Exploring the Fruit Jungle

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The fruit garden became a fruit jungle.  This is mostly because of the raspberries, which like to move around.  There is also quite a bit of nettle(s), which make it not conducive to casual browsing.  The nettles are a good sign actually, since they prefer richer soil.  Probably decades of manure from the byre in times past have increased the fertility of the area, although there has been no livestock since we’ve been here.  I’ve tried to tame various areas in the past, but am fighting a bit of a losing battle; it looks beautiful for a few months, then nature happens.  It is probably the soft herbacious layer that I don’t understand yet and haven’t got the balance for.  Hopefully in time I can get the groudcover plants established so that the nettles and docken don’t dominate quite so much.  In the meantime I have been pulling these perennial weeds out, sometimes by the root, sometimes not.  They will probably come back next year, maybe not as strong, we shall see.

Strawberry flowers

The comfrey still seems to come back in patches where I thought I had removed it.  I think if I carry on digging out as much as I can it will eventually give up.  In the meantime the lush growth is useful to mulch around the fruit bushes.  I’ve got quite a nice patch of strawberries, although they tend to get damaged outside before they get a chance to ripen off.  They do much better in the polytunnel.  The Toona sinensis seems pretty happy, if not that vigorous. It can be seen sprouting earlier in the year in the strawberry picture above (at least if you know where to look).  It is only it’s second year and I haven’t tried eating any yet.  It is supposed to taste like ‘beefy onions’, used as a cooked vegetable in China.  The patches of Good King Henry have established well.  They will stop some weed seedlings coming up next year.  The Japanese Ginger is very late coming into growth again, and does not show much signs of being too vigorous in my garden.  I just hope it survives and grows enough that I can try that as a vegetable as well.  I forgot I had some Oca in by the Ribes Odoratum last year.  That seems to have come back of it’s own accord.  I have a feeling that Oca volunteers will be as much of a nuisance as potato volunteers tend to be, albeit somewhat less vigorous.

Mulching below path

I have mulched around the ‘Empress Wu’ Hosta, which I planted in the trees just beyond the fruit jungle, with cardboard.  I wanted to protect it before the grass grew and swamped it too much.  The bistort has come back nicely as well this year and set seed, which I just sprinkled close by.  I wish now I had sowed the seed in pots so I could determine where to plant out new plants if they grow.  I mulched the area between the path and the lower parking area as well.  The new large fruited haw there, Crataegus Shraderiana, is growing well, and it is underplanted with a Gaultheria Mucronata cutting and a Mrs Popple Fuchsia cutting.  The latter had been growing quite nicely, but unfortunately got broken off once planted, possibly by Dyson sitting on it, or the cardboard shifting against it.  It seems to be growing back again OK now.

Elder in flower from above fruit jungle

The original elder bush, which came as a cutting from Solihull is coming into it’s own now.  It flowers really well, despite being on the windy side of the willow fedge that protects the fruit garden from the worst of the prevailing winds.  It doesn’t seem to have set many berries again though.  Hopefully some of the local elder cuttings that I took will cross fertilise it and help a set; it may just be the wind though.  It’s worth it’s position just from the blossom and extra shelter it provides, although fruit would also be nice.  I used to make a rather tasty cordial from elderberries…..and I read somewhere that it used to be cultivated to make a port-like drink back in the day.  Certainly I have drunk some rather good home brewed elderberry wine (not mine I hasten to add).

Purple is the colour….

The rest of the fruit jungle is living up to it’s name.  The original rhubarb has provided a batch of jam and a batch of chutney, I could have picked more… The Champagne Early rhubarb are starting to establish well with a lovely pink colouration (I made a batch of rhubarb and ginger liqueur which is maturing as I write), and the Stockbridge Arrow is coming on, although still quite small.  The Ribes Odoratum flowered well, although only one berry appears to have set.  I will maybe try and take some cuttings from these this winter.  They are very pretty while in bloom, although it would be nice to get a bit more fruit from them.  The Saskatoon remains a bit disappointing.  I was hoping it would be setting fruit better by now.  There are a few but not many.  It maybe that it requires more ‘chill days’ to flower well, since we have much milder winters here than it would be used to in it’s native North America.  A bit of research indicates that the bushes may need pruning, or just be immature.  The raspberries are starting to ripen now, and the black currants (all Ben Sarek in the fruit garden) are tempting with a heavy crop, but need a few more days yet.  There is also at least one flower on the globe artichoke which is a division from the polytunnel plant (spot it in the top photo after clearing).  It is encouraging that it is returning and getting stronger year on year.  The cardoon seems to have succumbed this year.  I don’t think any of my new seed have germinated, but I may be better getting vegetable branded seed rather than HPS seed, which is more likely to be an ornamental variety – they are rather spectacular in bloom.

Apple blossom

All of the apple trees also flowered well.  Only the Tom Putt apple seems to have set any fruit though.  I’m not too perturbed about that.  The Worcester Pearmain is unlikely to ripen anyhow, and the Starks Early (which I grafted myself!) is still very young.  Given a halfway reasonable summer however, I am hopeful of getting more than one apple this year.  There don’t seem to be any surviving fruit on the Morello cherry unfortunately, which is looking rather tatty.

Monkey puzzle with yours truly for scale

The monkey puzzles as yet are far too young to expect nuts.  They were planted in 2009 and have grown really well in the fruit garden.  All three are about twice as tall as I am.  By special request from Maureen, I’ll put a photo of one of my monkey puzzle and I above.  They are also getting wider in diameter; both in trunk and in branch reach  The branches are so prickly this means that the original path at the top of where the fruit tunnel once stood is no longer viable.  I therefore need to have another think about path routeing this winter, particularly in the upper raspberry dominated area.

The Secret Garden

This year I have been trying to tame the next section of garden by the drivebank overlooking the barn, this is where I moved the kiwi vine to over the winter.  I have been calling this The Secret Garden in my mind.  It is not particularly hidden (although it will be more secluded once mature), it is just that almost all the plants in here have edible parts, although are normally grown as ornamentals in the UK.  Steven Barstow has coined the word ‘edimentals’ for these sorts of plants.

View from Garden end

I had already forked over the area and mulched it with cardboard at the same time as I planted out the kiwi vine.  One of my neighbours has lots of lovely hosta, which I had been admiring and they very kindly gave me several big clumps of it, together with what I think may be Elecampane (Inula helenium), and ladies mantle.  I have put most of the hosta in this area, there are at least two different varieties – one with quite blue leaves.  Hopefully it won’t be too dry for it.  I also planted out some of my Aralia cordata, which I had grown from seed, and my sechuan pepper (from a danish cutting), some Lady Boothby Fuchsia (from cuttings), some golden current (from cuttings) and my strawberry tree (bought as a plant). I also planted some hardy geraniums around the base of the strawberry tree.  These were grown from seed from chiltern seeds: .  It was supposed to be a mixed pack, but only two varieties seem to have made it – a small white flowered one and a small purple flowered one.  The rest of the geraniums were planted on the drivebank.

Variegated Hosta shoots in spring

I  also got some hedging Sea buckthorne plants this spring, and have planted a number of these along the top of the bank above the barn, as well as in various places in the tree field.  Hopefully these will form a protective barrier as well as fixing nitrogen, and maybe producing fruit in the future.  They should grow fairly quickly, but I will probably cut them back fairly often to keep them bushy, assuming they do OK.

These plantings are all mostly doing fine.  The Aralia seems to be suffering a bit from slug damage.   There were three little plants, and I think one has not made it, one is OK and the other will probably be OK.  The Hosta doesn’t seem to have suffered too badly from slug damage so far.  One of the clumps is starting to flower, and they are all looking pretty healthy.  The kiwi is not looking great, but has some new growth, so may well make it.  The proof will be if it comes back into life next year!  Unfortunately the sechuan pepper plant was broken by some strong north winds we had – I did not stake it since it was so tiny.  It has sprouted below the broken point so I have removed the top part of the stem and stuck it in adjacent in the hope that this may form a new plant too.  So far the strawberry tree is looking very happy.  One of the sea buckthorne hasn’t made it, but the others look pretty happy.  I may replace the failed sea buckthorne with a female good fruiting variety if the others do well in the next couple of years.

Remulched secret garden

The weeds had been poking through the cardboard, so I have been going back over with some fresh cardboard, pulling out the nettles, docken and grasses that are a bit persistent.  Hopefully I can weaken them enough that they don’t come back next year.  I need to have more ground cover plants to stop the weeds seeding back in again (remember  rule #2)  The chilean plum yew plants I have are still a bit small for planting out yet I think, but could also be planted out next year.  I have also thickly covered the main path through to the front garden (it comes out where I have the dog tooth violet and solomon’s seal plants growing) with old newspaper and wood chippings/bark.  I still need to complete another ramp down to the barn and build a retaining wall to tidy up the join to the drivebank, however there is a Landrover parked rather long term just in the way at the moment, so this may have to wait till next year.

 

Eviction

Having decided that the Kiwi vine wasn’t worth the space and the daylight it took in the Polytunnel, I spent a few wet afternoons in January and February digging it out.  Since it was pretty much in the corner I had to be careful of the polytunnel sides when digging.  I wasn’t certain when I started whether I was taking the bramble out as well.  Actually I rather though I would be digging that out too, despite the great crop of sweet early brambles it usually gives.  However in the event, it really was too close to the polytunnel corner to take out.  Also it seems to be quite separate to the kiwi root mass so didn’t naturally come out at the same time.

Kiwi roots

Although I tried hard to take up as much root as possible, the kiwi roots are surprisingly fragile, so most of them got broken quite short during the excavation.  Eventually the last roots going out under the tunnel wall were cut through and the rootball was undercut and freed.  It was interesting that most of the larger roots were extending into the tunnel rather than out into the damper soil outside the tunnel.  I think this indicates that the kiwi will prefer drier soil.  That corner of the tunnel outside however, is also particularly wet, since there is a shallow drainage ditch I dug along there quite early on, which doesn’t yet have a destination except just by the corner of the tunnel.  It usually fills with water there after any significant rain.

Out of polytunnel – giant Dufflepud

I had decided to plant the kiwi against the largest of the sycamores in the front garden.  I don’t expect it to be quite as vigorous outside as it is in the warmth of the tunnel.  It may not like the extra wet as well as the cooler temperatures.  However I remember seeing kiwis swamping a tree in the Fern’s field, so don’t want to plant it somewhere where the trees are still establishing.  In addition, it will be more difficult to prune the vine in a tree so I’m actually intending to let it run free as much as possible.  This means that I may not get so many flowers, but since I am not expecting to get any fruit outside it doesn’t really matter.

Kiwi in new position

I started by working out roughly where the kiwi was going to be planted; a little way from the tree trunk.  It means that there will not be a way around between the tree and the road above the barn.  However, there wasn’t before either due to the way the soil has been heaped up, and the clump of branches growing from the bole of the tree.  I managed to get the kiwi up the drive bank and in position, with a bit of a struggle.  I loosened the soil where it was to go, and dug just a little bit out, since I needed to adjust the soil levels to a bit higher there to blend them in more.  I didn’t give the kiwi any extra compost; I’m expecting it, if it survives, to be quite vigorous enough already!  Having backfilled the hole to level, I lifted soil from adjacent to the barn roadway to smooth out and level the area between the kiwi and the drivebank.  There is quite a bit of nettles well established there.  Although I pulled out quite a bit of root, there is plenty more undisturbed there still.  I threw those roots I did pull out between the kiwi tree and the barn roadway.  There will be a little shaded wild spot where I don’t mind the nettles staying.  There were a few dock roots and couchgrass too, which will probably persist.

Newly mulched and levelled

Luckily over the past few months I have built up quite a reserve of sheet cardboard, so was easily able to mulch the whole area pretty thoroughly.  I weighed the sheets down with rocks that had been used to weigh down the cardboard at the top of the drivebank last year.  That cardboard is pretty much gone, and the soil underneath looks pretty weed free.  I’m now thinking about planting this area in the next few months.  What I found pretty exciting is that the soil I was moving from the edge of the barn driveway was pretty dry.  Despite the fact that this January was the second wettest month locally for about ten years.  I can therefore think about planting things that prefer to be well drained.  I’ve got several plants growing nicely already (for example those japanese and chilean plum yew may like it there) but also I’m thinking that along the drivebank edge may be just the spot for some sea buckthorne.  I’ve really fancied this shrub for ages,  especially after trying the fruit in Cornwall and Devon.  My research so far suggests it doesn’t like a damp soil, but should be OK with salt winds, although fruiting better with some shelter.  I’m intending to get some general hedging plants, but will maybe get some fruiting cultivars too.  I’m not sure whether I should get these at the same time, or instead, or try out the cheaper varieties before spending a lot on something that doesn’t do well.  Difficult decisions!

Cutting Docken and grass

Again, the weather has been kind to me. I have been cutting the docken (don’t you just love that plural?) in the orchard area. I have lots of docks around the place, and often they get to seed before I cut them, thus seedlings grow and the docken proliferate. I have discovered that, contrary to conventional wisdom, if you get the growing top off the dock they don’t tend to grow back. So my technique is to cut with a spade, aiming to get a couple of inches of the tap root, and not worry too much about the rest of the root. We also have some sort of big pinkish white grub that eats dock roots – maybe they eat the remainder?

Cutting Docken in orchard area

The orchard area was planted just over three years ago with plum, damson and cherry trees, and I added some apples 18 months ago. It is in a more sheltered dip at the top of the tree field, and I intend to add more soil to landscape the area. I wanted to give the trees as much soil as possible, and also try and keep them well drained. We get so much rain and this is one of the factors that make the fruit trees not grow so well and succumb to disease. At the moment the landscaping is partially done. The trees were planted on mounds, and I have been spreading soil between them. This is barrowed down from below the barn, where it was left from various trackway excavations. Although S. did move down some soil with the dumper, It took a lot of effort to then distribute it and dig out the couch grass and nettles that came too, so wasn’t really much of a labour saving in the end! The trackway down from the barn still needs grading, so is still a bit steep for comfortable barrowing, but at least the heavy bit’s downhill! Anyway, apparently along with the couch and nettles were also a lot of dock seeds which have subsequently germinated and done quite well (oh why aren’t they edible weeds?). So last week I and the dogs took the pink ball and the spade and barrow and set to work. One and a half days later we had cleared the docken, done a lot of fetching, discovered some nicely growing blackcurrant cuttings that I stuck in last winter, a big bone that Dougie had hidden there, a couple of very small spruce seedlings that were missed from several I had temporarily stuck in there eighteen months ago; that is the good news.

Blackcurrant cuttings in orchard area

The docken were also lovely to dig up from the new soil – many came up with complete roots, so the soil should be good for other stuff to grow in. The bad news is that I also discovered that along with the docken we also have a lot of surviving couch grass (I now know what couch grass flowers look like), nettles and of course the creeping thistle that were in the field before the trees were planted. I’m hoping that continual pulling will deter the creeping thistles. This seems to have been reasonably effective in the tea garden, I had very little come back this year. It’s not the nicest job. You need need grippy gloves to grasp the stems so as to pull as much root as possible: I like the cloth ones with latex facing. However, the palms aren’t strong enough to stop all the prickles, so every now and then you have to pick out a prickle that has broken off in the glove and is sticking in you. I just pulled out the nettles (which will probably grow back) and ignored most of the couch. I know it’s going to grow extensively, but I’m hoping to complete the landscaping, and maybe do some planting this autumn. With a good thick mulch in the meantime and relying on the lovely light soil structure, I’m hoping it will come out then reasonably completely. Anyway, it’s only grass! I’ll probably plant out some of my exciting root crops there this autumn/winter since they will subsequently need digging out anyway giving me a second opportunity to remove the couch….

It was forecast to be dry until Thursday last week, and we were keen to get the paths in the tree field cut. It’s nice to have the grass long, but it makes my trousers wet as I’m walking through (even with wellies on), and S. also has difficulty telling the trees and other plants apart, so having a defined pathway makes it easier if he does have to drive a vehicle round. To be fair the docks are still bigger than some of the trees.  I’d asked him to get the mower out ready for me, so that I could cut the paths when I got home from the shop on Wednesday. It would be quite late, but the sun doesn’t set till gone ten for us at the moment, so there is still quite a bit of daylight. Anyway, he not only got the mower out, but he and the dog-boys went round all the trackways a few times. It wasn’t quite the way I would have done it. I’m not that keen on cutting the grass at all at this time of year. I would like the flowers to have set their seed. However, for reasons of practicality, a little pathway in the centre of the track seems like a good compromise. S. however, did the main trackway with several passes, and the main side loop also with a wider cut. I went round a second time trying to keep in the centre of the track, because the scythemower doesn’t cut that cleanly the first cut, and a second cut gives a more even result. A disadvantage of doing more than the minimum is that Muggins here then has to spend longer than neccessary raking up the extra cut grass. It looks slightly surreal with the long grass, trees and flowers, a mowed path, and the mounds of gathered cut grass.

Hay mounds along mown trackway

Now I have a fair amount of material for mulching. I will have to wheelbarrow this up hill to the orchard area, where hopefully it will stop some of the noxious weeds growing back too strongly and feed the fruit trees in the longer term. If there is more than I need it can be used to mulch the trees nearest the path edge, or others strategically selected.
If we had more land I would like to cut some of it for hay. Corncrake have a hard time now on Skye, since most crofters just buy in their winter feed now and the in bye fields are now summer grazing. I heard one once here in Glendale a couple of years ago, but it didn’t stay.

“leafu”

This post is for Amanda.

Leafu or leaf curd is a way of concentrating the protein in green leaves to make it accessible to humans. Apparently you can use almost any non toxic leaf, but nettle greens are what I have plenty of just at the moment. The resulting substance is up to 70% dry weight protein, which is useful for those following a vegan diet. Although not vegan myself, I fancied having a go with my nettles to see what could be achieved. The nettles here grow rather prickly and although I know you can have nettles as a green cooked vegetable, the results here are rather less than palatable. Someone else in the glen went so far as to import nettles from Yorkshire from a known good clump – but here they also grew prickly, so it seems to be something about the environment here. Maybe they need more sheltered conditions to grow nice, so perhaps when my trees are bigger and provide more shelter I will have lush nettles again.

The recipe for leafu is very simple:

1) Collect your greens (and wash them)

2) Bash them to release the cell contents

3) Strain off the liquid from the fibrous parts of the plant

4) Heat the liquid to boiling point to curdle the protein

5) Strain off the protein solids

6) Treat if necessary to preserve the leafu.

Collecting nettles was quite straightforwards. I was using a recipe from a Country Kitchen article by Fergus Drennan which I found online (http://fergustheforager.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/ckjuly09curdsaway.pdf) which intimates that 12kg of nettle leaf can produce 1 kg of moist leafu. I thought as a trial this was maybe a little large, so I aimed to collect 6 kg to make a pound of leaf curd. One carrier bag of nettles seemed to weigh about a kg, and I had no problem collecting 5 bags of youngish nettles – alternatively being able to collect this amount of nettles in my fruit garden could be considered to be a problem in itself! However, hopefully picking off the tops may knock back the growth a bit anyway. I did get stung a little – the gloves I like to use in the garden are the cloth type with latex palms. The nettles do sting through the fabric, so I got a bit stung on the backs of my hands. It’s supposed to be good for the circulation, or prevent rhumatism perhaps.

To bash the leaves I used a food processor. You can use a liquidiser, or a juicer, or a pestle and mortar, and probably other devices. It was quite slow and makes a mess. I would recommend not starting this job at 6 o’clock on a Sunday evening when you have to make and eat dinner and have a bath before bedtime! I started off cutting the nettles up on a chopping board and then feeding the pieces down a funnel into the processor with a little water to help it move. I soon worked out that actually I could feed the whole stems into the top of the processor which saved a lot of time. Although I thought I had selected the stems pretty well while picking them, I had to edit them a bit to get rid of a few eaten leaves, and rooty bits of stem. When the food processor was as full as I dared with liquidised nettles, I transferred the lot into a large jelly bag in my jam cauldron.

Food processor full of pulped nettle

maslin pan over-full of pulped nettle!

I found the pulp was very bulky and it more than filled the maslin pan. I decanted some liquid into a mixing bowl, even so had I actually persevered and pulped the whole 5 bags collected, there is no way my jelly bag would have been big enough. Fergus suggests using a pillow case, but I suspect at this stage something coarser would be OK – may be some environmesh insect screening? But you’d also need a larger container like a baby bath, or maybe a large plastic gardening trug? Anyway, since it was getting late and the pan was getting full I stopped after 2 bags.

I managed to suspend the heavy jelly bag over my mixing bowl and left it to drain overnight. The left over nettles went in the compost heap, as did the contents of the jelly bag the next day after I had squeezed what extra moisture I could from it. The liquid was very dark, almost black. I meant to have a go at paper making with the pulp as Fergus suggests, but forgot in the excitement of leafu production!

The next step is heating the liquid gently to boiling point and simmer for about a minute. I cook on a wood fired range cooker, so I normally use the oven to heat up large quantities, so this is what I did. I guess the oven was about 170 degrees celsius (top end of the hot on my oven door thermometer) and I then went away to do something else. When I returned sometime later remembering the leafu – it was hot and steaming with a dark coloured crust. When placed on the hot side of the hot plate on the cooker top it was already boiling gently, so I guess it must have been at boiling for rather longer than a minute. The crust was the leafu protein, so it seems to be a fairly tolerant process. I guess that if the nutrients such as vitamins are crucial to your diet, then cooking the liquid the minimum amount to coagulate the protein would be better than my extra time.

Coagulated protein layer

The solid protein is very fine particles. I used a small jelly bag which has a very fine mesh. I expect a coffee filter might be suitable if big enough, but certainly the bag I used for the initial filtering of the nettle solids would not have caught the leaf protein. Again I left the bag to drip overnight and the result was about a cup of soft solids like a dark green mousse. I weighed this as about 4oz (100g). I also had a large bowl of nettle juice (less some of the protein) which I have kept to use as plant food.

Straining off curds

Moist leaf curd

Fergus gives various methods of preserving the leafu. Apparently in it’s fresh state it will not last very long, even in the refrigerator. It keeps a little longer if you add salt (about 1oz to every 4oz fresh curd) and refrigerate, or you can freeze it in portions or dry and use as stock cubes in stews, soups and sauces. I admit I got confused at this stage and both added salt and then dried the curd (sitting in a bowl on top of the cooker for a day or so with occasional stirring). The result was about 1 and a half ounces of leafu powder, of which one ounce was salt. So I’m afraid the overall taste at the end was salt. At the fresh curd stage It tasted strongly of green. Not an unpleasant taste, but I wouldn’t expect my husband to eat it neat! He won’t notice it added instead of marmite to a stew next time I do something suitable.

Dried leaf curd and plant food (in milk cartons)

Verdict: This was a fun way to use a glut of inedible nettles. I think however, if you don’t need a protein concentrate, it’s a rather long process for a little gain. On researching around on the internet for nutrient content of leaf curd, I found a reference to someone who uses dried nettles as a condiment and I think this would be a more practical way for me personally to use them in the future. I can generally dry things in the polytunnel hung from the crop bars, or on cooling trays in the bottom oven, when the stove is on. I may have a go at this later in the year. I think that you would lose less of the other nutrients in the nettles (in the ‘whey’), although would need a greater amount of dried nettles for the same amount of protein. They do seem to contain about one third protein by dry mass (from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtica_dioica), so that would only need a bit more than twice as much dried nettle to have the same protein as dried leaf curd.