“Kalettes” the Ghosts of Christmas past?

Are “Kalettes” the Ghosts of Christmas past that are now making a welcome return?


Not that we at Thompson & Morgan are keen to say “I told you so”, but the recent resurgence of Kale as a superfood and now the amazing new development of “kalettes” is somewhat old news to us.

Back in 2009 we offered Brassica ‘Petit Posy Mix’ to our customers and said:

“Petit Posy™ is similar in appearance to both Brussels sprouts and kale but the flavour and nutritional content is very similar to spring greens – perfect for fussy eaters who don’t enjoy sprouts!
The loose buttons are easy to pick off the stems and are perfect for adding to stir fries, serving steamed or microwaved and make very nutritious winter greens”

kalettes brassica petit posy mix

Also known as “kale sprouts” or even “flower sprouts” these easy to grow brassicas could well be an alternative to brussels sprouts during the festive season, they could also supplement winter veg over the whole of the season due to their very long cropping season. Extremely hardy ‘Petit Posy’ will stand throughout the winter to ensure you have access to tasty fresh vegetables whenever you need them that have a milder taste than traditional Brussels and so may well appeal more to younger members of the family too.

Available to buy from seed with 20 seeds per pack, the price has barely changed in nearly 7 years too, making our very own “kalettes” superb value for money!

Find out how to grow kalettes and more delicious leafy greens at our brassica hub page.

Look to winter shades to keep the blues away

Autumn is upon us and winter is fast approaching, long cold nights offer little to raise our spirits and many people now recognise S.A.D. as a definite problem at this time of year.

The loss of daylight hours and the cold temperatures can give us a lack of incentive to wander outside into our gardens, there are no longer any summer blooms, bees or butterflies to wonder at, and it is so much easier to stay indoors and wait for spring.

But if you do stay in, you are missing out on so many autumn and winter spectacles, sights and colours!
It is still possible to create a fantastic autumn and winter display to bring you outside – where you will at least get a little sunshine – not just flowers but grasses, shrubs and trees can brighten up even the dreariest of days.

Take pennisetums for example, a wide range of them are available; they are guaranteed to draw you in with their wonderful structure, colour and amazing seedheads. They are very easy to maintain and look fantastic planted in drifts of different shapes and sizes.

Pennisetum alopecuroides, Pennisetum setaceum 'Fireworks' & Pennisetum villosum 'Cream Falls'

Pennisetum alopecuroides, Pennisetum setaceum ‘Fireworks’ & Pennisetum villosum ‘Cream Falls’

There are a huge variety of colours still to be seen at this time of year, the bright foliage of berberis makes a striking counterpoint to the bare trees or other evergreens around it, almost adding the warmth of a roaring fire. Pyracanthus will offer its red or yellow berries into the display too (making a tasty treat for the birds at the same time).

Holly, yew and privet, with many other evergreens can help maintain rich glossy layers of deep greens. Usually at the back of borders they help to provide a backdrop for other plants. Many have berries too, adding contrast and additional interest.

Berberis 'Admiration,' Pyracantha 'Soleil d'Or,' & Eucalyptus gunnii

Berberis ‘Admiration,’ Pyracantha ‘Soleil d’Or,’ & Eucalyptus gunnii

Moving upwards, there are many trees that create lots of interest during autumn and winter. Some, like eucalyptus are not only evergreen, but have unusual coloured leaves and interesting bark too. Whilst others once they have given us a spectacular display of autumn colours as their leaves fall, reveal a wonderful winter filigree of branches and twigs to capture the frosts or winter sunshine.

Of course, the easiest way to provide yourself with quick and easy colour is to plant out winter bedding in pots or borders where they can be easily seen from indoors. Even if you are not tempted to leave the warmth of your house, the cheery faces of pansies, the bright shades of primroses and the daisy heads of bellis are sure to bring a smile or two!

Pansy 'Matrix™ Mixed,' Polyanthus 'Firecracker' & Bellis 'Pomponette Mixed'

Pansy ‘Matrix™ Mixed,’ Polyanthus ‘Firecracker’ & Bellis ‘Pomponette Mixed’

There is really no excuse to not enjoy your garden this autumn and winter, there are plenty of joys to behold, colours to take in and various plants and schemes to try out. I’ve only touched on a few of my ideas and favourites. There are so many more I could have added, cornus, autumn crocuses, winter flowering clematis to name a few.

Check out Thompson & Morgan’s plant finder, I have always found it a really useful tool when thinking about trying new plants in different locations and at different times of the year too. You can find more ideas and advice on our winter flowers hub page.

Making Hypertufa

Many years ago I remember watching the great Geoff Hamilton on Gardener’s World making “fake rocks” from something called hypertufa and even though I was too young at the time to do it myself I always recall wanting to try it when I was a grown up.

I’m not quite sure I’ve ever actually “grown up” but I do love my garden and I also love trying to be creative, successfully or otherwise, it doesn’t matter, as long as I’ve had a go!

With that in mind, a few years ago I made my first batch of hypertufa, I made pots, used boxes for moulds and actually was quite pleased with the results, I have moved a few times since then and the pots either got left behind, or broken so it was about time I made some more!

The recipe

There are various mixtures all over the internet, I used 2 parts cement to 3 parts compost and 3 parts perlite, you can add some synthetic strengthening fibres to the mix but as I was only making small scale so I didn’t need them. If you are planning on making something huge then they would be a good idea to stop it breaking when you lift it.

hypertufa-image1hypertufa-image2

  • 2 parts cement
  • 3 parts perlite
  • 3 parts compost

As with any cement mix, add water and thoroughly combine the materials – the important thing with hypertufa is not to make it too wet! If your mixture is sloppy then it will crumble back to dust when it dries and all your hard work will be wasted! A consistency of clay is almost ideal, if you hold a handful, squeeze it and let go, it should hold it’s shape without falling apart or oozing between your fingers. (I should have worn gloves by the way)

Moulding and making

The mix was ready and I had found a few things to use as moulds for the first few pots, one of them was an old glass kitchen lampshade which was going to make a nice shallow bowl, I covered it with cling film – to make sure it didn’t stick later on – and started pressing handfuls of the mix inside it, starting near the middle and working my way out, I tried to make it about an inch thick all the way around until I had covered the inside completely.

hypertufa-image3

I also used an old sweet tin (sprayed inside with WD40 to stop any sticking) a small cardboard box, a fruit box and, bizarrely, I decided to fill up a latex glove with the mixture too to see what it came out like and I also made a small, free-form, shallow container too

Patience is now vital, I covered over the various pots and troughs and left them for nearly a week to completely dry out, I’m not usually this patient but I knew that to interfere with them now would probably break the things I made and mess them up completely.

It was worth the wait, with only one mishap – my tub of builders PVA came in handy at this point..

hypertufa-image4

Further waiting followed to let them cure even more, however, this was a good time to go out and buy lots of lovely plants to put in them!

I chose alpines including Sempervivum, saxifrage, mazus and delosperma, that will all look good in this particular setting, all being low growing ground cover type plants. They are low maintenance plants, making them ideal for a beginner too!

I planted up some of the pots I had made, using ordinary multi-purpose compost but not using any additional feeds etc, top dressing it all with a silver grit finished off the look nicely and I found a few large “rocks” to decorate the top a little.

Overall I’m very pleased with the result and the plants are already filling out nicely and looking very “natural” in their new homes.

hypertufa-image5

Gardening workout

With the nation’s apparent obsession with gyms, healthy eating and trying to lose weight, have you considered just how much exercise that you can do carrying out the simplest of garden tasks. We all ache after a long session of hoeing, digging or weeding and that’s probably because we’ve used muscles that we don’t normally and, providing we’ve been sensible, and safe, then it has probably done us some good!

With just a few simple garden tools you can burn off the calories, tone up your body and at the same time, have a well tended, beautiful garden, be it flowers or vegetables. Here are a few ideas to get you started and all at a fraction of the price of a gym subscription!

 

Cutting and digging

 

Hand trowels and forks will tone up your triceps and biceps too when you are using these for planting and weeding your beds and borders.

Using Secateurs, Grass Shears and Pruning Saws is the best exercise you’ll get for strengthening your forearms, wear gloves though – no point pruning yourself too!

If you want to improve your chest muscles (pectorals and lats) then trim hedges and shrubs with a pair of shears and clip your lawn edges with edging shears too, although don’t take on too much at once as you will soon lose interest and won’t want to finish the job!

 

Raking and enjoying the garden

 

You can’t beat using Loppers in the garden for those tougher pruning jobs and it’s a great way of working out your biceps, although don’t be tempted to use them to cut thicker branches than they can handle, you won’t get a clean cut and you might well break them – use a pruning saw instead.

If you want to improve your legs then simply dig! Using a garden fork or spade to dig over larger areas, be it a vegetable plot or a large flower bed, will give you lots of exercise and will burn off loads of calories too. If you haven’t got a huge plot to dig over then try an edging blade to keep your lawn in shape.

Lastly, and by no means least, your back, the bit that holds everything in place, be careful with it, you can’t get a new one (yet!). We all know to lift heavy things with a straight back and bent knees etc but it is so easy to quickly bend over, grab something – and then hurt yourself! For more gentle working, use a rake on beds, or a lawn rake to pull out moss from your lawn or just a leaf rake to clear up mess in your garden.

 

Wheelbarrowing and pruning

 

Of course you can combine things when you use some tools, hoeing will use your back and arms, wheeling a barrow will work out your back and legs, trying to stretch whilst you are working will also help with flexibility and importantly, start slowly each time, allow your muscles to warm up before you tackle the bigger jobs. You wouldn’t leap into a heavy gym session without first warming up and you shouldn’t rush out into the garden for a hard day’s graft without warming up to it either. Maybe walk around the garden first and work out your plan of action – preferably with a cup of tea, shrug your shoulders a few times in a circular motion to loosen yourself up a bit – put the tea down first, and then start with the easier jobs first. Don’t try to do everything at once either, working a bit more the next day will help to loosen up those aching muscles rather than overdoing it. After all, “Loam wasn’t built in a day”!

Lazy days

Just to give you a rough idea of what working in the garden will help you achieve, below is a list of approximate calories per hour burned whilst performing some simple garden jobs, these are only rough figures that I’ve gleaned from the internet and will vary from to person:

Average calories burned per hour – based on a 10 stone person

Carrying heavy loads 490

Chopping logs quickly 1070

Collecting grass or leaves 250

Digging 320

Mowing lawn with a push-along mower 280

Mowing lawn with a ride-on mower 150

Planting seedlings/shrubs 250

Raking lawn 250

Shovelling 570

Pruning shrubs 280

Weeding 280

Above all else, remember that your garden is also to be enjoyed, it’s all very well spending loads of time on a gardening/exercising regime, but you’ve grown all your beautiful flowers for a reason – so take time to relax and enjoy it too!

 

Having fun with glass jars, beads and succulents

It’s been a long while since I managed to write things down – moving house kind of got in the way and last summer was spent trying to unpack boxes and tame a rather wild garden. Now that things are slowly getting straight I have had a chance to divert my attention to playing with indoor planting.

Being a lover of gadgets and fun things, I stumbled upon a website from China and after a bit of surfing and buying some very silly things, I came across these:

 

Glass Jars

 

Obviously these stirred my curiosity and creative bones, and I decided to take the plunge and buy them. Three of the connecting ones and one each of the others (the whole lot came to less than £15!). I had a bit of trepidation about ordering fragile glass items from the other side of the world but my philosophy tends to be “if it works, great, if it doesn’t it’s a lesson learned!”

3 weeks later and I had purchased my plants, succulents https://www.thompson-morgan.com/houseplants mainly, a colleague had also suggested I try planting in aqua beads rather than soil as it would look nicer and perhaps a bit more modern. The packages arrived, all in one piece and looks amazing! I really felt quite excited about putting everything together for my soilless indoor experiment.

Here are the ingredients…

 

Ingredients needed

 

And so to work:

First thing was to gently wash away the soil from all of the plants’ roots, this was done by soaking them first and a careful rinse which removed most of it followed by a more meticulous picking away of any leftover lumps of compost which left me with this:

 

Plants are washed and ready

 

I decided to start with the large jar, on the basis that it would be the easiest and less fiddly to do, so I dropped a couple of handfuls of the hydrated aqua beads in, they are extremely slippery when at their full size and behave like toy rubber balls so if you drop one it could go anywhere, several of mine did! Once they’d been levelled off I started to place my plants, taller ones at the back and smaller at the front, hopefully I’ll get the desired effect once they start to grow. It was a case of position the plants, hold them and gently slide the roots into the mass of jelly like beads. Once they were all planted however it looked slightly anaemic and needed a bit of depth. The best solution I came up with was to sprinkle some aquarium gravel around the plants (I have fish tanks so not a problem) and this looked loads better and I was pleased with the result.

 

The end results are stunning

 

The hanging glass balls were, as I suspected, slightly more tricky to assemble, but worth it, I used a dessert spoon to put enough water beads in and did the same with the plants too as my fat fingers wouldn’t fit in.

 

Glass Jars nearly finished

 

Finished Jars And so I had planted them all up, and considering how cheap the glassware was, I am really happy with them all!

I’ll feed them once a month with a liquid feed direct into the beads which will probably dye them a blue colour, hopefully this will make them look interesting too. I’m looking forward to seeing how they develop and really hoping that some of the plants will start to trail out of the openings for the full effect to be complete.  The next project is going to be a miniature garden in an outdoor pot. Time to start collecting bits and pieces for that!

Graham.

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