WHYTE'S GARDEN CARE

Areas of the garden can be enhanced by the addition of an eye catching feature which can provide a much needed focal point no matter what size your garden is. Mosaics in the garden can be any size, 3d  free standing, or flat against a wall or fence …..even a small pot enhanced with some colourful tiles can lift your garden out of the ordinary. This is one of our own designs. Glass and gold leaf tiles on ceramic pot.

Use old terracotta pots, shells and any other suitable objects as cane tops in the garden to add an interesting decorative touch to your borders.

Try planting some sweet cicely beside your rhubarb or somewhere in your herb garden.

The leaf has a sweet aniseed flavour. A few of chopped leaves stewed with the rhubarb adds an interesting flavour and can even reduce the amount of sugar normally used when cooking rhubarb.

Image (c) Helen Whyte

Image (c) Helen Whyte

Grow in an open position which gets plenty of sun. It prefers fertile and well drained soil. Harvest the stems in summer : twist the stems off at the base and try to avoid breaking them. Do not over harvest until the plant is well established. Cook the stems slowly in a non aluminium pot adding little or no water.

Uses : stewed in fruit pies and crumble, preserves, i.e. rhubarb and ginger jam.

Do not eat the leaves !

Apple and rhubarb crumble :
125g plain flour
50g butter / margarine
50g sugar
450g prepared cooking apples and rhubarb

Rub the fat and flour together to form breadcrumbs
Stir in half the sugar
Stew the fruit in the remaining sugar
Place the stewed fruit in a pie dish and cover with the crumble mixture
Bake at 180c or gas mark 4 for 30 mins, until golden brown.

Serve with custard and enjoy !

We are now sowing “flower border seed mix” which will provide a display of annual summer flowers for very little money. This is a great idea if you have a big empty border which you want to fill up. This will not create an instant display but in around 6 to 8 weeks the border should be full of colour !

Use a blend of multipurpose compost and topsoil.
Line the table with landscape fabric as this helps to retain water
Use mixture of lettuce packs for variety. We have planted in rows using green and red lettuce.
You can grow from seed, but its easy to buy small plants in trays ready to go in. No thinning to be done, just add water and watch them grow !
Water regularly and cover up at night Until the weather warms up - we’re in scotland !  We have  used a plastic cloche from the garden centre.
This year we have added an extra tier for a selection of culinary herbs.

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This year will see the end of petrol power tools for whytes gardencare as we make the decision to go all electric with the use of cordless power tools.
This has been made possible with the vast improvement in rechargeable battery technology. Lithium-ion batteries are lightweight, powerful and fast charging which gives you a power tool with all the benefits of petrol power but none of the bad points i.e : noisy, fumey, heavy, not to mention the CO2 emissions !
So, in order to reduce our carbon footprint, we will, where possible, be using a combination of LI-ION technology and, of course, good old manpower !
We are running a vehicle which has low CO2 emissions of 89(g/km) ….almost as low as you can get without going electric.
After all, we are looking after plants and gardens and all that pollution just isn’t good for the planet !

Image (C) Helen Whyte

Try planting some early potatoes in a large container or bag ( you can buy these from the garden centre )
These should produce some lovely new potatoes for you to enjoy in a few months time
Make sure you plant some mint to go with them !

Minty new potatoes.

simply steam the new potatoes with a spring of mint. Remove the mint and coat the potatoes in butter or Margerine  and serve !