Emma Cooper

My parents were here yesterday to help me straighten up the garden. With dad doing the shovelling, I moved more than 3 sq m of wood chips from the driveway round to the back of the house and down the garden. They’re in mounds, waiting to be raked out to redo the paths and mulch the beds – it won’t be today, as I really don’t have it in me. On Tuesday I was finalising the new layout of the concrete blocks, and hefting those about takes it out of you.

So now the garden, like the house, is much tidier. There’s plenty left for me to do when I have the time and the energy, and I can keep pottering about outside until the house is sold. But it’s hardly my garden any more, which is sad. Still, there are some spring highlights :)

The ramsons are in flower.

And so it the Honesty.

The Honesty also has seed pods forming.

And who could resist these furry leaves? My dad, apparently, who is refusing to try Chinese artichokes in case they turn out to be anything like Jerusalem artichokes. Which he hates.

Mum and dad drove back to Malvern with a car full of gardening sundries they can use, and one or two more plants – my little standard olive and bay trees, and this stunning Water Avens (Geum rivale) that was a gift from Radix.

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Don’t forget that if you’d like to read about the early years of my garden, I am currently having an end of an era sale of signed copies of my first book :)

As RHS Chelsea 2012 is only just over a week away, it’s time for my second post on the World Vision garden and the quest to grow the unusual edible tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis) to show standard here in the UK. In the first post, World Vision: Growing tarwi for Chelsea, we heard from the commercial grower who is raising the plants.

In this post we are lucky to have John Warland – half of the design team, FlemonsWarlandDesign – explaining why they added tarwi to the garden design.

The Lupin mutabilis was not originally part of the design for The World Vision garden. We were first introduced to the plant while driving through the Bolivian Andes, on our recent trip (January) to visit the little boy who we sponsor with the charity. Amidst the barren terrain, at more than 4000 metres altitude, we noticed what to our designer-eyes was a beautiful stand of Lupins in full bloom; quite unexpected in such a harsh landscape. I personally associate Lupins with quintessential cottage gardens, and also the fact that Lupins are notoriously toxic.

Through enquiries of the local World Vision team, it became apparent that they knew nothing of the plant’s horticultural roots or botanical lineage to the Lupin family. To them they were simply known as “Tarwi beans”. The bean is grown as a food crop, offering a high protein bean suitable as a meat substitute in some of the most remote locations in the Andes. What was to us a plant of aesthetic merit with often toxic properties, was seen by Bolivian families as an essential food source; a life-giving species. We heard about how the growing of these plants offers benefits the local communities on many levels – from reducing the need to trek up to 12 hours to a local market in search of produce, to the improved health of children and better concentration levels, helping them in their schooling. The simplest of plants producing amazing life-changing benefits.

The plant perfectly sums up the work of World Vision that we witnessed first hand in Bolivia, offering diverse nutrition in a climate that would be equivalent to trying to grow veggies on top of Mont Blanc!

On further research, we found out that the Tarwi bean is one of the “lost crops of the Incas” and began to muse about the possibility of trying to work this key plant into our Chelsea design. The striking blue and yellow flower colour was, fortuitously, not too far removed from our original colour palette and a long way from the often garish colours associated with English-grown Lupins. From a design stance, we would not be attempting to use the plant in our display if it compromised our initial vision, but it can be seen as one of the happy accidents that often crop up en route to the RHS Show. It adds a level of messaging and authenticity that you have to embrace when given the opportunity.

The plants will be the first of their type to be cultivated within the UK for commercial purposes, so it has been another challenge to source and grow the plants in a last minute dash for Chelsea. The whole message of the garden is summed up by these little lifesaving beans, so although it is a risk, in terms of using an untried plant before at such a high profile event, we feel the gravitas of the message more than justifies the attempt. In effect, making people stop and think about the message of The World Vision Garden is so much more important than any awarded medal.

Like all of our design work, this little Lupin offers beauty and as well as the key underlying message that we are trying to convey to a wider audience. The ripple effect that this plant produces, impacting children like our sponsored child, his family and community, is testament to the importance of its appearance at the world’s most prestigious flower show.

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Once again, I am grateful to World Vision for supplying the photos for this blog post, and to John for taking the time to answer my questions. I am sure you’ll join me in wishing them all the best for the show next week.

With the house now up for sale, it was time to smarten up the window boxes at the front – I have left them planted with low-maintenance succulents for the last few seasons as they survive everything (including me forgetting to water them). But they’re not very eye-catching and so I bought some patriotic (red, white and blue) petunias instead. It seemed like the perfect time to test out a product I’ve been sent for review – the ‘UK’s first fair trade coir compost block’, sold by Traidcraft online and also in Oxfam shops for £2.50 per block. The timing is very appropriate, as it’s World Fair Trade Day tomorrow.

They also sent me a pair of their fair trade gardening gloves, which I have included in the picture because of their great slogan – “I’m weeding out unfair trade” :)

Coir blocks are lightweight and easy to store and transport. They’re made from a waste product – the hairy bits on coconuts – and make a great peat-free compost, or bedding for worms in your wormery. They’re not very photogenic, however.

This one is the size of a large brick. The instructions are to soak it in water for up to 24 hours, until the block crumbles and the water is absorbed. I left mine overnight; if you’re in a hurry you can speed up the process a bit with warm water.

Once you’ve forked it over to break up any small lumps or dry patches, you’re left with 9 litres of compost – just enough for me to freshen up my four long troughs for the window boxes. It’s lovely clean stuff to handle, too.

I’m sure the petunias will love it. They’re sitting in the sun room at the moment, as some cold nights are forecast. But they will soon be making the front of my house look pretty.

There aren’t many composts you can just pop into your shopping bag when you’re walking home from town, but coir blocks do give you that option. You can read more about coir in The Peat-Free Diet.

My time here in Oxfordshire is drawing to a close. This house, and the garden in which I created my Alternative Kitchen Garden, are for sale. (The garden looks a bit of a shambles in the online photo; I’m going to do something about that as soon as it stops raining ;)

It therefore seems fitting to have an “end of an era” sale, to find new homes for the copies of The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A to Z I have hanging around the house. I wrote it here, about here, and I would prefer not to cart them off to my student digs.

And so, if you would like a signed copy of the A to Z at a competitive price, you’ve come to the right place! I am offering them for £10, with UK 1st class P&P at £2.30 – a total of £12.30 (less than the current Amazon price. RRP=£14.95).

If you would like me to write something specific inside then pop that in the box before you click the Buy Now button. That will take you through to the PayPal checkout page – you don’t need a PayPal account to pay, you can use a credit/ debit card.

Personalized message details

If you are outside the UK and would like to buy a copy then send me an email and I will find out how much international P&P would be.

I am new to all this PayPal button stuff, so if it doesn’t work as you expect it to, do let me know and I will attempt to sort it out :)

On my last day in Cornwall I drove to the Tamar Valley to meet Simon Platten and tour the various local food co-ops that make up Tamar Grow Local.

The newly-created allotment site is home to lots of vegetables, some great sheds and a chicken co-op full of lovely egg-laying ladies. They move around the allotment site, cleaning up overgrown plots and having a fabulous time. On the day that I visited, one of the hens had just found a dead mouse, so she was sorted for lunch!

Just down the road, a underused field is being converted into a community orchard and fuel wood co-op. It had been planted with eucalyptus, which has been neglected and has grown very tall. The co-op are in the process of felling the trees for fuel wood, and the lower level scrub is being cleared so that the land can be planted with fruit trees.

An integral part of the plan is the pig co-op. A small flock of Oxfordshire Sandy and Blacks are helping to clear the scrub. They’re obviously healthy and happy animals, and I’m told they make very good meat.

The orchard is being planted with local Cornish apple varieties (more on that later, as I took a trip to Cotehele), and these lovely pens are being constructed to protect them from wild deer, but also to open up the field to livestock.

Simon saved the best for last – a trip to the bee hives one of the co-ops looks after on a nearby smallholding. One of the hives needed to be moved, so we suited up and I had my first beekeeping adventure!

Simon reassured me that these bees were generally placid, and in a good mood – despite the intense buzzing!

The bees in the hive we needed to move were a bit less pleased about being disturbed – they were originally a feral colony who have found a good home here.

You can only move the hive a couple of feet at a time, so the bees can still find their way home. Simon would have had to repeat the procedure several times until they reached the desired location.

I have always been nervous of bees, and have been stung more than once. It’s amazing how little difference the bee suit makes when the air is filled with buzzing bees – it doesn’t make you feel much safer at all! Especially when they’re determined to get through the mesh protecting your face. But I managed to stay pretty calm and not run screaming back to the car :)

So thank you to Simon for a lovely morning, including a Cornish cream ‘tea’ at Cotehele Quay – reportedly the best on offer, so do drop in for one if you’re passing! After leaving Simon to do some proper work, I went on to visit Cotehele itself, which I will tell you about soon.

After our trip to Tregothnan, Radix and Choclette took me to Par Beach (near St Austell) for a look at coastal edible plants.

There was lots of Rosa rugosa, which will have lovely large rosehips later in the year.

Sea buckthorn also has edible berries, that are held on the plant right through the winter. But by April there were fresh flowers.

The Hogweed family (Heracleaum spp.) has a bad name because of sap that can cause phytophotodermatitis (painful burns on skin exposed to sap and sunlight), but apparently the young shoots are delicious cooked, when used before the leaves unfurl.

The wild radish doesn’t have the enlarged roots of its cultivated relatives, but it has edible leaves, flowers, seeds and seedpods.

And a little bit further inland, we found silverweed, a plant of which Radix is rather fond :)

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Apologies for the iPhone photos. I did recharge my camera that evening and so the final batch of photos from Cornwall will be back to normal.

Earlier in the year, World Vision asked me if I would like to follow the progress of their garden for RHS Chelsea 2012, from the initial design right through to its implementation for the show. My personal circumstances made that impossible, but I have been keeping up with the project and have been watching with interest a development that is right up our street.

In a change to the original design, John Warland and Sim Flemons of FlemonsWarlandDesign have added an unusual edible to the planting – tarwi, Lupinus mutabilis. Tarwi is a stunning edimental, which produces edible beans. I have seen it growing twice in the UK – once at Oxford botanic garden, and once at the Eden Project.

Through World Vision, I have been able to interview Susann Laughton, the horticulturalist at Plantify.co.uk rising to the challenge of growing these barely-known plants in time for Chelsea:

How many lupin plants are you growing? And how many are expected to be included in the garden?

The designers have ordered 100 plants for The World Vision Garden. As the quality requirement for RHS Chelsea plants is very high, only half of them might make it through the first-round of John and Sim’s selection process. There will be about 20 square metres of planting in the garden and, if possible, there will be one or two Andean lupins per square metre.

How did you sow the seeds?

We had to try various germination methods as there is little information about this lupin anywhere. After soaking the dried beans in water we initially tried the traditional method of germinating them in cotton wool, which was very successful. We also experimented planting them directly into soil at various depths exposing them to various moisture levels. We tested the influence of temperature on their germination rate by using propagators which didn’t seem to make any difference. They certainly like it moist, but not too wet conditions which cause them to rot.

The method of placing the seeds between a moist layer of cotton wool was the most satisfying as you could can see the first results of little shoots emerging from the seed within 48 hours. This method has a 70-80% germination rate. That makes this an ideal plant to be grown with children. You get an instant gratification and see changes happening every day.

How easy were they to find?

Returning from Bolivia, FlemonsWarlandDesign asked Plantify.co.uk to source the rare lupins for The World Vision Garden at RHS Chelsea this year. Despite best effort, the search was initially in vain since there are no official growers of the Andean Lupin in the UK. It is even unknown to the official holders of the National Lupin Collection.

For weeks research and investigations continued until – upon receiving a tip off – we managed to narrow our search to the South American community in London. Here, to our surprise, we found the seeds being sold wholesale – but as Tarwi beans, for food – through an international distributor, who is importing them directly from Peru.

Have you grown these plants before?

No – and, as far as we’re aware, neither have any other professional growers in the UK. So, Plantify is growing the edible Andean Lupin exclusively for The World Vision Garden at RHS Chelsea this year.

Do they need any special care?

They like moisture, but nothing too wet. Over-watering causes them to rot very easily. They love a lot of sunshine and grow very fast in good conditions. We started growing them in our front room to make sure they were well nurtured in their earliest days, but they’re now growing happily in a poly tunnel – the Andean Lupin normally flowers in June, but we are hoping to bring them into flower in time for Chelsea, as a unique feature of The World Vision Garden.

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Many thanks to Susann for taking time out from nurturing these babies to answer my questions, and to World Vision for the photos. One of the designers will be explaining why tarwi has been added to the planting plan in an interview coming up soon.

If you enjoyed this blog post then you’ll love my forthcoming book, IncrEdibles, which is all about incredible edible plants and the people that grow them.

We were having a bit of a discussion about edible fuchsia berries the other day, and one of the comments was about Kotukutuku, Fuchsia excorticata. Although it’s not entirely hardy in the UK climate, this one is happy enough at Tregothnan. It’s not the world’s best photo, but my camera battery had run out by this point and I was snapping away with my iPhone.

This is the stunning Camphor tree, Cinnamomum camphora, used for centuries as incense, a spice and medicinally. The leaves smell of camphor when crushed :)

There was the odd bluebell in flower ;) They’re poisonous, so don’t tuck in. But some of those nasty alkaloids could one day be used for cancer treatments.

This Erythronium species is a lot tastier, with starchy edible bulbs that can be eaten raw, boiled or turned into flour. You can also eat the leaves.

Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum spp.) is a real edimental (ornamental edible); the young shoots are eaten like asparagus. The roots have been eaten, too, but usually only in harsh times….

And this is the tea! Camellia sinensis, a newly planted patch on the hillside above the lake:

To be honest I was a bit underwhelmed, as the tea plantation itself wasn’t in the part of the grounds open to the public, and I only went to see the tea!

All in all we spent around 3 hours eyeballing the plants at Tregothnan. After that we dodged the crowds, Pimms and welly-wangling and went on for a spot for botanizing at Par Beach. But I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

The main reason for my trip to Cornwall was to see the Tregothnan Estate, which produces the only tea grown in England (according to their website). The gardens are not open to the public, although you can go for a guided tour and a cream tea if you can afford £50 per person for the pleasure. For the rest of us they have an open weekend once a year with a more reasonable price tag.

I had arranged to meet up with Radix and Choclette, but our day got off to a rather inauspicious start. Rain the previous day had turned the sloping field car park into a quagmire, and one or two cars got so bogged down in the mud that they had to be towed out by a land rover.

There were lots of impressive rhododendrons, but we’ll gloss over those and concentrate on the useful plants ;)

The Chilean myrtle (Luma apiculata) has edible berries and fragrant leaves.

Water hawthorn (Aponogeton distachyos) is a South African native with edible shoots and tubers. Apparently the flowers are used in a traditional stew called Waterblommetjiebredie.

Cornus capitata is the Himalayan flowering dogwood, and has large edible fruits. (They ripen in late autumn and winter, and so may fail to ripen properly in the UK climate.)

An impressive specimen of Mountain pepper (Drimys lanceolata), which has spicy leaves and berries. Although a native of Australia, it grows so well in Cornwall that it’s called the Cornish pepper leaf.

Sweet Vernal Grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum) tastes sweet when you chew it and smells like fresh hay. It can be used for a herbal tea, but that lovely smell comes from coumarin, so you have to be a bit careful.

This is the Swamp tea tree (Leptospermum myrtifolium) – poor thing, what a name.

And the Australian mint bush, Prostanthera rotundifolia.

If I hadn’t been accompanying a botanist around the garden, I wouldn’t have recognised half of these plants. As it was, the battery on my camera ran out and I had to resort to taking snaps with my iPhone. But you can see those tomorrow as there’s too many to fit into one post!

Just over a week ago I spent a couple of hours at the Eden Project, so I thought I would show you some of the more unusual edible plants I came across while I was there.

This Buffalo berry, Shepherdia argentea, was in the forest garden outside the Eden Project, which you see on your walk down from the car park. According to the label it “tolerates infertile soils, fixes nitrogen and the berries are used in jellies”. PFAF suggests that the fruit be consumed in moderation, due to its saponin content.

Another forest garden plant was this Serviceberry (Amelanchier x grandiflora ‘Ballerina’). It should produce “a mass of flowers in spring and edible fruit in the autumn.” And yes, it was about to rain.

In the warmth of the Mediterranean biome, this prickly pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) was fruiting, but according to How to Grow Perennial Vegetables, it can be grown in the UK reasonably easily for its edible pads.

Toyon was new to me, but is a drought-tolerant shrub that’s a prominent part of coastal sage scrub and chaparral plant communities. Its berries were eaten by indigenous Americans.

And the California Buckeye (Aesculus californica) has these pretty flowers, although normally only one fruit sets from each one. The seeds can be used as a source of protein, but only once they have been processed to remove the saponins.