications are that we grew them in entirely the wrong kind of soil. Top growth was normal and no more vigorous than the previous year’s, but tuber initiation was poor. In discussions with our sweet potato guru, Ian Thorne, we decided that much had to do with the fact that we had used soil-less compost to fill the boxes, because this plant needs a mineral soil with much less organic matter in it.

Well, undeterred, we will try again in 2009. This time, the crop will be grown in garden soil in raised beds out of doors, but covered with cloches. If that ploy succeeds, maybe it will be worth including the sweet potato in future plans. Somehow, I feel we should devote the space and the effort to more of the crops that serve us well with a minimum of fuss.