The joy of allotment flowers

Flowers are a joyful addition to the allotment, not just because they are easy on the eye, but also for the sheer pleasure of watching  bees and hoverflies dig deep for their nectar. The satisfaction of seeing bees heavy with pollen. The cosmos I plant in and around the globe artichokes and then forget about until I see them standing tall and colourful and dancing manically in the breeze. The sweet peas I plant everywhere because their colour and fragrance makes weeding nearby a pleasure. The poppies that burst through the wilderness at the top of the plot that I vow every year I will clear. The daffodils and the bluebells that need no care, no fussing over, but come up year after year under the plum tree and tell everyone who passes by that spring is here.

Once this year’s shallots were harvested in early July, I had an entire raised bed left vacant without a plan for filling it. And since nature abhors a vacuum, you can be sure the weeds were queueing up for the chance to settle in there. In something like desperation, I planted out a few spare chilli seedlings and, to fill the gaps, transplanted some nasturtium seedlings that didn’t make it into the vertical garden, and then flung in some eschscholzia which I sowed – way out of date, but hey, if they come up, they come up – in June and never really expected to come through.

Thanks to some lovely warm days in the last month, this bed is now in full bloom in mid-October – and as a bonus the chillies are fruiting like mad – which is hugely comforting as many of the other beds are coming to an end and waiting to be dug over. The bed has also sprung a self-sown buddleja, which I will transplant to somewhere more suitable, and the aubergine seedling is struggling out in the exposed open ground, but everything else is loving the warmed soil, autumn sunshine and increased rainfall.

I think there’s always a place on the allotment for flowers. Not least because so many are edible and can count as produce: chives, nasturtiums, violas, bergamot, for example. Then there are those we grow as companion plants: I have chives – way more than I would ever snip into a potato salad – and Calendula, to keep away a number of pests. I’ve also raised Tagetes in the polytunnel (Homebase was selling those polystyrene boxes at £1.50 for nine plants in mid-season for some reason) and we’ve had no white fly at all, although it’s possible we might not have had them this year in any case.

I have an area of about 3-4 poles to clear this winter and I’ve already decided that flowers will be a central part of this bit of the plot. There will be a buddleja hedge of many colours: deep blue, crimson, cerise, and white – everything except railway-embankment mauve, really. It’s a sunny spot so there will be sunflowers and more poppies and achillea and cornflowers, all designed to bring in the beneficial insects. Without the pollinators, the fruit and vegetables will be left high and dry and so really the flowers should come first.

No space? Try a quick pallet garden

This vertical garden has given me so much pleasure over the summer months and it took all of 15 minutes to put together.

It requires a pallet in good condition, some woven plastic membrane and a staple gun. After that, just add soil and plants.

This pallet was donated to the allotment site by the builders next door. And it’s an ideal shape and size: 1) it will stand up on its own, 2) the horizontal struts at the base make good plant containers with minimal reconstruction, 3) it’s aesthetically pleasing: rustic without looking too decrepit. If you are going to re-purpose pallets, it really does pay to be very fussy. After all, they’re free.

I cut some strips of membrane to fit, and stapled pieces to the underside of each strut, as shown. This made the planting pockets. Next, I filled the pockets with multi-purpose compost and found a good place to site it. Finally I planted up the seedlings and watered them in. Without irrigation, it’s important to put the plants that are most drought resistant at the top and those that need most water at the bottom: plants on the top tier of a vertical garden are very exposed and will lose water very quickly. At the bottom, however, all the water gathers and the plants here are also often in a certain amount of shade.

I had calendula, cornflowers and eschscholzia Jelly Beans in the top two rows, and nasturtiums along the bottom as well as tumbling over the upper tiers.

This kind of shallow-pocketed, non-irrigated vertical garden works best for a single season. After that you can decide whether to redo the planting for another year or to re-purpose the pallet again. As I said, they’re free.

The great nasturtium caper

No matter how pressed for space I am, I'll always find room to plant a few nasturtiums. I think of them as a superplant, both ornamental and useful in a variety of ways. They will grow happily without much in the way of attention - they don't need fussing over. The flowers are prolific and beautiful, cheering up odd corners, patio pots, and the backs of the borders with vibrant orange, yellow, pink or red flowers throughout summer and into autumn. Their scrambling, tumbling habit means that they make good ground cover and keep the weeds down, and they'll also climb over posts, low walls and up trellises, softening the view of harsh backdrops. (Admittedly, they attract blackfly like a magnet, but we can't have everything.)

They are ridiculously easy to grow. Each year, around April (or May, at a stretch) I push a few seeds into the soil where I want them to grow and water them in. After that, I treat them with benign neglect and they seem to like it.

Nasturtiums are great in the kitchen too. Shredded, the leaves make a succulent, pungent addition to a salad. Or you can mash up some herby cheese and roll it up in a nasturtium leaf like a cigarette. The flowers are also edible, lending a delicate peppery taste and soft texture to a salad, or scattered around a whole fish in a centrepiece, or just as a beautiful garnish to a vegetable platter.

When the flowers finally fade, around now, they leave behind little green seedpods. Brush your fingers through a tangle of nasturtium plants and you'll see them drop to the ground, the size of peas and a pale jade green.

The seed pods look like little pale peas

These seedpods too are edible, if pickled in vinegar, and have long been called 'poor man's capers'. They mellow with keeping, with a nutty taste and firm not-quite-crunchy texture. Good enough for everyone, I'd say.

Nasturtium capers

Nasturtium seed pods, still green, to fill a measuring jug to the 200ml mark.

200ml white wine vinegar

A pinch fennel seeds

A pinch peppercorns

2 bay leaves

Salt

(The vinegar and salt gives you a basic pickling liquor; the exact nature and amount of aromatics can be played around with.)

Wash and pick over the seed pods, removing any dirt, chaff, blackfly, whatever. Give them a good final rinse and dry on kitchen paper.

Sterilise a jar that will fit the nasturtiums snugly – a complete dishwasher cycle should do the trick, or wash in very hot soapy water, then dry by placing the jar upside down on a rack in an oven heated to 120 degrees.

Rinsing the seedpods prior to packing in a sterilised jar.

Put the bay leaves in the bottom of the jar and fill up with the seed pods. Bring the vinegar, fennel seeds, peppercorns and salt to the boil. I do this in a jug in the microwave – the vinegar smell is less pervasive. Then pour the liquid and aromatics over the seed pods in the jar. Seal and let the jar cool before storing in the fridge. They’ll keep for a good six months if kept chilled.