Tag Archives: Abbie Jury

Grow it Yourself Fruit and Nuts by Andrew Steen

There is a clear gap in the market for an authoritative modern reference book on growing fruits and nuts in this country, so does this new book fill the niche? Hmm. It is like the curate’s egg – good in parts. It is worth buying for the fertiliser chart on page 111 – the best representation of this information we have seen. The chart on common pesticides is also very good as is the attention to pest and disease management, giving different approaches and addressing the issues. At last we are not seeing everything dumbed down and made simple when it is not, based on the assumption that the average home gardener has a mental age of about eight. If you want to be successful at growing these plants, you do need to get to grips with some of the details regarding pests and diseases. The range of fruits covered is appropriate and the information on recommended varieties is up to date, appears to be comprehensive and very useful. The author is credible. You may know his name from the Weekend Gardener – he is a keen gardener, backed up with professional qualifications and experience.

So what lets it down? The photography is not good enough. Amateur photography is not a suitable replacement for good diagrams when it comes to pruning and shaping and too many of the photographs fail to tell any story at all, let alone save words. The text is too wordy and would have benefited from tighter editing. Magazine writing is different to books. It is much more transient by nature and a looser organisation of ideas is acceptable because it’s all in shorter pieces. Much of the information is here but it is a little too loose and wordy, ranging rather too freely at times without a clear sequence. A greater use of tables and charts would have helped reduce the verbiage. Peer review prior to publication might have plugged a few of the gaps where the author was beyond his own areas of expertise.

For all its faults, it is a better reference than other recent offerings on the topic.

Grow it Yourself Fruit and Nuts by Andrew Steen (David Bateman; ISBN: 978 1 86953 789 0) reviewed by Abbie Jury.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

"It is natural and plant-based so it must be safer and healthier, mustn't it?"

The call went out to UK gardeners for yew clippings. Yew snowman from Helmingham Hall

The call went out to UK gardeners for yew clippings. Yew snowman from Helmingham Hall

I keep waging war on what I see as very sloppy thinking and pseudo science. The sort of thinking that says natural = good, chemical = bad, synthetic = even worse, modern medicine = corrupt multi national pharmaceutical hijack, herbalism and natural medicines = healthy alternatives. Often there’s a sort of Luddite sentimentality, a belief that the wise women and healers of long ago knew better.

Ahem. Life expectancy was much shorter, by decades in fact. And for every natural plant-based cure that worked, there were probably many more that didn’t. Poisonings went unrecorded, as did misidentification of plants. Medical misadventure was not exactly a matter of record.

The binomial plant naming system devised by Linnaeus in the mid 1700s has stood the test of time, though it is now under siege from the dumb-it-down brigade of Make Gardening Easy persuasion. Linnaeus’s plant classification system was incredibly important when it came to medicine. Until that time, there was no standard identification, naming and recording system for plants. Doctors and healers were often at the mercy of those who went out collecting the wild plants, many of whom would have had little idea of what they were harvesting. The same plant could be given many different names and vice versa – the same name could be applied to many different plants. It still happens.

Marigolds. But which one?

Marigolds. But which one?

Take marigolds. Yes do take them. They are not my favourite plant at all. But how many readers understand the difference between calendulas and tagetes? They are entirely different plant families and we commonly refer to both as marigolds. Both are used quite extensively for their natural compounds but they are not interchangeable. If anybody is going to treat me either internally or externally with marigold extracts, I would like to think they know the difference between, for example, Calendula officinalis and Tagetes minuta, let along the various other plants entirely which are often referred to as marsh marigolds, corn marigolds or marigolds of various other persuasions. I prefer my medicine a little more exact and for that, I thank Linnaeus.

A large proportion of modern pharmaceuticals continue to be derived from plants. Aspirin originated from willow. Much work has been done on the cancer fighting properties of yew. Valerian has long been recognised for its special properties – but false valerian is a different plant family altogether.

The yew is an interesting case study for those who think synthetic copies are all bad. In the early days of cancer research into the curative properties of taxus, British gardeners were encouraged to gather all their trimmings when they clipped their yew hedges and topiary and to deliver them to collection points. If you had sufficient volume of high quality trimmings, you could even get paid for it. They responded with enthusiasm but it took an awful lot of yew trimmings to yield a very small amount of the relevant compounds used in chemotherapy. Even more problematic was the one which derived from the bark of the Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia). You cannot continually harvest tree bark in large quantities. Clearly it would never be viable unless the researchers were able to reproduce the compounds efficiently in a laboratory. It is called synthetic organic chemistry because it is about reproducing a natural compound by synthesis. I know a small amount about this on account of having a daughter study it to a very advanced level (by which I mean post doctoral fellowship, working as part of a team isolating the active ingredients from a Thai plant with huge potential). It is not all bad. In some cases it may save the natural environment, not having to harvest huge volumes of natural products. It can even out seasonal and geographic variations in the strength of active compounds in plants. It can certainly deal to the problems of misidentification.

Most of our poisons are also plant-based. Many people know about laburnum seeds. Fewer realise the toxicity of daphne seeds. Cyanide has its origin as a plant product. So indeed does strychnine. Euphorbias exude a sticky sap which is renowned as a skin irritant. Rhus trees are problematic – so much so that after one bad encounter with some sawdust while chainsawing a fallen branch, Mark refuses to approach our rhus tree without donning protective gear similar to a beekeeper. Derris dust is seen as natural and organic – and it is because it comes from roots of certain plants but that doesn’t make it safe. Rotenone (which is sold as Derris dust) is linked to Parkinson’s Disease and is very toxic indeed.

It is a dangerous natural world out there. It’s a miracle we gardeners survive really. Which is why I am deeply suspicious of ill-informed enthusiasts rushing out to promote the use of plant remedies on the grounds that they are natural and therefore safer. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Until herbalists and natural healers are as strong on botany and chemistry as they are on traditional “wisdom”, I will err on the side of caution.

First published in the Waikato Times and reproduced here with their permission.

Grow it yourself: onions

Is it worth growing onions when the product is so cheap to buy with consistent quality? Possibly not if your vegetable gardening is suburban dabbling and you have access to a good farmers’ market or another reliable source. We grow them because we aim at self sufficiency (even though we don’t always make it) and we like to know where our food comes from. If you grow your own, you can also go beyond the usual brown, red or spring onions. Kings Seeds have at least 10 different types listed. If you want the range, you will have to grow from seed. Alternatively you can buy bundles of seedlings which look like baby spring onions, at the garden centre.

Onions don’t like heavy soils. They do well in light, sandy soils but you need to build up the soil fertility by using manure, a green crop, compost or fertiliser. They don’t have big root systems. In fact they don’t have a lot of top either so you have to make sure they don’t get swamped and shaded by competitive weeds. Onions get planted any time between autumn and spring though you won’t be harvesting until next summer and autumn. However, different varieties of onions have different planting requirements in that time span so check the instructions.

Spacings depend entirely on the variety. Some are small so can be grown close together while others need room to develop. While commercial production uses a non bulbous variety (Allium fistulosum) for spring onions, home gardeners know that any thinnings and surplus juvenile plants will fit the bill.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Learning about lobelia

A perennial lobelia from North America - but which one?

A perennial lobelia from North America - but which one?

Lobelias, I thought. I will do lobelias this week. Now you may quite possibly have led a full and happy life without putting any thought to lobelias. My interest had been desultory at best, but as soon as I started to delve a little, I uncovered a whole lot more.

Lobelias go well beyond that little, mounding blue annual that is a summer stalwart. Yes it comes in white and purple as well but it is usually blue. That handy little plant is Lobelia erinus, hailing from southern Africa. If you garden with bedding plants, you start afresh each year with organised plantings. Or if you are more cottage garden oriented, you just let one plant go to seed and it will naturalise and reappear around the place the following spring in an obliging but gentle sort of way. It is just a handy filler – nothing too exciting about that.

It was quite exciting, in a botanical sort of way, when we were given Lobelia gibberoa. This one hailed from mountain gorilla territory in central and eastern Africa. Indeed, if you get your eye in for footage of those gorillas in the mist, you may see them browsing amongst things that look a little like palm trees or even our tree ferns. Lobelia like we had never seen it before. It rockets upwards at about two metres a year, forming rosettes of big tropical leaves on top. Apparently it stops when it gets to about 5 metres high. Ours rocketed up but we rather lost interest when we realised it was not going to impress us with a magnificent display of bright blue flowers on its huge flower spike. The flowers were negligible and inconspicuous but the plant was a magnet for white fly and red spider so we didn’t worry when it succumbed to a cold, wet winter.

Sometimes you will see Lobelia aberdarica offered for sale. It is another lobelia mega herb, a little more cold hardy, though from a similar geographical area and it too has huge leaves growing in rosettes. However, it clumps closer to the ground rather than on top of its trunk though it seems to share the same huge flower spike with underwhelming flowers.

The North American perennial lobelias are very easy to lift and divide

The North American perennial lobelias are very easy to lift and divide

No, it was the unequalled display of the perennial, clumping lobelias from North America which made me sit up and take notice. We have had these for years here. They form neat little rosettes at ground level and put up metre high flower spikes which, in the past, have all then proceeded to fall over. I think what made the difference this season is that I had divided most of the plants, splitting up the crowns and spreading them around. And in these rejuvenated beds and borders, there were sufficient other plants to hold the flower spikes up. In this process, I had still managed to keep the colours separate. We have pale blue and mid blue, rich purple, cerise pink, white and even red. This year we had lots of blues and they have been a real feature.

As summer perennials, these are excellent garden plants for sun to semi shade. They’re easy. If you have a pure red one, it is likely that it will prefer damper conditions, even water’s edge. It is a different species, though still from USA.

I thought I would try and decode the species. Ha! There are somewhere up to 400 different ones. It is a huge family and many of what we have appear to be hybrids between different species. So we won’t confuse matters.

What became really interesting was the long history of lobelias in traditional herbal medicine. We come to this topic from a botanical angle which makes it really scary (identification is often wrong). But those American lobelias promise a cure for pretty much everything, though they can also be highly toxic. Lobelia inflata, also known as Indian tobacco, does not carry the alternative common name of puke weed or the equally charming vomitwort for nothing. But from snake bites to pleurisy to bronchial difficulties, it can be just the ticket. Best guess is that it is what Billy Connelly was given in the shaman’s tent on a recent Route 66 TV programme.

Be careful, should you happen to be suffering from syphilis, that it is Lobelia siphilitica that you harvest for a natural cure. I didn’t delve far into the history of syphilis in the indigenous American people around 400 years ago, but it is believed that this disease was introduced to Europe by sailors with Christopher Columbus.

The problem is that siphilitica and inflata are different species but look very similar and I have no idea whether our plants here are one, the other or a hybrid of the two. Nor am I confident that any research has been done to ascertain whether they are interchangeable in herbal medicine.

For sheer optimism, I loved the website dispensing advice on using lobelia as a herbal treatment. “Always consult your Health Professional to advise you on dosages and any possible medical interactions” it said. Yeah right. I am sure I am surrounded by health professionals who are far better than I am on botany, understand chemistry and have a deep knowledge of traditional medicines. I will just keep using these charming perennials as garden plants.

First published in the Waikato Times and reproduced here with their permission.

An award, not a rum deal.

I am thrilled to accept the ALCOHOL SPRONSORSHIP PRESS AWARD for the week, administered by NZ media star Steve Braunias, for my work on the Penguin and Tui story (More Bad Penguin). It is not that we are rum drinkers. It is just that I think it might be the greatest highlight in my writing career to date, supplanting my pride at being voted second most popular writer (beaten only by the TV reviewer) in the local paper some time ago. Fame and rum await, if not fortune.