Kitchen Garden Notes - Going South

I've been to my parents' house this weekend so I thought I would give you a tour of what's growing in their garden at the moment. Their house was built in the 1930s and my Mother has lived there for over 50 years. They have a lot of mature borders around the lawn and if you look carefully several varieties of fruit. It differs to my garden not only due to the age and size of it but also because it is about 170 miles south of where I live.

It was particularly warm this weekend so container planting like I do is made all the harder. Dad has a number of planters with bedding plants in such as petunias and geraniums. He has also been growing some trailing strawberries in a tiered planter. This gives the advantage of being able to see the fruit clearly and stops it going mouldy when sitting on the ground. It also prevents them spreading like mine have although I have picked a lot of strawberries today!

On Saturday we went to the Wimbledon Village Fair on Wimbledon Common. It's still looking quite lush up there but if the hot weather continues in a few weeks it will be a different story. London in August can be like living on a radiator and Wimbledon Common resembles a dust bowl with brittle, yellow strands of grass. It's no surprise then that sage grows so well in the garden.

The back of the garden though is in shade. Here the red currants grow. I have planted some red currant bushes in my garden but they are in full sun. I've read recently that currant bushes like shade so I may move mine. Don't just use red currants for garnish; draped over dish only to be pushed to the side. It makes a delicious jelly which is far superior to any imported cranberry jelly.

Another wonderful jelly is damson jelly. It gets overlooked probably because it's not a common fruit in gardens. I also suspect people don't know what to do with them. These damsons aren't going to grow much bigger now but will continue to ripen to a deep purple colour. By making damson jelly instead of jam gets over that 'stony' problem. It goes especially well with roast chicken.

If you are going to have any fruit tree in your garden the most useful is probably an apple tree. These two trees were planted to replace a very old one which died a couple of years ago. The old apple tree was known not only for its high yield of apples but also as the tree that a crow was sitting in whilst we were having dinner one evening. One moment it was perched seemingly quite happy the next it had keeled over and was dead on lawn. Dad was dispatched to remove it before another morsel of food could be eaten.

This week's flower pick is a delicately coloured pink lupin. Mum and Dad have bought several lupins over the years and none of them seemed to turn out as the promised colour. Why is it hard to get the colour correct for lupins?

There are no greedy birds this week which is not to say that the garden doesn't have any birds in it. There are visits from small birds such as sparrows, dunnocks and blue tits. The corvidae family get a look in as well with crows and magpies scaring off pigeons. There used to be quite a flock of ring-necked parakeets but they have declined in recent years. The reason for the lack of birds is that there has been territory battle between the black cats. The aggressor in this is Jasper AKA 'Plate Pirate' for his ability to rush into the house and eat my Mum's cat's food. His real name is unknown as is his actual home (he's never had collar) but he has been coming into the garden for over 16 years now.

I'll be back with my own garden next and hoping that my French beans will have some flowers on them by then...