Tag: gardens

Designer Desire: Monty Don

Montage of images of Monty Don's Longmeadow garden

This week’s Designer Desire post is a little different; we’re featuring a garden designer for the first time. Monty Don is a national treasure to British gardening devotees.

Each Friday evening, we look forward to seeing Monty’s garden at Longmeadow on Gardeners World. His 2-acre garden is sectioned off into zones of different designs and moods. He created a Jewel Garden full of beautiful, colourful flowers and, more recently, the Islamic-influenced Paradise Garden.  There are wildlife gardens, vegetable plots, pond area, formal pathways, herbaceous borders… and a writing garden with a brick path leading to a wood-clad shed where Monty works on his books and magazine & newspaper columns.

A couple of months ago, Longmeadow was voted Britain’s best loved garden, and it’s easy to see why. Monty has planted an orchard, grows vegetables, has a herb garden, built a pond and keeps bees. He’s a champion of gardening responsibly; he has designed the different areas and grows plants to encourage insects and wildlife, and eschews the use of plastic pots. We love watching the special relationship he has with his two golden retrievers, Nigel and Nell.

Portrait of Monty Don and his dogs Nigel and Nellcredit

Additional image credits:

Mail Online | Monty Don Facebook page

The importance of allotments during the World Wars

The importance of allotments during the World Wars

Although described as ‘the war to end all wars’, just a few decades after the First World War, the world was forced to endure another horrific conflict with the onset of the 1939-45 war.

During both conflicts though it wasn’t only soldiers that suffered, as in most wars, ordinary citizens were also at risk, particularly from starvation.

In the 1930s, Britain imported 70% of its food, which required 20 million tonnes of shipping each year. It was recognised by the Germans that cutting off such imports could lead to mass starvation, so Britain had to act.

In this article, Arbordeck, who stock timber decking boards for outside use, overview how Britain dealt with the threat, and how growing their own food helped Britons during these hardest of times.

British ration bookcredit

What was rationing?

To ensure that everyone was fed, the early 1940s saw the British government implement a rationing system. A typical weekly food ration for an adult included:

  • 4oz margarine
  • 1 fresh egg and a dried egg allowance
  • 2oz butter
  • 4oz bacon and ham
  • The equivalent of two chops (monetary value of one shilling and two pence)
  • Three pints of milk
  • 4oz cooking fat
  • 2oz tea
  • 12oz of sweets every four weeks
  • 8oz sugar
  • 2oz cheese
  • 1lb of preserves every two months

While the war ended in 1945, rationing wasn’t abolished until 1958. It was looked upon as a way to regulate food production and usage.

Vegetable plot

Making full use of outdoor spaces

Did you know that a 25% of butter imports and 50% of cheese imports came from New Zealand at this time? Eighty percent of fruit was also imported. This led to the Dig for Victory campaign being launched by the Ministry of Food in October 1939, one month after the outbreak of the war. Professor John Raeburn, an agricultural economist who was recruited by the Ministry of Food led the campaign until the end of the war.

This encouraged the British public to transform their gardens into vegetable patches. Its aim was to replace imported food with locally grown produce in a bid to free up shipping space for more valuable war materials and also replace any goods that were sunk in transit – German submarines were responsible for Britain losing out of 728,000 tonnes of food by the end of 1940.

In cities, public parks were transformed into allotments and the lawns outside of the Tower of London were even turned into vegetable patches. The campaign proved to be a roaring success, with it estimated that home gardens were producing over one million tonnes of produce by 1943.

Interestingly, when the war ended, the Royal Horticultural Society reported that there were 1.4 million allotments in the country. By 1945, around 75% of all food consumed in Britain was locally produced as Pig Clubs – it’s estimated that 6,000 pigs were kept in gardens and back yards in this year, chicken coops and rabbit keeping also became popular as Britain attempted to grow their own sources of protein.

British war-time Land Armycredit

The Women’s Land Army

The Women’s Land Army was birthed during the first World War but was greater relied on during the second. Here, females would help farmers and market gardeners by replacing the workers who had gone to war. By 1944, over 80,000 women were in the British Women’s Land Army, before it was eventually disbanded in October 1950. Without this workforce, Britain would have struggled to continue their harvesting.

Growing your own vegetables aided citizens both in their health and financially, and became a crucial part of the country’s operations.  So much so that in recent years, the government urged Britain to return the Dig for Victory campaign in a bid to combat possible food shortages and the ‘disastrous’ consequences it could bring.

Sources

https://history.howstuffworks.com/world-war-ii/start-world-war-2.htm

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Rationing-in-World-War-Two/

https://www.cooksinfo.com/british-wartime-food/

http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item107597.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/9996180/How-Dig-for-Victory-campaign-helped-win-the-War.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9996129/Britain-may-need-to-dig-for-survival-minister-says.html

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Price Points: Selection of bird boxes and nests

Selection of bird boxes and nests | H is for Home

We’ve really been enjoying the array of birds that come to feed in our garden. Regular, daily visitors include a pair of robins, a pair of chaffinches, a couple of pairs of black birds, a few dunnocks, tits of various types, nuthatches and the most beautiful song thrush. We even have a pair of pretty little goldfinches that have been returning to nest in our silver birch for at least the past 3 years.

As well as the smorgasbord of nuts, seeds, lard and meal worms that we put out for our garden birds, we’re thinking about providing them with some extra housing as well. There are so many types of bird boxes available, some for specific types of birds.

Some of our summer visitors such as swifts are in sharp decline and could do with all the help they can get while they’re here.

  1. Robin brushwood nest: £9.99, RSPB Shop
  2. Swift nesting box: £30.00, Etsy
  3. Barn owl box: £99.99, Crocus

shop bird boxes

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Prices & links correct at time of publication.

Barn owl box
Barn owl box
£99.99
Swift nesting box
Swift nesting box
£30.00
Robin brushwood nest
Robin brushwood nest
£9.99
Barn owl box
Barn owl box
£99.99
Swift nesting box
Swift nesting box
£30.00
Robin brushwood nest
Robin brushwood nest
£9.99
Barn owl box
Barn owl box
£99.99
Swift nesting box
Swift nesting box
£30.00
Robin brushwood nest
Robin brushwood nest
£9.99
Barn owl box
Barn owl box
£99.99
Swift nesting box
Swift nesting box
£30.00
Robin brushwood nest
Robin brushwood nest
£9.99
Barn owl box
Barn owl box
£99.99
Swift nesting box
Swift nesting box
£30.00
Robin brushwood nest
Robin brushwood nest
£9.99

Pond life, and why it’s so important for your garden

Pond life, and why it's so important for your garden | H is for Home

When scientists want to find signs of life on other worlds, the first thing they do is look for the presence of water. Water, it seems, is fundamental to life and, without it, life doesn’t exist.

It follows that if you want to encourage wildlife into your garden, you should include a source of water. A pond would be ideal!

The great thing about ponds is that they are a relatively easy addition to a garden. They don’t have to be enormous, and can often be dug by hand. You can, of course, go for a larger sized pond if you have space, but usually, you can get many of the benefits from something bijou.

Garden pond with plank across

Ponds reflect sunlight

Although ponds are essential for many species of garden animals, they’re also useful for plants too. Have you ever wondered why plants tend to grow so tall near ponds? According to One Green Planet, it’s because the water reflects the sun’s light, providing more energy to grasses and shrubs nearby. Ponds, therefore, are especially useful in gardens that might now get sunlight throughout the whole day.

Long garden pond

Ponds keep temperatures constant

Water has a far higher capacity to store energy per unit volume than air. So unlike air, it takes much more energy to heat up, and much more energy to cool down. In practice, this means that in the summer, when the air temperature is hot, the temperature of the pond is lower (unless there’s been a prolonged heatwave). Having a more stable temperature can be helpful, especially during the growing season.

Garden ponds attract animals such as frogs and insects

Ponds attract animals

Ponds are great at attracting new and exciting creatures to your garden and acting as the basis of a thriving ecosystem. If you have a small pond, it might not be self-sustaining, so you may need to buy pond supplies to supplement the food available to the creatures that live there. If you’re successful, then you can expect amphibians, crustaceans, dragonflies and butterflies to visit.

The good thing about many of these species is that they help to control pests naturally. Biodiversity keeps your garden functioning healthily.

Water pump feature beside a garden pond

Ponds can support aquaculture

You might think that the space taken up by a pond is space that can no longer be used for plants. But this is a misconception: the surface of the pond is an ideal place to introduce new species to your garden. Many gardeners, for instance, use their ponds as an opportunity to grow things like chestnut, taro and watercress. Even wild rice can grow in very wet conditions on the banks of your pond. A large pond is not a missed opportunity.

Boulders lining a garden pond

Ponds provide a supply of water

Freshwater supplies are threatened in many parts of the world, including some places in developed countries such as the south-western US. People interested in the environment, therefore, need ways to store fresh water and not rely on the grid. Ponds are an ideal solution, providing you with a source of water for watering your plants rather than using a hosepipe. Don’t drink it though!

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