August 2012.
Its peak season in the garden and the days are full of picking fruit, harvesting vegetables and weeding, weeding and more weeding. This season has been full of ups and downs. Wet weather caused potato blight. Although I was able to cut and burn the tops of our potato plants so as to save the tubers, our tomatoes were all sadly lost to the dreaded blight.
Although very disappointing, we have already begun to fill the gaps where the tomatoes were. Quick growing crops such as salad rocket are ideal for this. Cold weather has delayed beans and squashes all is not lost we are finally bringing some to chef, and fingers crossed, we shall have an Indian summer.
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| Tagates Patula Linnaeus |
For now we are enjoying the brilliant flowers this very wet summer has given us. One of our Gardeners, Sarah Hughes, came to us trained as a Florist and works her magic in our cutting garden.
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| Persicaria Oriantalis |
Some of our hot favourites are Tagates patula Linnaeus (French Marigold) but not as you know it. This is the species that all of the modern midget varieties were bred from. It is tall, elegant and good for cutting. It’s easily raised from seed, so much so that I have never bought it. I was given a handful of seed from a friend and I can keep it going year on year. I encourage all gardeners to collect their own seed, provided the plant is not an F1 Hybrid and it makes viable seed in our climate this is relatively easy to do. Some others that can be grown from seed year on year are Persicaria oriantalis (kiss me over the garden gate) and Tithonia rotundifolia (Mexican Sunflower).
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| Tithonia Rotundifolia |
Believe it or not we are already thinking of next year and are busy propagating wallflowers, foxgloves, dianthus and other biennial and perennial plants.
Although some things have ultimately not worked out as well as I might have hoped, many things have superseded all my expectations. Among them are the Cutting Garden and our ‘American veg bed’. We are very pleased with them and hope you are too, when you come to visit the hotel.
Whitney Hedges Head Gardener Newick Park Hotel
