by Rebecca Tute | Jul 10, 2013 | Gardening News
Blackcurrants – easy to grow and extremely good for you
Labelled as the ‘mini marvel’, British blackcurrants are possibly one of the healthiest fruits you can eat. They’re packed full of vitamins and minerals and have many health benefits. Modern breeding methods mean that blackcurrant plants are better able to tolerate frost, especially at the crucial flowering time and they also have better resistance to pests and diseases.
Some blackcurrant facts…
– they’re high in anthocyanins, antioxidants that fight disease. These may protect the body against ageing, cardiovascular disease, eyestrain, urinary tract infections, kidney stones, joint inflammation and MRSA
– they have grown in the British Isles for over 500 years
– they have been used by herbalists since middle ages to treat many ailments, including bladder stones, liver disorders and coughs
– they contain more vitamin C than any other natural food source
– they contain high levels of potassium, magnesium, iron, calcium, vitamins A and B and more…
– they can reduce muscle damage during exercise, help to reduce inflammation and even boost natural immunity
– epigallocatechin, an antioxidant present in blackcurrants, has been shown to reduce inflammation in lung tissue, helping to control allergy-induced asthma
– new research led by the Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand suggests that “British blackcurrants are the secret weapon in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.” (Quote source: The Blackcurrant Foundation)
Growing blackcurrants
Commercial growers have to be very selective when choosing a growing site – the plants are susceptible to spring frosts and summer wind can strip the flowers and fruit (plantations often sited next to woodland, otherwise natural windbreaks are grown using alder for planting in the field, but not common alder). Other suitable trees are pine, alder or birch for perimeter protection. They need to be planted on hill so that cold air filters downhill. Several other factors have to be considered to ensure the highest yield, such
However, home gardeners needn’t be quite so picky. You do need to site your blackcurrant bushes in a sheltered spot and protect them from frost, but they’re still very easy to grow. They prefer full sun, but will cope with shade for some of the day. Blackcurrant plants grow best in fertile soil, so dig in plenty of well-rotted manure or compost and plant them 5cm lower than the soil mark on the stem. This will encourage extra stems to grow from below ground level.
Blackcurrant Ebony – so sweet, you can eat it straight from the plant
Thompson & Morgan supplies established, 1-year old pre-pruned plants. If you buy blackcurrant bushes that haven’t been pre-pruned, it’s a good idea to cut them down to 2 buds above ground level after you’ve planted them, so as to encourage new growth. Keep your blackcurrant plants well watered during dry periods and especially when the fruit is developing. Prune out any thin or weak shoots after the first season. In following years you should prune out any weak or damaged stems and also cut back 20% of the remaining stems to create an ‘open’ bush and encourage new growth.
Blackcurrants are ready to harvest from July, so if you’re already growing some, now is the time to get picking!
Recipes
Jams and pies are probably the best known use of blackcurrants, but there are many other ways to use them. Some of the sweeter varieties such as Ebony are delicious eaten straight from the plant. Take a look at The Blackcurrant Foundation’s website for some tasty recipes, including blackcurrant ice cream, smoothies, salads (fruit and savoury), chocolate and blackcurrant torte and many more.
Blackcurrants freeze well, so if you find yourself with a bumper crop, simply wash them gently and put them into freezer bags and containers. A good tip is to freeze them on trays so that they don’t clump together – once they’ve frozen decant them into bags or containers and pop them back into the freezer. They’ll keep for months.
What’s your favourite recipe? You can send recipes to us to be featured on the Thompson & Morgan website – click here for more details. https://www.thompson-morgan.com/recipes
Blackcurrant Ben Connan – resistant to blackcurrant gall midge
Pests and diseases
Birds are the biggest threat to your crops – cover your blackcurrant bushes with nets to protect the fruit from birds, so that you can start harvesting them from July.
Watch out for blackcurrant gall midge, where tiny white maggots feed on shoot tips. You’ll be able to see the maggots and, if you spot them early enough, you should be able to remove the infested leaves. Be careful that you don’t remove too many, otherwise you’ll reduce the harvest. Blackcurrant Ben Connan is resistant to gall midge.
Big bud mite can also be a problem for blackcurrants. You’re most likely to see evidence of it in the winter – infested buds will be abnormally swollen, whereas healthy buds are pointed and long. There are no chemical controls against big bud mite and any infected plants should be destroyed and replaced with new ‘certified stock’ plants.
Blackcurrant plants affected by American gooseberry mildew have powdery grey and white fungus on the leaves, which can also spread to the fruits. It’s made worse by poor air circulation, so make sure your plants are spaced well apart. Infected stems or leaves should be cut out and destroyed straight away.
If you want specific information on growing these nutrient-rich superfoods, visit our comprehensive hub page to learn more about growing currants. Want to add a wider variety of fruit to your garden? Learn more about growing other types of fruit here.
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
by Rebecca Tute | Jul 3, 2013 | Customer Trial Panel
Customer trials – update from Caroline Broome
Caroline has been sending us regular updates with photos of her trial products, but as we’re a little late adding them to the blog, please note that references to planting out times may be a bit out of date. We do apologise and will add updates more promptly from now on!
May/June 2013
Cornus Winter Flame is small, but showing good colour, now in the border. We shall see!
Anemone The Governor has enormous flowers only one or two were in flower, but these have survived being in bud during the snow.
Anemone The Governor
Daffodil Carnation Flowered Collection – the strong upright blooms are self-supporting.
Daffodil Carnation Flowered
Petunia Balcon Mixed – lovely strong plants.
And the Summer 2013 digitalis Illumination plugs are far stronger and healthier than their predecessors from last Autumn 2012.
The plastic tomato collars caused a stir at our NGS Open Day, because of the amazing results they produced deterring slugs & snails from our ligularia. And the good old tree lilies from trials 4 yrs ago are over 6ft tall!
Tomato auto-waterers used as a slug deterrent
We were on the BBC1 The One Show Tuesday 18th June 7pm as part of their NGS Festival Weekend feature.
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
by Rebecca Tute | Jul 3, 2013 | Customer Trial Panel
We recently introduced you to some of the members of our customer trials team, who are busy working away in their gardens growing the seeds and plants we sent them earlier in the year. We’ve had a few updates and thought it was high time we shared them with you.
Joy Gough – 11th June 2013
Well, the summer finally got here. There are tomato Gardener’s Delight and cucumber Zeina (a mini one) in the greenhouse, which all look healthy, but have not put on the growth they normally do – it’s been too cold. I sowed 8 seeds of Zeina and all of them came up – I know have 3″ cucumbers growing. My tomato Alicante plants are 18″ tall and flowering.
Tomatoes doing well
Mini cucumber Zeina
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Lettuces on the other hand were grown in the greenhouse and waited and waited to be planted out, so instead we have been eating them straight from the greenhouse. Little Gem was the first of the season and what a difference in taste – I will put some outside in the veg plot. They’re slug resistant too!
Slug-free lettuce
Spring onions, beetroot, sweetcorn, carrots and parsnips are all starting to move. In fact, all the sweetcorn Butterscotch seeds I planted came up – I’ve grown these before and friends always ask for some. I plant these in a block, rather than rows, as it helps pollination.
Sweetcorn Butterscotch
The sprouts that were started off in the greenhouse will be planted out, but they need to be netted away from pigeons and cabbage white butterflies.
The plants from T&M are now either all planted in the garden or in hanging baskets… or any other container I can reuse! Geraniums have been flowering for two weeks now all on their own, waiting for the other plants to flower. The geranium Best Red are last year’s plants that I overwintered in the greenhouse and were the first to flower.
Geranium ‘Best Red’
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
by Rebecca Tute | Jul 1, 2013 | Gardening News
Back row l to r: Anne Wooden, Erin Geaves, Michael Perry, Paul Hansord, John May
Front row l to r: Sue Adams, Chloe Farmer, Kim Parker, Marilyn Keen
Employees clock up 165 years – long-service awards for dedicated Thompson & Morgan staff
A group of employees from Thompson & Morgan is this year celebrating a combined total of over 165 years of service to the company.
John May, Thompson & Morgan’s chief executive, who has himself been with the company for 15 years, said, ‘At Thompson & Morgan, we’re delighted that so many of our colleagues show such loyalty and commitment’.
Chloe Farmer and Sue Adams both joined Thompson & Morgan, the UK’s most successful horticultural mail order company, in 1988. Chloe started her career at Thompson & Morgan packing seeds in the warehouse. She has since worked in various different departments and now heads up the design team, producing some 20 plant and seed catalogues each year. As Catering Assistant, Sue Adams has produced in excess of 750,000 cups of tea and more than a quarter of a million sandwiches over the 25 years that she has worked at Thompson & Morgan! ‘I like to think I provide the fuel that keeps everyone going’, she says.
Erin Geaves, Marilyn Keen, Anne Wooden, Michael Perry and Kim Parker are all celebrating their 15 year anniversary with T&M this year. Erin works in the warehouse, preparing plants for despatch; Marilyn is in charge of Thompson & Morgan’s extensive photo library, while Anne and Kim both work in the accounts department. Michael is T&M’s self-proclaimed ‘plant hunter’ and is the person who introduces new and interesting plants to the company’s range.
‘Without the hard work and dedication of our staff – in all areas of the company; whether in the warehouse, the canteen, accounts or marketing – Thompson & Morgan would cease to exist’, remarked Paul Hansord, horticultural director, who last year marked his 25th year with the company.
Thompson & Morgan is proud of its long-serving and loyal staff and boasts a number of long-service awards. Christine Wilcock is the longest serving employee, having clocked up an impressive 38 years at the company which has been based in Ipswich since 1855.
There is also a history of family connections at T&M. Erin Geaves is one of six sisters who have all worked at the company at one time or another; four of them – including Erin – are still employed there now. Erin also met her husband, Simon, at Thompson & Morgan!
‘T&M is most certainly a family-friendly company’, says John May. ‘When so many of our staff recommend working here to their family members, we know we are doing something right! Our staff are loyal and a real credit to the company’.
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
by Rebecca Tute | Jun 25, 2013 | Gardening News
Read our snippets of gardening news here…
Let your garden grow wild!
Hoe(s) down
I look over the fence at the neighbour’s garden and sigh at how nice it looks. Not pristine, just nice. Mine, on the other hand, is just plain messy. Or so I thought. Now, it seems, an untidy garden is exactly what we should be striving for. The RSPB is calling for gardeners to not be quite so neat and tidy and to let parts of their garden grow a bit wild. You don’t have to give your whole garden over to the wilderness, just a little patch of longer grass, a few logs, weeds and wildflowers and it’ll be the perfect habitat for birds, insects and other wildlife. My garden, then, with its ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ long, wavy grass, clover, dandelions and piles of chopped down eucalyptus and holly prunings is actually doing a good thing! Maybe I’ll leave that patch of weeds for just a bit longer.
Read our blog posts on how to encourage bees and butterflies into your garden for more ideas.
Leopard slug – the gardener’s friend
The slug you DO want in your garden
Slugs are one of gardeners’ worst enemies and we’re always on the lookout for the most effective deterrent. However, there is one slug that you do want to encourage…and try not to kill. The leopard slug (Limax maximus) eats fungi, rotting plants and other slugs, but not healthy plants. They live in dark, damp places – rotten logs, fallen trees, sometimes in sheds and damp cellars – and need to keep their bodies damp to breathe. They can grow up to 16cm long and are brown or grey with brown/black spots/blotches. They have marbled spots at the front of their bodies and three dark stripes either side at the back.
The Natural History Museum runs the OPAL (Open Air Laboratories) network, which aims to inspire people to study and protect their local environment. There are lots of surveys you can do in your own back garden and OPAL is very interested to hear from you if you’ve found leopard slugs in your garden.
If your plants are being munched before your very eyes, there are lots of products to help reduce slug attacks. Nematodes and copper tape are the safest methods and very effective.
Cabbages – higher levels of antioxidants in the daytime
Fruit and veg healthier at lunchtime
New research shows that keeping some fruit and vegetables in their natural ‘light-dark’ cycle dramatically increases the amount of anti-cancer chemicals that they produce, even after harvesting. Plants have their own circadian cycles and use them to release natural pesticides called glucosinolates. These are most prevalent in the daytime, when the pests are active and reduce at night. Janet Braam of Rice University, Houston, who led the study said “Perhaps we should be storing our vegetables and fruits under light-dark cycles and timing when to cook and eat them to enhance their health value.”
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
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