The Ipswich Gardener – March 2025 edition

By /
Issue 6 – March 2025
1 – Following the success of our previous Quiz Night we will be holding another on Saturday 5 th April. The winning team will take home a prize of £100! Get together with your fellow plot holders, family and/or friends and get your team registered to be in with the chance of winning. Your team must be registered so please send an email to membership.iaha@gmail.com IAHA membership renewal will soon be upon us on the 1st April 2025. Membership forms should be included with the allotment bills but can also be collected from field secretaries and printed from the IAHA website. There has been an increase to the National membership from £3.00 to £3.50 as of 1st January 2025 but all other membership costs remain the same. If you wish to order seeds online via the National a correct email address must be provided at the time of signing up, no corrections are able to be made if incorrect details are provided and you may not be able to complete online ordering. For more details about what membership offers take a look at the website: https://iaha.co.uk/membership.html Spring is fast approaching with lighter evenings already making an appearance. There will be lots of seedlings being planted out ready for a fantastic growing year ahead. If you are interested in taking part in the annual IAHA competition now is the time to start preparing. More information about judging can be found at https://iaha.co.uk/judging-criteria-2025.html We would like to hear from you! If you would like to share a story, hints and tips, photographs to be included in The Ipswich Gardener Newsletter get in touch via tig.iaha@gmail.com We had some fantastic entries for our Facebook cover photo competition and congratulations to Racheal Luck for winning. If you would like to be in with the chance of having your photo featured all you have to do is take a photo of something relevant to your allotment whether this be a photo of your plot, the wildlife or even just enjoying a relaxing break and send to tig.iaha@gmail.com or comment on the Facebook post which will be put up with a closing date of 24 th March and the winner to be announced 1 st April.
2 Slugs and Snails 2025 Now is a good time to Tidy Up Slugs and Snails don’t like cold weather they will be hiding under all those bits of wood, up turned pots and over wintering veg that you’re just going to leave until spring. Make sure you don’t leave yellowing leaves on plants, Slugs and Snails are attracted to them. Wood chip paths, if the wood chip is small enough discourages migrating molluscs especially if the chip is Leylandii. Inspect the bottom of seed trays at least every other day and have a great Spring. I would like to introduce Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) CH2N(CH2CO2H)2]2. This white, slightly water-soluble solid is widely used to bind to iron (Fe2+/Fe3+) and calcium ions (Ca2+). It is used in the food industry to prevent spoiling of food by combining with metal ions. Examples of food that use EDTA to enhance their appearance are: Mayonnaise, Carbonated drinks, Canned foods like fruit and fish. EDTA is also used in the cosmetic industry, has several medical uses and is even used to remove heavy metal contaminants from soil, so it is safe to use correctly. Blue slug pellets used to contain Metaldehyde which killed Slugs, Snails and Hedge hogs, they are now banned. This is how the New Blue Pellets act on Slugs and Snails but also negatively affect the life in your soil The New Blue slug pellets use Iron Phosphate (FePO4) plus a chelating agent to kill slugs and snails. Slugs and Snails can munch on Iron (FePO4) until the cows come home. The chelating agent makes the Iron (Fe) available to digest so in effect the slugs and snails get an overdose of Iron and die. – The chelating agent is EDTA and is not easily biodegradable, remaining in the soil, it is toxic to earth worms and soil organisms in turn reducing mycorrhizal growth. Nutrients and water through mycorrhizal association will be less available to your plants. Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30579174/ and others
3 – It’s around this time of year that I make a start on taking and preparing my Chrysanthemum cuttings. Last years plants (stools) were cut back to around 6inches and then lifted from my plot in the autumn, keeping soil around the roots where possible and packing them closely together in shallow crates. I sometimes put a bit of extra soil from the plot in- between the plants so that the majority of the roots are covered. These trays of plants are then taken home and placed on the floor of my cold greenhouse and apart from making sure they don’t get overly dry are forgotten about until the early spring. No heat is necessary but they must not be overwatered throughout the winter. Come March I go through the trays and cut the plants (stools) back to just above soil level with a sharp pair of secateurs and give them a good watering. After a week or two and the weather warms up, nice young shoots will appear around the base of the plants, and it is these shoots when around three or four inches high, that you will need to carefully sever with a sharp blade to make your basel cuttings. Sometimes if one is lucky these shoots can be pushed carefully downwards, and they will come away with a few hair like roots that will give your cuttings a head start. Cuttings taken from the stems of the stools rarely do well and flower prematurely so this is the reason I cut them down to almost soil level as mentioned earlier. Prepare your cuttings as soon as possible after taking the material to keep them from flagging, trimming them below a joint with a sharp blade in the usual way. I then insert these cuttings about an inch apart into a five inch pot, some say a clay pot is best but I have used plastic with equally good results. I use a good quality compost with added sharp sand, stand the pots of cuttings out of direct sunlight in the glasshouse, with bottom heat an added advantage, and I put a clear plastic bag over them after watering them in. After a week or two fresh growth will be seen at the top of the cuttings and the bag can be removed. A careful gentle tug on the cuttings will let you know if they are rooted or not, if not replace the bag and give them a few more days. The pots of rooted cuttings can then be hardened off in a frame or a sheltered spot outside as they don’t like being too warm.
4 – – Generally by this time we are all very busy on our plots or gardens, but if time allows the rooted cuttings can be carefully teased apart and potted individually into 9cm pots using JI No2 compost, or as I have done on several occasions, planted them straight out onto the allotment at the end of May early June. Once they are growing away I like to pinch the growing tip out and this will then increase the side shoots to carry more blooms in Sept/Oct. The same principles apply to those varieties that have larger individual blooms. These varieties have the smaller buds rubbed out as soon as they are big enough to handle, leaving the larger central bud to mature and flower. These varieties are usually a bit more demanding and need individual staking to support them, say three canes and a string around. I hope this is helpful and a good growing season to you all.
5 My favourite one bowl recipe for home grown fruit is a lemon curd and blackberry cake, its simple, yummy and is great for frozen blackberries so if you have any left in the freezer from a bumper crop they can be included straight from frozen! Although blackberries aren’t in season now, keep this recipe for next year to make the most of any excess blackberries, you can also use blueberries or any fruit you like! Be warned it’s very tasty and addictive! Instructions: 1. Heat your oven to 140C Fan. Grease a 2lb load tin and line with baking paper (make sure enough sticks out of the tin to lift the cake out) 2. Roll your blackberries in a little flour to soak up any moisture after washing or if frozen and to stop them sinking 3. Mix together the Greek yoghurt, the softened butter, 2tbsp of lemon curd, lemon zest, the sugar, flour and eggs, whisking until just combined (don’t overmix) 4. Now spoon about a quarter of the mix into your tin, using a tablespoon swirl a spoon or two of lemon curd into the mix and sprinkle some blackberries 5. Repeat adding as much lemon curd and blackberries to your fancy, I usually use a tablespoon or 2 of lemon curd on each layer 6. On the top layer add a couple of dollops of lemon curd and swirl through the mix with a spoon or knife to give a sticky top and pop the last few blackberries into the mix 7. Now bake for an hour or slightly longer if needed until golden and a skewer comes out clean (it might be a little sticky from the lemon curd but should not show raw mixture) 8. If eating hot, cool in the tin for 5-10mins then remove and serve with left over yoghurt or ice cream, if wanting to ice the cake, leave to cool completely in the tin and then mix with a simple, fairly thick icing sugar and water mix and drizzle, add any remaining lemon zest and serve – Ingredients: ▪ 175g softened butter ▪ 100ml Greek yoghurt ▪ 3 large eggs ▪ 200g self raising flower ▪ 175g caster or golden caster sugar ▪ 300g jar of lemon curd ▪ Juice and zest of 1 lemon ▪ 150g of blackberries ▪ Optional: Icing Sugar for simple icing on top (I prefer to eat straight out of the oven with ice cream or left over greek yoghurt instead!)
Scroll to Top