Taking cuttings at home

Another activity which we're doing to provide plants for the Annecy Gardens is taking cuttings. I bought as single plant of Brassica 'Creme Chantilly' at one of the RHS shows in London last October & immediately chopped it up into cuttings, so I now have four plants. This plant is an ornamental, but I'm sure one could use the leaves like kale. Because it is variegated, it will not come true from seed, so cuttings are necessary. I've found they take very easily.

Brassica 'Creme Chantilly'. This plant is from a cutting taken last October.  You can see flower buds on the top of it.

Cut with a sharp knife

After removing the flowerbuds, I've divided the stem into 3 cuttings

The cuttings are then inserted in a pot of gritty compost and then watered

The pot with the cuttings is placed in the greenhouse; the cuttings should root in about 4 weeks

Sowing seeds at home for the Annecy Garden

It has been so cold recently that there would have been little point in sowing seeds directly in the ground at the Annecy Gardens ~ they'd've simply rotted. But so that we're prepared for when the warmer weather finally does arrive, the Annecy Gardeners have been sowing seeds at home. It's necessary to start some crops indoors ~ tomatoes require the extra warmth in order to germinate & they need as long a growing season as possible if they're to be productive; lettuces, on the other hand grow well under cool conditions, but sowing them indoors in the warmth & then planting them out later is a way of getting an early crop.

Sowing seeds of Tomato 'Brandy' & Leek 'Giant Bulgarian'

Here are the seeds on a sunny windowsill, before they're watered & covered with a little compost to prevent them from drying out

A greenhouse offers enough protection to make it worth sowing Swiss chard early

Placing a sheet of mirrored material behind these lettuce seedlings means they grow evenly & are not all stretching towards the light

Fruit planting at Annecy Gardens

Last year we concentrated on growing annual crops & flowers that would prove attractive to insects; however, we have recently received permission from the Council to plant fruit bushes and perennial vegetables. The Council had kindly cleared an area to one side of the Annecy Garden & had also provided a quantity of spent mushroom compost.

Planting fruit bushes & shifting spent mushroom compost

Saturday was bright & sunny, a good day for gardening & we made a start on planting fruit bushes. He we are shifting some of the mulch & planting bare-root specimens of Japanese wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius), blackcurrants, buffalo currant (Ribes odoratum 'Crandall'), raspberries and alpine strawberries (Fragaria vesca). These are all quite shade tolerant, necessary as the area is in shadow of buildings & other vegetation for much of the day.

We also planted rhubarb, red currants, gooseberries, and, something slightly more unusual, Chilean guava (Ugni molinae PAB 1347). Chilean guava is rather a tender plant, but the site here is sheltered, and the variety PAB 1347 is reckoned by Paul Barney who collected it, to be more hardy.

Ugni molinae PAB 1347 ~ we hope it survives & thrives at the base of this sunny pillar

 In some of the larger beds we have decided to establish perennial crops, below you can probably see an artichoke (Cynara scolymus) planted last year; we also planted asparagus and rhubarb (Rheum 'Fulton's Strawberry Surprise').

Perennial beds, the canes mark the site of the newly-planted asparagus.  Last year's globe artichoke is looking healthy.

Weeding the field beans we planted last October as a green manure

 Finally, a view of the compost bins so kindly provided by the Council & a key feature of any attempt at producing food sustainably on a domestic basis.