Thompson & Morgan Gardening Blog

A summer heatwave is ideal for chillies
Image source: Nic Wilson

It’s been a hot year in the greenhouse and the chillies have enjoyed every sweltering second. Sown in early January, they developed into sturdy seedlings by March and were ready to go out in the greenhouse by late May. I chose fewer varieties of chilli seeds this year in an effort to fit all my plants in the available space alongside the cucumbers, tomatoes, basil and cucamelons, and it worked – just!

Best chilli varieties to grow at home

A jar of pickled chillies to enjoy over the winter
Image source: Nic Wilson

I picked varieties based on their heat, flavour and uses – some for chillies and curries, some for our spicy homemade chilli jam and pickles, some for their ornamental value, and others for stuffing.

‘Prairie Fire’, described as an ‘ornamental edible’, and the stunning ‘Numex Twilight’ add interest to the kitchen windowsill or patio table with their upturned chillies ripening from green through cream, yellow, orange, red and purple. They produce hot fruit – great for curries and for extra-spicy jam.

‘Hot Lemon’ is an attractive variety with prolific yellow fruits and an aromatic citrus flavour. It suffuses my pickled chilli liqueur with a sweet tang, works well in Thai soups, and is delicious stuffed with cream cheese for those with an adventurous, heat-loving palate. Another prolific cropper this year is ‘Joe’s Long’. My plants have produced many long fruits which look like curled cayennes and are fabulous dried and hung in the kitchen ready for winter chillies, stews and broths.

Chillies to bake

Sweeter, mellow-flavoured chillies are ideal for stuffing and baking
Image source: Nic Wilson

Baked chillies stuffed with cream cheese is one of my favourite autumn suppers: for this I tend to use varieties with sweet, fruity flavours and less heat. The mellow ‘Hungarian Hot Wax’ and the mild but flavoursome ‘Trinidad Perfume’ are particular favourites, along with ‘Ubatuba’ and ‘Bolsa de Dulce’ (both Capsicum baccatum rather than the more common Capsicum annuum). Baccatum means ‘berrylike’ and ‘Bolsa de Dulce’ translates as ‘bag of sweetness’.

This variety certainly produces fragrant, large fruits rather like sweet peppers but more aromatic and productive, and we’ve had more chillies from these varieties this year than ever before.

Try a chilli tree

Chillies come in a variety of colours, shapes, heat levels and harvesting times
Image source: Nic Wilson

Tree chillies (Capsicum pubescens) are an another unusual type that require a long growing period and plenty of heat to mature. I grow ‘Albertos Locoto’ and use the extremely hot fruits for baking, frying or slicing into salads, as they work best fresh.
One advantage of tree chillies is that they tolerate lower temperatures which means they’re well suited to over-wintering and can continue fruiting for up to fifteen years. I’ve had tree chillies in the house fruiting on Christmas Day in previous years.

Extend the chilli growing season

The glossy dark ‘Hungarian Black’ chilli ripens to a scarlet red
Image source: Nic Wilson

It’s possible to kick start the fruiting season early by growing varieties like ‘Vampire’, and ‘Hungarian Black’. These dramatic chillies have deep purple flowers and relatively mild, Jalapeno-shaped fruits with an eye-catching purple-black shine. They both begin fruiting in July, so by growing these attractive plants alongside tree chillies, it’s possible to extend the fruiting season significantly.

We have a busy few weeks ahead: drying and pickling our chillies, and preserving them in jams to make the most of the bounty brought on by the hot weather. And, as the nights draw in, I’ll be sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of baked chillies, leafing through the seed catalogues, happily concocting my fiery chilli plans for next year…

Head over to our dedicated chillies and sweet peppers hub page for growing inspiration and more fantastic articles on these fiery fruits.

Nic Wilson

Nic Wilson is an author, editor and Guardian Country Diarist based in North Hertfordshire. Her debut nature memoir, Land Beneath the Waves, was published in June by Summersdale/Hachette.

Nic works for BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine and her writing has featured in numerous journals and magazines including The English Garden, The Garden (RHS Magazine), BBC Wildlife Magazine and the John Clare Society Journal. She enjoys growing flowers and unusual fruit, vegetables and herbs, and loves to encourage nature into the garden. Nic volunteers with her local Wildlife Trust.

www.nicwilson.co.uk

Dahlias blaze into colour just as other flowers are going over.
Image source: Shutterstock

After weeks of hot summer days, the grass is brown and withered, the summer raspberries have shrivelled into dessicated husks and the roses have gone over, but my dahlias are only just beginning. We’ve had the first brazenly crimson flower on ‘Con Amore’.

I’ve just started reading the sumptuous monograph ‘Dahlias’ by Naomi Slade, published earlier this month, and now I’m impatient to convert my dahlia dreaming into reality. I came to dahlias quite late in the day after picking up a few tubers of the charismatic Dahlia ‘Firepot’ at the school fete and I’ve been hooked ever since. They’re such a versatile flower – working equally well in mixed borders, containers or as bedding plants. Last year I also grew dahlias in the vegetable patch, and used the blooms for cut flowers.

Cut flowers

‘Café au lait’ is a favourite for cut flower arrangements.
Image source: Nic Wilson

My favourites include the sophisticated duo ‘Henriette’ and ‘Café au Lait’. ‘Henriette’ is a semi-cactus washed with apricot tones and ‘Café au Lait’, a double decorative with a soft pink blush which Naomi Slade describes as ‘rich as a cream liqueur on ice’.

Their elegant flowers last well in arrangements – either as an off-white display or mixed with the deep burgundy shades of ‘Thomas A. Edison’ and ‘Downham Royal’. These darker dahlias also create fiery contrasts with the neon punctuation of ‘New Baby’ and burnished orange of ‘David Howard’. Growing flowers in these three tonal ranges allows me to create harmony and contrast in different rooms as the mood takes me.

Borders

‘Bishop of Llandaff’ brings a striking scarlet accent to your borders.
Image source: Thompson & Morgan

Dahlias bring extra colour to late summer borders and their foliage is a valuable addition even before the flowers, especially with the rich chocolate purples and greens of the Bishop Series. If I could only grow one dahlia, it would be ‘Bishop of Canterbury’ – it has the same dark foliage as the more popular ‘Bishop of Llandaff’, but with luscious magenta-pink flowers.

For a more elegant border dahlia, ‘Twynings After Eight’ retains the dark chocolate foliage alongside single white flowers with a saturated yellow central boss.

Containers and bedding

The smaller dahlia ‘Scura’ is ideal for containers.
Image source: Nic Wilson

Smaller dahlias are well suited to container growing and bedding displays. For punchy colour try ‘Scura’, one of the Mini Bishop Group, which has deep orange petals with apricot undertones, or ‘Happy Single Date’ with its cheerful tangerine flowers flushed with red at the centre.

‘Fire and Ice’ creates its own contrast with vibrant red and white striped flowers on sturdy plants and you can’t beat the semi-double flowers of ‘Sunny Reggae’ in all shades from buttery apricot through to vivid red to liven up any area of the garden.

Dahlia care

Dahlia ‘Happy single date’ is easily accessible to bees in a wildlife-friendly garden.
Image source: Nic Wilson

Whether you’re planting dahlia tubers in containers from late winter/early spring or in the ground after the last frosts, they need little attention apart from feeding and comprehensive defense against the gastropodic arts. I begin all my tubers in containers – this year’s spring rain (hard to remember now) attracted the slugs and snails who wreaked havoc on the emerging shoots. My normal barriers of copper tape and wool pellets proved futile and I had to resort to placing all the dahlias on the patio table with copper tape circling each leg.

The plants need liquid feeding throughout the growing season – a high nitrogen feed initially, followed by a high potassium feed when they start flowering. Once autumn frosts begin in earnest, lift the tubers, cut back the stems and dry upside down before storing in sand or compost in a frost-free place. In milder areas, tubers can be left in the ground and well mulched with compost, manure or straw.  Most years this works for me, with occasional losses in particularly wet, cold winters.

Anticipation

‘Thomas Edison’ is a beautiful addition to cut flower displays.
Image source: Nic Wilson

In the next few weeks I’ll be waiting impatiently for ‘Karma Choc’ and ‘Daisy Duke’ to flower, both new for me this year. And I’m already planning my dahlia selection for 2019. How can I resist just a few tubers of ‘Sierra Glow’ – described by Naomi Slade as the “most gorgeous bronze, brushed with coppery pink and with hints of dusty rose”? I suspect, with tens of thousands of cultivars available, I’ll be indulging in dahlia dreaming for many years to come.

If Nic’s article inspired you, learn how to grow & care for your own dahlias using our dahlia hub page – T&M’s one stop shop for everything you need to know about growing dahlias.

Nic Wilson

Nic Wilson is an author, editor and Guardian Country Diarist based in North Hertfordshire. Her debut nature memoir, Land Beneath the Waves, was published in June by Summersdale/Hachette.

Nic works for BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine and her writing has featured in numerous journals and magazines including The English Garden, The Garden (RHS Magazine), BBC Wildlife Magazine and the John Clare Society Journal. She enjoys growing flowers and unusual fruit, vegetables and herbs, and loves to encourage nature into the garden. Nic volunteers with her local Wildlife Trust.

www.nicwilson.co.uk

The root structure of the date palm is a thing of beauty.
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham

Gardening could be described as bending nature to our will. It’s the selection, planting, shaping, pruning, training, pollinating, pinching, grafting, thinning out and harvesting of plants to suit our requirements. But what happens above the ground is only the tip of the iceberg – half the story. How much more goes on beneath the earth that we never get to see?

The root anatomy of an alpine strawberry.
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham

In a recent study, a team at the University of Nottingham were curious to find out. Using cutting-edge imaging techniques (and a pile of seeds from Thompson & Morgan) they investigated a variety of plant roots without having to dig them up. The results are out of this world!

For the first time, these X-ray CT images showcase the diversity and complexity of plant root systems in their undisturbed soil environment. What no-one was expecting, is just how strikingly beautiful these images of everyday plants, vegetables and flowers actually are.

Why study plant roots?

A study of the grapevine.
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham

Producing safe, nutritious food to feed the world’s growing population is a huge challenge for the future. We need to develop new, resilient crops, and do do that, we need better knowledge.

When we properly understand how plants grow, and have identified how specific features (e.g. root depth, thickness, angle or number of lateral roots) can be improved, this knowledge can be applied to allow more efficient food production. Particularly in regions with limited water or nutrient supply.

Finding out what happens beneath the soil could help eliminate hunger and famine around the globe. But in the quest for scientific breakthrough, it’s the beauty and resilience of nature that has been revealed in these never-before seen images – the secret life of plants.

Check out the full directory of images of plant root systems at The Hidden Half website, and follow their Twitter feed at @UoNHiddenHalf to get updates on their work. But for now, just scroll down and enjoy some of the incredible pictures the boffins have shared with us.

The root anatomy of an alpine strawberry.
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham

Congo grass roots 
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham

The growth of a date palm root
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham

Three distinct root structures of a freesia alba
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham

The cross section of the primary root of a freesia alba
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham

The cross section of a maize crown root
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham 

A pea plant’s root structure.
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham 

A full picture of a Norway Spruce
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham  

Spinach root structure with its main tap root highlighted
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham 

Cross section of a tomato root
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham 

Cross section of a sugar beet’s primary root
Image source: The Hidden Half project, University of Nottingham