June 2025

Heatwave in Scotland

Water shortage in Scotland? Too much sunlight? No, I’m not joking. Having restrained myself from planting out my seedlings in March and April, until the risk of snow had passed, I then had to cope with scorching sunlight and drought in May. I quickly used up the contents of my water butt, and started saving washing-up water for the flowers containers in the front garden. As I lugged yet another watering-can from the kitchen sink round the back of my house to keep the potatoes going, I decided that I might need to reduce the area of my raised beds a little next year. And every afternoon as the sun came round, I had to move the seed trays off the back windowsill because the double-glazing concentrates the sunlight so effectively that they were getting too hot. We’re back to normal again now, of course.

It’s weird to have to cope with hot dry weather, when you are set up to mitigate the effects of not enough sun and too much rain. Still, I suppose our usual experience will come in handy when global warming reaches the point when the Gulf Stream shuts down. Orkney will probably end up a much colder place…

Artichokes, just like 19^th century Kirkwall

As I mentioned in my post of March 12^th, Patrick Neill, in his “A Tour through some of the islands of Orkney and Shetland” 1806, (pp 6-.7), visited Kirkwall and recorded that “In all the gardens which we had an opportunity of seeing at Kirkwall, artichokes were growing with uncommon luxuriance…”   Maisie Stevens’ book “Parish Life in Eighteenth-century Scotland” (1995), based on the Old Statistical Account  compiled between 1791 and 1799 by Sir John Sinclair, also mentions artichokes (page 39). She noted that artichokes were flourishing in gardens in the parish of Orphir: “Cabbages and garden roots grow in great perfection; and perhaps the finest and largest artichokes in the world are to be found in this country, in the common kail-yards, springing up amongst the grass without any cultivation.”

Globe artichokes still grow in one of the allotments beside Victoria Road in the centre of Kirkwall. I am very fond of them, and we only seem to get them in tins in Orkney. So when I saw some artichoke plants for sale in the local garden centre, I decided to try them. So far, so good….

Sawfly

Following my disaster with the strawberry plants, I decided to try some different fruit this year. Anyway, all but one of the strawberry plants died during the winter. So I invested in a healthy-looking gooseberry bush, placed it in the sunniest spot and watered it carefully. At first all went well. Lots of tiny fruits appeared all over the branches. Alas! Disaster soon struck. To begin with, all the leaves at the end of each branch crumpled up in a most peculiar way. An internet search suggested a number of causes, including too much or too little water and various aphids and mildews. I couldn’t identify which it was likely to be, so I just cut the affected leaves off and hoped for the best. Next thing I knew, every single leaf had disappeared, leaving just the bare branches with their tiny fruits. Almost certainly sawfly larvae, although I didn’t notice in time to actually catch them at it. I don’t seem to have much luck with fruit.

Self-seeded crops

I mentioned in a previous post (5^th December 2024) that during WWII, gardeners who were ‘Digging For Victory’ were encouraged to leave some of their vegetables to go to seed, so as to have their own seeds for next year. Seeds were not rationed but they were in short supply at times. According to a recent blog post, at one point in 1942 the famous Suttons Seed company  “had run out of runner beans, onions, leeks, cress and early potatoes and that orders could not be delivered in under 3 weeks”. The government gave advice on which plants were suitable for home seed saving, and how and when to do it. Good job there weren’t any terminator genes around at that point – we might have lost the war!

My nasturtiums and marigolds, both annuals which I grow as companion plants, have always seeded themselves. When I saw my parsley (biennial) vigorously sprouting seed heads, I decided to try saving seed this year as an experiment. Apparently, you have to let the plant flower and leave the seed heads to dry out and turn brown. Then you snip them off and collect them in paper bags to finish drying for up to a fortnight. When they are completely dry, you can rub the husks off the seeds before bagging them for storage. But Nature got ahead of me, and I discovered that it had seeded itself and was surrounded by new little plants. Much satisfaction. I’m also very fond of parsley.

Since I now have more parsley than I can expect to eat before autumn, I have tried freezing some, using a recipe I found online. Apparently frozen parsley taste better than dried parsley, although it loses its texture and can’t be used as a garnish. I rinsed the parsley without chopping it, patted it dry and double-bagged it in two plastic bags, rolling them up to exclude the air before putting them in the freezer. Results to be reported!

How to dry apples

Preserving fruit and vegetables for the winter is just as important as growing them. It is a skill that all housewives had to learn before the days of supermarkets and freezers.  I am interested in methods of preservation that don’t involve large quantities of sugar or salt, or high-tech solutions such as freezers. I decided that I would try drying apple slices this year. I have successfully dried herbs before, hanging them in paper bags or old nylons in the airing cupboard. After a short internet search, I sliced a large unblemished apple very thinly, dried off the slices with some kitchen paper and then put them into the oven on a lightly-oiled baking sheet for two hours. They came out sweet and chewy.

Most of the internet recipes recommended dipping them in dilute lemon juice first to stop them browning, which I didn’t bother with, and cooking them at a higher temperature than I did, i.e. nearly 200 degrees C. Fiona Houston in her book “The Garden Cottage Diaries: My Year in the Eighteenth Century” (p 85) recommends dipping them in a dilute salt solution, both to prevent browning and to discourage surface mould. Using her method they are supposed to be hung up to dry very slowly for 24 to 48 hours over a heat source. This is really only a possibility if you have an Aga or Rayburn stove which is permanently hot. Alas, like most modern homes in Orkney, I’m all-electric. Ruth Goodman, in the Wartime Farm book (“Wartime Farm” Peter Ginn, Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands 2012,  p126) also recommends dipping them in salt solution and drying them slowly. Her preferred locations for drying are a greenhouse, or hung up halfway up the stairs with the window open, then finished off packed in paper bags. Orkney homes are notoriously damp, with many people having to keep a dehumidifier running a lot of the time, so that method doesn’t seem too practical either. Although the strong winds up here are notably efficient at drying washing, freshly-caught fish, and pottery awaiting firing, even on cold grey days.

I’m not sure that my apple slices came out of the oven dry enough to keep for months, but I have put them into a brown paper bag in the airing cupboard.  We shall see.

The season continues…

Growing fruit and vegetables in very tiny spaces has become very popular recently. Whether you are interested in food security or “wellness”, it has become a trending topic.  I currently have three fascinating books on the subject (see below).  All these books tell you how to construct a raised bed, prepare the soil, and suggest a succession of plants that go well together and will provide vegetables all year round. Two of them suggest a raised bed 1m square i.e. 3 feet square, the third a slightly larger bed, 3m x 1.2m i.e. 10 x 4 feet. I find the concept interesting. You might call it “micro-market-gardening”.

It is easy to see why this has become popular. Too many people now live in houses and flats with hardly any garden space. Many people have very busy lives, with a lot of commitments and no time to dig and weed. We have an aging population. Lots of people don’t have the physical ability to cultivate an allotment, even if they could get one. Digging with fork and spade is quite difficult if you are 90 years old or waiting for a hip replacement. Furthermore, there are long waiting lists for allotments in Britain. Land is in short supply and demand is high. In fact, councils are currently experimenting with dividing the standard 250-300m² allotment into half, quarter, or even smaller sizes.

Obviously, growing food in tiny raised beds and containers is not going to feed the average household, or even one person. Lolo Houbein (page 74) suggests that you could grow one tenth of your vegetables in a one-metre square plot, although this seems a little optimistic to me, especially in the north of Britain. And she reports (page 76) that unspecified  “scientists” have calculated that one person needs a 10 x 10 metre plot to grow all their own food, including staple carbohydrates, and a family of four would need a 20 x20 metre plot. Whether you agree with this or not, I would guess that every little helps. As in World War II, you probably can’t grow enough wheat and potatoes in your garden to make any serious difference, but you can grow a useful amount of veggies. Besides, it’s fun.

Since I got old and decrepit, I have confined my vegetable cultivation to containers and very small raised beds. They probably add up to about 3 square metres of growing space. I use three cheap little fabric raised beds, which are supposed to survive for about ten years, a couple of potato bags and four large-ish flowerpots. I fill them with a mixture of bought compost from the local garden centre, and free compost, which Orkney Island Council gives away at the local recycling centre. Well done them, and many thanks to the very kind attendant who helped me fill my bags and get them into my car. I have managed to grow quite a useful amount of fresh fruit and vegetables in them.

If you are using containers or very small raised beds, you need to water frequently, and maintain the fertility of the soil. The two most important pieces of equipment I have found, apart from the beds themselves, are a compost heap and a water butt. The best thing of all is the small compost bin which now lives beside the kitchen sink, so that I have no excuse for not saving all my vegetable peelings. I saw some lovely water butts in France this Easter, shaped vaguely like a classical pithos (storage jar)…

Raised beds and containers of any shape are easier to position to capture light and warmth. The soil will warm up more quickly in spring and drain more quickly if there is a lot of rain. Which there often is in Scotland. They don’t need a lot of heavy digging; they are easier to weed; they are easier to protect from birds and cats (with a piece of netting); and wind (with a moveable windbreak). Slugs are still a problem, but for containers, I have found that if you can fill them with absolutely fresh compost, smear Vaseline around the rims, and make sure that none of the vegetables droop over the edge as far as the ground, the slugs can’t reach them.

Plants need light as well as warmth, and if you are growing as much food as possible in a 1m square bed, the plants are supposed to be packed close together, with low-growing plants arranged below taller ones. Singapore (see previous post) lies almost on the Equator and therefore receives massive amounts of sunlight, so it is possible to grow a lot of plants in a small space, as in an equatorial jungle. ‘Allotments’ in Singapore are raised beds 2m x 1m, as compared to 250 square metres in the UK.  Since we have much lower light levels in Britain, especially in the north of Scotland, we are unlikely to be able to plant as densely or to grow as much in a small space. It is important to site your beds and containers to get as much light as possible and use any available wall to reflect heat as well as provide shelter from wind. This is much easier to do if you are using containers and raised beds.

Most of my containers are against the back wall of my house, the position which gets the most sunlight, and where during the night the wall can radiate back the heat it has absorbed during the day. I like the idea of laying a sheet of black plastic over your bed in late winter/early spring, to help the soil warm up more quickly at the start of the growing season. Black surfaces absorb more heat than light-coloured ones. All of my fabric raised beds are dark coloured. Although my garden is a little small for a greenhouse, I’m thinking of getting a small cold frame.

In Britain, again as opposed to the Equator, there are distinct growing seasons, and in the north of Scotland they are very short ones. At the beginning of March this year, the weather was so sunny and warm that I was sorely tempted to start planting. I’m glad I didn’t, because the next week it was snowing.  This isn’t unusual for Orkney. I have been re-reading the diary of Patrick Fea, who farmed the lands at Stove at the south end of the island of Sanday in the 18^th century. He recorded the weather at the start of every day’s entry and frequently mentioned snow in March and April.  By the beginning of May things had only just started growing.

I have a small sunny garden to grow things in, but that isn’t actually necessary for micro-market gardening. Nowadays the internet is full of blogs and websites about growing useful quantities of herbs and vegetables in pots on balconies or windowsills or rooftops, in various kinds of planters attached to walls, or climbing up trellises. My personal favourite is “Vertical Veg”.

So if you have the odd 10 minutes to spare, and a container of some sort, grow some lettuce!

“One Magic Square: Grow your own food on one square metre” Lolo Houbein 2015

“Grow all you can eat in 3 square feet: inventive ideas for growing food in a small space” Dorling Kindersley 2015

“Veg in one bed: How to grow an abundance of food in one raised bed, month by month” Huw Richards 2019.

 “The Diary of Patrick Fea of Stove, Orkney, 1766 – 96”, transcribed and edited by W.S.Hewison; foreword by Alexander Fenton