March usually sees us pulling the first rhubarb of the year – always a treat; and this got us to thinking about perennial edible crops. March can be a good time of year to get these in the ground. An investment in initial ground preparation and a modest amount of ongoing maintenance gives crops for many years. There are two types of perennial edibles, woody ones like fruit bushes and herbaceous ones like asparagus.

You don’t need much space for some perennial crops.  If you have room for a new shrub, then you have room for a fruit bush, equally a rhubarb plot of less than a metre squared can give large crops for a long time.

Currants and gooseberries are classic fruit bushes and are relatively easy to look after. They need light and airflow, so pruning is simply a matter of keeping the centre open and removing the oldest growth to maintain vigour. Ground preparation and planting is the same as for ornamental shrubs. Dig a wide, but not too deep planting hole in well weeded ground.  You’re aiming to have a square hole about three times the size of the existing root ball and that will allow you to plant the bush at the same depth as it has been already. We don’t enrich the planting area as we want the roots to be pushing out looking for nutrients.  Add a bit of mycorrhizal fungi on the roots and ensure regular watering for the first year.

Pruned blackcurrants in early spring

Rhubarb prefers a shady spot that is either naturally moist or can be kept watered as rhubarb is a marginal bog plant. Unlike for woody bushes, we add plenty of bulky organic matter to the planting area for rhubarb to aid moisture retention.  We suggest allowing a full year’s growth before starting to pull the stems. We don’t take too much in year two, but thereafter rhubarb will give large crops for years.

Newly planted rhubarb

Mature rhubarb

Asparagus is a bigger investment of time. It is generally three years before you get your first crops, but once you’ve started cropping then you’ll never want shop-bought asparagus again.

Emerging asparagus spears in late April

You can plant new crowns in either the autumn or the spring, but we have had most success with spring planting.  Dig a trench and at the bottom create a mound over which you spread the roots of the asparagus crowns. Light, free draining soil is preferred. Keep the bed well-watered in the first year and make sure that you keep on top of the weeds as the first ferns are quite small and are easily out-competed. Once properly established the crowns spread and you’ll soon have an abundance of delicious produce.

As we usually say at this time of year, please remember that it is still winter (despite the lengthening days). We’ve already had heavy frosts and prolonged wet spells this winter, so don’t worry about postponing things if the ground is waterlogged or frozen. For those cold, soggy days; spend some time cleaning and sharpening your tools. As well as extending their lives, using well maintained tools is much easier.

In better weather; you can plant bare root shrubs and trees, and it is a good time to prune some plants. Apples, pears and wisterias are dormant with no leaf cover, so it is much easier to see the shape you’re creating. At this time of year, you can easily distinguish the larger, flowering buds from the smaller vegetative ones, making it easier to produce a balance of new growth and flowers.

Open structure of pruned apple

Fruiting buds

Late flowering clematis can be taken down as far as you like, make sure that you make cuts just above a node. Similarly, with hardy fuchsias, make cuts just above nodes and leave as much stem as you need to create the shape that you want to achieve.

Herbaceous perennials and grasses that have been left over the winter to provide structure and seed heads are looking past their best now and can be cut back before new growth starts to emerge.

You can begin sowing summer cabbages, broad beans and beetroot under cover and finish sowing onions and leeks. We tend to start all of these in seed trays or cells so that they can develop good root systems before they have to take their chances in the allotment. Hellebores are in full flower and emerging spring bulbs all tell us that another gardening year is underway, if it has been a slow start, don’t worry you’ll have plenty of time to catch up.

Hellebore in full flower

With Christmas in the air, this month’s choice is certainly a seasonal favourite – Holly (Ilex). We’ll be seeing plenty of bright red berries on cards, in decorations and adorning tasteful (?) jumpers. However, as the many verses of the famous carol make clear there is much more to holly than the berries. Foliage, flowers and multi-coloured berries make holly a real all-rounder offering interest throughout the year for both gardeners and wildlife.

Hollies don’t just produce red berries. Although they are rarer, plants bearing yellow or orange berries are also available, but for different berry colour, we’d generally recommend Pyracantha or Sorbus (Rowan) rather than holly. One thing to remember is that only female holly plants produce berries. If you are buying a plant this should be clear on the label, but if you have a self-seeded plant you may need to wait a while to see if you will get fruit. Both male and female plants flower, so both are a source of nectar.

Holly Bush in Winter Sunshine

Holly Berries

Where the variety of options for holly becomes really interesting is in the leaves, where there are not only different tones of green, but also a wide range of variegations giving multi-coloured leaves. ‘Silver Queen’ and ‘Golden King’ are two popular cultivars, whose names give a clear indication of the colours within the variegation.  Rather more confusingly “Silver Queen” is male so won’t bear berries, while “Golden King” is female, so it will.  Below are pictures of “Silver Queen” and “Golden King” from Jackson’s Nurseries

While some hollies definitely do bear “a prickle, as sharp as any thorn” they are not all vicious, as you can see above.  You can choose from very prickly to virtually smooth depending on how you want to use the plant.  You might want a boundary hedge to be spiky, which will help to provide cover for birds, but for something closer to lawns or buildings you may well want something a bit less fierce.

What about holly’s partner in the carol – ivy? Well, it is not exactly our favourite, but it can be very useful. We are not keen on its invasive nature, if left to run wild it can soon take over and can overwhelm other plants. It is one of the few plants that can overwhelm an evergreen honeysuckle and it can be a serious problem if it becomes established in tree canopies depriving the tree’s leaves of light. It is sometimes thought to damage walls, but this rarely happens and is very unlikely on a wall in good condition.  In fact, there is emerging research that ivy clad walls can help to moderate temperatures inside buildings, by providing extra insulation.

Ivy is undeniably a great plant for supporting wildlife providing both nectar and berries late in the season. If you have the right space to grow it (and keep an eye on it) ivy will certainly help to support the biodiversity in your garden.

It is worth noting that while ivy is climbing it retains a juvenile form, but once it reaches free air, for example at the top of a fence or wall then it matures to produce flowers and fruit.

The hour has gone back, the days are short, so is all gloom and decay in the garden? Well of course it isn’t. There are many plants that are still offering vivid colours well into November. Some such as Dahlias and Chrysanthemums will flower until the frosts arrive.  The photos below were taken yesterday, so strictly speaking still October, but the sun was shining.

Autumnal Dahlias

Cosmos and Chrysanthemums

Chrysanthemums

Other plants like many of our deciduous trees offer superb leaf colour, while others such as Pyracantha, Sorbus and Cotoneaster bear vibrant berries.

Autumnal Trees

Pyracantha Hedge

Cotoneaster berries

Sorbus Pink Pagoda

However, our choice for colour lasting well into the autumn are two bulbs, Nerine and its hybrid relative the Amerine. They tend to start flowering in October but the blooms will generally last into early November when the starburst flowers are entirely appropriate for bonfire night. Like most bulbs they require relatively little maintenance, but may need extra water in the summer when the leaves emerge (these will die back before the blooms appear on bare stems).

Nerine

The vegetable garden also has a couple of our favourites reaching their peak now, parsnips and leeks. Both will be ready for harvesting and whether it is roast parsnips, leeks in cheese sauce or hearty soups, they provide perfect comfort food for the gloomier days of late autumn. Both have quite long growing seasons, so are a timely reward for patient gardeners after many of the brasher summer vegetables have finished. Just make sure that you leave a few for Christmas dinner!

With Halloween at the end of the month, this month’s favourite plant is the pumpkin and its relatives the hard-skinned “Winter Squashes”. This family contains many more plants than the familiar Halloween pumpkin and range in size from the smallest of squashes grown as decorations to the seriously giant (the world record weight for a pumpkin is over a ton!). The picture below shows our entry for the village show in September.  Even though we needed a wheelbarrow to carry it, it was 1,200kg shy of the world record – to put it another way, 40 more of the same size would be needed to reach a properly giant weight.

30kg Pumpkin

Aside from giant curios and tiny decorations, lots of the winter squashes in the mid-range are extremely tasty. We often use them as an alternative to potatoes as they can be roasted, baked and make great soup. You can cook and eat them fresh, but if you “cure” the skins by drying them off, squashes can be stored for months in a cool dry place to form part of your winter larder.

Squashes Curing ready for storage

Squashes need lots of water, regular feeding and lots of space (the plants are real ramblers), they also love sunshine. To help the plants cope with dry weather we usually plant them with a mechanism for direct watering, either through a “Gro-Pot” or with a plant pot sunk next to the roots. Aside from slugs and snails when the plants are young and powdery mildew as they age, squash plants are relatively free from pests and diseases, so can be a good introduction to growing as they cover a lot of ground quickly and are reliable croppers of tasty produce.

The picture below shows the 3 litre pots sunk next to squash plants scrambling up a trellis frame.

Squash frame with watering pots

We start this month with the annual reminder that the Cookham Flower and Produce Show is now just over a fortnight away.  This year the village show is scheduled for Saturday the 17th of September and don’t forget that there are cooking and handicraft classes and a special children’s section as well as the traditional fruit, vegetable and flower classes. The more entries there are, the better the display in the hall, so please support this annual celebration of all things grown and made.

For people (like us) who are feeling that they’ve struggled to get some things growing in the hot and very dry conditions this year, don’t forget that everyone is in the same boat and what you think is disappointing may be marvelled at by other growers. Of course for some crops the weather has been perfect, so the displays of tomatoes and sweet and chilli peppers could be outstanding this year.

Chilli Peppers at an earlier village show

The show only makes a spectacle in the village hall if there are plenty of entries, so have a go and support the fantastic band of volunteers who make it happen. You never know you might just end up with a prize winner’s certificate or two.

Entry Forms are in the Cookham Dean Fete programme or available from the organiser Helen Philip (07549 519246 helenphilip@hotmail.co.uk). Entry forms need to be with Helen by 6pm Thursday 15th September at 50, Whyteladyes Lane Cookham Berkshire SL6 9LP with entry fees (50p per class).

So to this month’s favourite plant.  By no coincidence, this is a flower and produce show stalwart – the Dahlia. Few flowering plants offer such a range of colours, sizes and forms, with a really long flowering period. Regular dead-heading can see blooms from July through to the first frosts, but September is just about the peak.  Here they are as a key component of a prize winning display at the Cookham show…

Top Vase Winner

… and here they are as a central feature of table decorations.

Flower jars

Dahlias used to be considered as quite fiddly to care for, needing to be lifted and stored through winter to prevent the tubers rotting in cold, damp conditions.  However, around here these measures seem to be unnecessary as the plants survive quite happily with minimal winter care.  Simply cut the stems down to ground level after the first frosts have killed this year’s growth and if you want to give them a bit of extra love, mulch to provide a bit of extra winter protection.

Dahlias are easy to propagate by division and autumn is a good time to do that if plants are getting too big.  In this case, do lift the tubers after frost has killed off the foliage and then gently tease apart the tubers.  Any piece of tuber that has a clear growing point at the top should spring back into growth next spring.  We simply pot up the divided tubers and store the pots in an unheated greenhouse (if there is room) or in a sheltered spot in the garden (next to a wall and in a rain shadow is ideal).  This fairly minimal amount of care has given us very good results over the years and as the plants spring back into growth the following spring we re-plant selected specimens and donate the rest to family, friends and charity plant sales.

You can also propagate through cuttings, but this is a job for next spring once growth re-starts.