Welcome to the Tysoe Walled Kitchen Garden website! We are committed to organic gardening. Using the best practices from the Victorian days (i.e. lots of horse manure) and knowledge gleaned from the Ryton Organic Gardens we have set out to tame our Warwickshire clay. It’s all about sustainability, so as well as organic gardening, we’re always looking to better ways to work with our environment.
On this site you can find out about our history and the projects we are working on. You can come visit the garden and learn about organic gardening. Follow our blog to see what’s on our mind in the garden this month.
For the first 8 years all the work was carried out by just the two of us. Now we have help and are passing on our knowledge to students on the WRAGS (Work and Retrain As a Gardener Scheme).
We also find time to be involved with the WOT2Grow Community Orchard in Tysoe and have planted a 3 acre wood close to Tysoe, just over the border in Oxfordshire with a grant from the Woodland Trust.
In September 2017 I went on a propagation course and was able to keep some of the cuttings I had taken.
One of these was Plectranthus purperea. I had not heard of this before but, seeing it in the garden from where the course was held, I loved the dark foliage.
Plectranthus
It is not a hardy plant in the uk, in fact it is more a house plant, which as probably why I had not come across it before as I am not a fan, nor have the room for many house plants.
Dark red stems and dark underside of leaves
The cuttings grew well over the summer and looked lovely in their pots in the garden.
In October I took some more cuttings ready for next year and as insurance in case the main plant does not survive the winter. Also brought the plant inside.
Now it has pretty white flowers which is a lovely surprise.
In the January gales 40 metres of our wall fell down, crushing half of our espaliered apple trees. The wall has now been rebuilt and it is time to replant some trees.
We decided to go for cordons this time as to replace the matured espaliers would be very expensive, if available, and would take a long time to grow from a young tree. Bare root trees were chosen as a wider range is available, they are cheaper and are planted in the winter when they are dormant.
One of the surviving espalier trees
Cordons are single stem trees grown on wires at an angle of 45 degrees.
Newly planted cordon trees
It is not advisable to plant a pip tree in the same place as another pip tree was, and likewise do not plant a stone tree where another stone tree was. However we are able to plant more apples (pip tree) where the other apples had been as all the soil was removed when the foundations were made for the wall to be rebuilt.
We wanted to grow mainly dessert apples as we already have two large Red Bramley and two large Blenheim Orange and two early cookers called Grenadier so we have more than enough cooking apples. All the espaliers we lost were dessert apples.
I am also keen on the more unusual so here is the list we have just planted, mostly dessert but a couple of cooker/ dual purpose which tempted me by their name or the dark foliage.
Katy, Red Devil, Surprize, Winter Gem, Christmas Pippin, Scrumptious, Herefordshire Russet, Adam’s Pearmain, Bardsey, Chivers Delight, Pitmarston Pineapple and Sops in Wine.
I like to make my own Christmas Wreaths to decorate outside the house.
Using materials found in the garden and hedge.
This year I have used holly with berries, ivy( again with berries), apples, long pine cones from the tree in the front garden and pyracantha berries, we had yellow, red and orange, the orange looked the best this year.
Some years I have also used laurel leaves, rosemary, satsumas, etc. whatever is available and looking nice at the time.
Wreath on the big gates into the walled garden.
As you can see I favour a very loose design.
Gate into the gardenBy the front door. The base was made many years ago from ivy stalks twisted together and can be used year after year.
Add some battery LEDs with a timer and looks great when darkness falls.
The time of year has come round again and the trees are full of mistletoe. We have several old apple trees and each has much mistletoe growing in it. Left alone the mistletoe would eventually suffocate the apple trees so each year we harvest about a third of the mistletoe. Great for Christmas decorations. We sell a lot in aid of charity and this week someone collected some for a mistletoe ball.
It has been a warm November, until this week, and now a heavy frost today brings the temperatures back to normal, a busy morning cutting back and tying in summer raspberry canes at the community orchard and now back to my own garden.
The colours are still wonderful
Cotoneaster, gradually covering the house wallThe birds are not eating the berries yetYellow winter jasmine a splash of yellow against the wall
The dogwood is lovely at this time of year, the red stems of cornus alba and the yellow stems of cornus flaviramea
cherry leaves autumn colourblueberries
The autumn colour on the blueberries. We grow them in pots with ericaceous compost, as they need acid soil which we do not have.
hardy geraniums
Even the hardy geraniums are going out in a splash of autumn colour
holly berries
A good year for holly berries so will be great when I start to make the Christmas wreaths.
We still have flowers in the garden
Evergreen honeysuckle, flowering now
Marigolds attempting another flowering spurt with the warm October and early NovemberPretty Cyclamen CoumClematis freckles, not a great photo I am afraid but such wonderful flowersWisley cream, another of the evergreen clematis such pretty flowers
On the berm, Delosperma, newly planted this year so hopefully it will survive the winter.
I love the leaf markings on this Arum
With the late warmth during October there have been a couple of delicious surprises from the edible plants. Picked a kilo of autumn raspberries last week
Autumn raspberry Joan J and Autumn Bliss
For the first time ever the second crop of figs have ripened (well 2 have)
Figs produce two crops each year, the first we have been enjoying from late July to mid October, the second crop usually do not ripen in this country, and stay small, hard and green, then get picked off when the leaves fall to save draining the plants energy. Not this year, I have just picked two that have ripened, smaller, darker and quite different to the earlier crop, but just as tasty.
Second crop figs ripened in November 2018!
The garden does not “go to bed” for the winter just slows down a bit with bursts of colour and interest throughout the seasons.
My gardening also slows down with the cooler days and early darkness and there is less to do. Even if there are no jobs to do, a walk round the garden, maybe pick some things for lunch or tea, fresh air and a wonderful feeling.
I think that October is my favourite month of the year, the colours are wonderful as leaves loose their chlorophyll and the reds and yellows and oranges are revealed. Liquid Amber is lovely and the dark red leaves of the Vitus Vinifera Spetchley Red are some of my favourites.
Autumn colour
The asparagus is almost ready to cut down for the winter but the changing foliage looks lovely for a few weeks.
asparagus fernsTrachelospermum jasminoidesBerriesPyracantha berriesCottoneaster berries, a feast for the blackbirds
Plenty of flowers and seed heads to brighten the garden in October:
HonestyStrange drooping flowers and berries of Leycesteria formosaA rose Joanna Elise started to flower again now weather is coolerGarlic chives flowering againThe tiny blue campanulaSedumMarigoldsscabious burgandy bonnets flowering again It certainly has been a strange year for some plants.Chinese lanternsAstersCosmosAmberboa Muricata
Still plenty of fresh produce in the garden. The tomatoes in the green house are still ripening, cabbages, chard and leeks are ready, apples, pears, Inca berries, the last few figs and beans this month and picked the last cucumber for lunch today.
Chilean GuavaButternut SquashElder berries
The list goes on but enough for now. More news from the Walled Garden next month.
