Sue’s (very unscientific) potato trials 

Freshly harvested potatoes on dark earth

Discover the best growing method for producing high potato yields
Image: Potato ‘Swift’ from Thompson & Morgan

Our very own horticultural expert, Sue Sanderson, recently set up a series of informal potato trials to see which growing method produced the best yield. Using seed potatoes, Sue experimented with different sized tubers, found out what happened when she cut some in half, and compared the modern ‘lasagne method’ with traditional ‘earthing up’. While not conducted under strict scientific conditions, Sue’s trials produced some clear winners. Here’s how our resident expert recommends growing potatoes…

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Why I like to grow potatoes

Potato ‘Arran Pilot’ from T&M

‘Arran Pilot’ shows good resistance to potato scab
Image: Potato ‘Arran Pilot’ from Thompson & Morgan

Potatoes are easy to grow and take very little time and effort to look after once they’re in the ground. But there’s one disease that can scupper your plans and spoil your crop – potato blight. We asked guest blogger Richard Barrett for his expert advice on how to avoid this pesky problem. Here are his top tips for preventing potato blight.

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We Love Chillies!

Dearest reader,

Harrison (left), William (right).

How do you do? Indeed, well…! We are William and Harrison Scowsill, (28, 27). Perhaps like us, you also ogle and dream of acquiring interesting and rare varieties of plants and seeds from all corners of the globe whilst enjoying the catharsis of growing your own food and attracting nature into your gardens? Amen. Like many hobbyists, we love to share our gardening tales; but alas, our riveting stories were too often met with glazed eyes and fell largely on deaf ears with our contemporaries, who wondered where we’d gotten this new-found passion. We turned to the kind and noble strangers on the internet for the mutual enthusiasm we deserved via Instagram @Freshbros_uk

Our interest in gardening started after returning from a mind-blowing trip to Peru, and realising that we couldn’t find the ingredients to recreate the incredible Peruvian food once we were back home. There are many so many types of chillies and potatoes over there – as many as 3000 varieties! So we started off growing the ‘Lemon Drop’ and ‘Aji Amarillo’ chillies for ceviche dishes and our interests snowballed into weird and wonderful tropical plants that had no business growing in the parents’ sunny orangery, such as the Naranjilla, Cape Gooseberries, Tree Tomato, Starfruit, Horned Melon, and more tropical experiments.

Having been lifelong keen rugby players, for a period in our early twenties we had terrible luck with knee injuries and then William had to recover from viral meningitis, so we hung our boots up for a while and transferred our enthusiasm into rare potted indoor plants until we got our own garden where we now grow everything from purple flesh potatoes, black tomatoes and even grew a watermelon last summer.

Our favourite veg to grow are strange chilli peppers and potatoes. Anything weird and wonderful – we are suckers for what we perceive as ‘rare’ in the UK. We also really enjoy our spring bulbs – tulips, daffodils, fritillaria, crocus, alliums and lilies. Nothing beats 15 seconds of planting in return for 5 weeks of flowering!

We Love Chillies!

This year we decided to focus our greenhouse space growing chillies. Through Instagram, we have met many like-minded growers and one friendly chap sent us a load of seeds of different varieties, including ‘Supers’ that are hard to source. We wanted a mix of heats, rarity and colour, so at the top of the scale we grew many varieties of hot Nagas and 7 Pot peppers which range from 500,000 – 1.4M Scoville units.

©Freshbros_uk *Left to right – Naga Red, 7 Pot Yellow, Komodo, Ghost, Savina*

Then further down the Scoville Scale but still very hot, we grew Scotch Bonnet, Habanero and the black-seeded Rocoto varieties which are very cool. These, with the super hots, make excellent sauces. Just 1 of these would be enough to flavour a large pot.

©Freshbros_uk *Left to right – Golden Rocoto, Chocolate Habanero, Yellow Scotch Bonnet*

Further down the Scale, but still with a kick to it, we grew very colourful chillies. These chillies were a good starting point to increase our capsaicin tolerance level. Adding them to salads, fry ups, or eating them straight off the plant is how we use these. Due to some of them becoming sweeter as they mature, we occasionally use these to make sauces.

©Freshbros_uk *Left to right – Birds Eye, Yellow Mushroom, Purpla Cayenne, Royal Black, Bulgarin Carrot, Hot Lemon, De Arbol*

Finally, at the bottom of the Scoville Scale with little to no heat, we grew mixed sweet and bell Peppers. With their vibrant colours, they’ll bring any meal to life, but they’re equally delicious to eat straight off the plant. Trinidad Perfume is our absolute favourite – a delicate flavour, beautiful aroma and with just a touch of warmth.

©Freshbros_uk *Left to right – Trinidad Perfume, Corbaci, Jalapeno*

We mainly use the super-hot peppers for hot sauces, otherwise we dry them to make chili flakes or powder and jams. In the next couple of years, we want to delve into creating hybrid peppers from cross pollinating different varieties. A new level of organisation is needed, but it sounds fun to try! Other than that, we will look to sourcing different varieties for next year, whilst still growing our favourites.

Greenhouse Tips

Get aphids under control! Unfortunately, growing chillies can attract the aphids. Green or black, once they are established, they are hard to get rid of 100%. An example of this was our Hot Lemon Pepper plant that got heavily infested without us noticing. We had to bring out each pepper plant onto the lawn and wash each leaf. From then on, we kept a close eye on the plant’s health, topping up with an organic neem oil solution spray.

By not using pesticide, just neem oil, we also attracted a huge population of carnivorous ladybirds in the greenhouse to eat the aphids, but this topic deserves its own blogpost. Until then!

You can follow us on Instagram @Freshbros_uk

 

Head to our chilli & sweet pepper hub page to find growing guides and recipes for your chosen chilli varieties.

August – Potatoes, Carrots….. and Elephants!

Theresa's Garden in August

Hello, it’s been a long time since I had the time to sit down and let you know how the garden has been progressing through August.

We have been harvesting everyday in the vegetable patch. I can’t remember a year where we have had such a good potato crop, both early and main crops have grown very well and to date no blight.  Carrots are abundant and no carrot fly, they have been well protected behind insect mesh along with our lovely crop of brassicas.  We have managed to keep the dreaded white butterflies and local wood pigeons off with netting.

Runner beans are all in the freezer as are the surplus Victoria Plums and we are busy cooking and freezing the cooking apples to see us through the year.

The tomatoes have proved very abundant and all varieties have ripened well.  They are being skinned and frozen in readiness for pasta sauce using all home grown garlic, basil and onions. This is then bottled for use throughout the year.

elephant hawk moth caterpillar in August

In the flower garden the baskets tubs and bedding are all full of colour. The large hardy fuchsia that has been in the garden for twenty years has been completely de-foliated by the biggest caterpillars of the beautiful Elephant Hawk Moth. Not a problem for the plant and a big boost for the moths.

 

Finally, some rain!

Theresa vegetable garden after the rain

After several weeks without any significant rain last night we had 21mm enough to create puddles and fill all the water tanks.  The potatoes have visibly grown during the day and everything looks green and healthy.

The spring onion White Lisbon and the Radish Bacchus only sown 6 days ago are up as are the Little Gem lettuce and the Lollo Rosso.  We’re looking forward already to fresh salad from the garden.

I have sown the first Parsnip Tender and True; this seems to do very well here and overwinters nicely in the ground.  I shall do another row in a couple of weeks.  The cabbage Hispi and Red Jewel and beetroot Boltardy seeds sowed in cells will be ready to go out  in about a week, then I shall do a second sowing of them as well.   The runner beans are out as they were growing very quickly, the second sowing will go out a in a few weeks to stagger the crop a little.

Peonies

The spring garden is all finished and everything is growing very fast now for the summer. Bearded iris, Peony, Alliums and Perennial wallflowers are all colouring up.  Soon it will be planting out for the bedding and tubs.  Have bought some colourful pots today and will fill them with Garden Ready plants as I do not have enough greenhouse space to grow on small plugs. The pots are destined for decorating a wedding venue in August so I have got to get that right!

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