Rumble In My Jungle - The Allelopath Wars

Chemical warfare isn't an invention of mankind. Long before mustard gas, plants were merrily dosing one another with foul concoctions designed to maim and kill. These chemicals are known in science as Allelopaths.

Allelopaths are chemicals used by plants to damage one another and are administered by different methods which include diffusion in the air from leaves, flowers or stems, soakage into the soil via root systems and distribution through fallen leaves.

It seems one of the most effective users of this chemical warfare is the black walnut tree which owners will observe, creates a protective blank space of earth around it in which few other plants can live. Other noted allelopathic killers include hackberry, garlic, eucalyptus and black cherry.

When Garlic Sprouts Attack ...."AAAAGHHH!" 

The effects of destructive allelopaths include hindering growth or preventing it altogether by issuing chemicals which prevent rival seeds from germinating.

But plants don't only seek to eliminate or limit their competitors with chemicals. Some use chemicals to encourage other mutually beneficial species which don't provide a threat - and indeed may help their cause attracting the right insects for pollination and so on.

Food gardeners have known about the effects of allelopaths for thousands of years and employ them constructively in what we commonly call "companion planting" today. For example gardeners know that garlic is destructive against peas, cabbage and beans but helpful in keeping pests away from carrots or tomatoes. Peas and beans, who both pursue the same nutrients in the soil, actively combat one another, as do lettuces and parsley.

"Three sisters" planting in my garden - squashes, beans and corn helping one another.

The central american native peoples used beneficial planting to increase the crop potential of beans, corn and squashes. The "three sisters" method they deployed also produced physical benefits for the crops in question. The beans used the stout corn stalks as beanpoles to climb on to get vital sunlight and with their flowers, helped attract pollinating insects for the corn. 

The hungry ground ranging squashes were fed by the nitrogen gathered and locked into the soil gathered by the beans and in turn would provide a natural ground cover to prevent the soil drying out under the sun while the spines on its stalks and foliage would limit pests. All three plants helped one another. It would be common sense to assume that their chemical allelopaths also aided the process.

But of course, it is the destructive aspects of allelopaths that attracted my interest...

So, in the interests of science you understand....I decided to pitch some allelopathic heavyweights against one another in my garden to see what the outcome would be..

BOUT ONE - TOMATO V FOXGLOVE

Tomato - sweet to eat but the deadly nightshade's relative has foliage brimful of deadly solanine

In the red corner: The tomato plant - Solano lypopersicon. Often attacked by fungi in a damp climate like Ireland's but never by insects. Known natural toxin arsenal includes solanine - known to kill pet dogs. 

In the blue corner: The hardy nasty native - the Foxglove - Digitalis pupurea L. - living in Irish woodlands for tens of thousands of years, spectacular orchid like blooms and big thick heavily wrinkled foliage - almost never nibbled. Toxic. Natural toxic arsenal includes a chemical commonly used in a last ditch attempt to stimulate the human heart  - causing it to spasm - or go into shock. Interestingly however French gardeners have long let Foxglove free seed among their vegetables and salads because they believe it causes stronger growth and builds up disease resistance. This plant operates with a big allelopathic punch.

I stuck a juvenile of each of them in one planter and stood back to watch the show. Surely a bout of floratic chemical wrestling to beat all?

Foxgloves (left) meet tomatoes (right) in a fight to the finish

I had often planted tomatoes in containers already crowded with low ranging plants - and with great success, so I knew tomatoes can live in close proximity with myriad species.  Nearby I planted the same size tomato plants (about a foot high)  in other containers and on their own. There were also other foxgloves alongside in their own containers - both sets of solitary plants would provide a control by which to measure the effects on the two plants of different species which would be forced to share a container. 


The results were astounding.

Within two months the foxglove's growth was impaired by about 25pc compared to the other non container sharing foxgloves. However the one sharing with the tomato was the only foxglove of all of them all to go into bloom - perhaps feeling an urgency to do so. On the other hand, the young tomato plant sharing a root system with the foxglove, lost leaves and did not gain any growth at all. The remaining leaves turned from green to purple. In contrast, the other tomatoes in adjoining containers pursued their normal growth patterns.

Foxglove 1 Tomato 0.

Puree-ed!

In the raised beds I witnessed another non intentional allelopathic war. 

 BOUT TWO - MINER'S LETTUCE V BUTTERCUP

In the red corner - miner's lettuce is a voracious north american ground hugging plant with succulent like leaves. It was named for the great gold rush during which miner's caught in snow bound conditions often survived using it as a food. Over a number of years the plant had spread far and wide in the raised beds and was now out of control. So dense is its growth that it would be difficult to see how any plant could compete with it.

Miner's lettuce starting to spread - you can see the buttercup starting in the right hand middle left of the pic 

In the blue corner - buttercup. I had last year distributed new topsoil around the garden which wasn't as sterile as it could have been. There were buttercup, nettle and dock seeds in it which began to sprout throughout my garden. Next to the miner's lettuce, a ground crawling buttercup surfaced. It's a plant known to be highly toxic. This would be an interesting battle.

It would end up being a knock out. Within just weeks the buttercup was dominant and the miner's lettuce had been completely eradicated.

Buttercup 1 Miner's Lettuce 0.

Now the buttercup has moved over to impinge on the territory of a very vibrant and pungent crop of sage. I'm already selling tickets.

In the same spot weeks later... the miner is shafted and the buttercup squares up to the great sage..

Science is still in the early stages of studying allelopaths which may in the end provide us with beneficial eco weedkillers as we harvest and use some of these plant chemical weapons against weeds. 

Five to four on buttercup anyone?

Spring Has Sprung!!

The sun bursts of early March have kick-started the new year's growth and winter's worst is behind us. In the garden the new shoots of growth are sprouting and the earth is coming alive! Everywhere you look, you can see nature waking up. Strong virgin shoots are piercing the soil and the ground is warming. Last year's survivors are still coming good - check out my shot (below) of last year's chopped and butchered broccoli producing delicate new buds - ideal for a light steaming on my dinner plate. 

Spring sprung sprouts on last year's broccoli survivors poking up after winter's worst 

The fruit trees will need some attention. I esplanaded some young shop bought and sown trees last year and their new buds are showing me that at least the shock of transplanting and then of winter, hasn't killed them. Pear, apple and damson are now wired unnaturally in straight horizontal lines along my back fence. I'm told they'll shoot upwards from those tied arms and that soon they'll fill my fridge with fruit. But at least one will have to be cut out of a web of winter web of ivy and surging clematis before it can go anywhere. Below you can see the apple tree buds from my Coronet, a miniature apple tree only four feet high which produces about forty fruit each year. This tree can also be container grown.

Apple buds appearing on the Coronet miniature

The old year's chopped down fennel is already starting to produce fresh sprouts which recently ended up sprinkled across some grilled hake. Mmmm! This container planted fennel grows to four foot each year and has probably been with me for seven or eight years. It never ceases to amaze me how I can cut it back each winter only to have it surge forth again in spring. As a fisherman who regularly comes home with fresh trout, fresh fennel is a must.

Fennel sprouting anew - this particular shoot ended up chopped fine and spread over grilled hake

The salad bed left alone over winter also has a few surprises. The roots of the long ago gone to seed lettuces appear to have sprouted some young fresh heads. There's iceberg and salad basket and lollo rosa (pictured below) which already has me breaking off limbs to feed into fresh bread for lunch time sandwiches.

Lollo Rosa waking up for Spring

Although I rarely deal with non edibles, I do have a few scattered about and one of my favourite wake up calls for the new year is the deep blue bells of the grape hyacinth - it was one of my grandfather's favourite border flowers and it fell out of favour way back in the eighties. I'm still a sucker for it.

Grape Expectations - the Border Hyacinth at its colourful best

Now that my one year old son Sean has started walking, he wants to be outside for every waking moment. Here he is pressed against the glass sliding doors. One of his first words ever was "Garden!" by which I think he means "everything outside the house!"" In a northern European country we've been cooped up inside since November. It's fantastic to watch him teetering about free range between the beds.

Garden!! Let me Out!

Some plants haven't waited for the first sunshine to get into their business, not least the garlic. I grow a type of wild garlic which produces tiny but explosive bulbs. You can see below that they've been busy these few dark months and have a head start on the rest of the garden.

What's that smell?!!

Another star player in the garden that has been keeping up appearances is the Rosemary. We have two robust plants potted in terracotta containers to keep them dry and raised - Rosemary's preferred conditions. We've been breaking bits off these plants all through the winter to throw sprigs across roast lamb and to chop them up to release those pungent oils into stews. It never ceases to amaze me how these plants from southern europe make it through the frosts of an Irish winter.

Pastel flowers on our Rosemary

There's a few more over winter-ers including the Salsify. Last year I dug up the roots and tried to shave them down and boil them without realising that they're supposed to be left alone for two years to produce the big tap roots necessary to make food. I have to say that thus far I'm unconvinced. Last year's small roots that I harvested weren't edible. After a long while boiling they ended up hard and stalky. We'll give them some space to get through to Summer, but I'm still not convinced.

Salsify shoots are on a wing and a prayer this year

Which all means that it's time to get up to my mountain side allotment and get stuck in. I'm looking forward to it and tomorrow I'm going into town to stock up on heritage varieties of seeds and tubers to get it going again. This year however I'm planning a "no dig" approach having been convinced by literature I've read about how digging destroys the minute animals in the soil which are necessary for plant health. We'll see how that one works out. In the meantime as we say in Ireland: "There'a a grand stretch to the evenings!!" About time too...

There's that lovely stretch to the evenings!

Your Top Ten List of Post Christmas Gardening Excuses

It’s after dinner on Christmas day 1991 and I'm wearing baggy cream chinos and slip on loafers. I still have all my hair and it's cut into a dodgy post new romantic era high rise. My aunt looks me in the eye and shakes her head as her children storm around the hall on a collective e-number berzerker. They are screaming, spinning, lashing at one another and leaving little explosions of Christmas decorations in their wake. - “Mark my words,” she warns. “One day it’ll all come back at you!”

The ghost of Christmases past will confirm that my then favourite pastime at the annual extended family get together was to dose my juvenile cousins with fizzy cola and brightly coloured sweets before handing out pressies of toy bows and arrows, sucker dart guns and plastic swords. 

Then I’d sit back and watch the show.

Fill em up with E numbers, hand out the plastic weaponry and ....escape!!

Later there’d be filthies from the aunts and uncles as they attemped to crowbar their still spinning offspring into the car to get them home.

Twenty years on I have three children under ten and I’m the one reaping the whirlwind. These days as I run around trying to contain my own annual pint sized post dinner Christmas frenzies, the aunts sit and smile contentedly from easy chairs as their adult children run around to fetch them a Baileys.

Which brings me to gardening.

Mark this: despite what any gardening columnist tells you, there are few reasons to go outside and start digging in. In fact there is only one real reason why people get out gardening at this time of year and it is this – cabin fever. They do it to escape from the festivity jaded holiday season household in which everyone is stuck indoors and killing one another. For certain the January garden doesn’t need you out there stomping around, compacting the ground and generally making a nuisance of yourself by disturbing its dormant perennials.

Let's Get Gardening!!! You'll need a damn good excuse to justify this one.

Gardening expeditions at the latter end of the holiday season are entirely selfish. You’ll desperately need to flee – the bored kids, Noel Edmonds Christmas jumper, omnibus soap opera depression, the tweets, whistles and brain beating electro tunes of the new electronic toys whose batteries are fading but haven't quite died.

But in your rush to get outside always remember this: You can’t possibly abandon a similarly fraught spouse to his or her fate just to go and do some gardening. Not at least without a truly plausible excuse - or a full cast iron set of them.

The problem is that many of the “ten things” list of gardening excuses for early January as provided by some gardening columns I’ve read are just not very good at all and won’t pass the muster for a handy exit. For example, one English based online gardening site I looked at had the following in it’s “ten things to do in January” list: 6. “Ask the council if they are having a Christmas tree shredding event….” (??!!!) Another advises: 8. “Polish your garden fork and spade with oil.” Ha ha ha.

Remember that the key ingredients to a good gardening pass excuse are (a) urgency - it needs to be done now and (b) there must be a tangible benefit for the household collective. So lookit. If you can’t get a pub pass and need to get outside before your head explodes, here’s a good and proper excuse list containing ten rock solid plausibles that will, with certainty, guarantee your post Crimpo fleedom to the great out back.

1.    Remember that beautiful garlic we were eating last year? Well if I don’t get the coming year’s crop planted by the end of the week, it’ll be too late.

Most say November or December is perfect for garlic planting, but early January will do at a pinch for a last minute effort.

2.   If I don’t trim back those dead climbers, they’ll start taking over the whole garden. The garden will look much tidier without them and it's best to do it when they’re dormant.

Free all trapped gnomes from dead climber webs

3.  The fence and raised bed planks are showing signs of rot, if we leave them like that through the months ahead they’ll be gone by the summer. I’ll need to clean them off and paint them up with some wood stain before I go back to work – I’ll just run out to the hardware shop and get some environmentally friendly stuff like Procol Fencecote.

4.  Did you see that scrawny sparrow just then? Those poor birds are starving God love them! I’ll need to get up to the shops to get some nuts and wood to knock together some bird tables and hangers to save the poor things.

5.   Oh no! I forgot to sprinkle some well rotted manure on the vegetable beds. It takes a few months for it to get drawn down into the soil by the earthworms. Our soil is a bit tired. Unless I get some manure sprinkled on soon, it will be too late and this year’s home grown veg won’t be as good. I’ll have to go up to the garden centre to get some.

Waiting for the table - a starving birdie yesterday

6.   I've just read in the newspaper that it’s best to get those remaining weeds out in January when their growth has been slowed and when the ground is clear of most other growth. Strangling chickweed in particular is more vulnerable at this time of year says yer man - their garden guy in the funny hat.

7.  Did you notice that the Autumn leaves have turned into a slippy guck on the paths? That’s a bit dangerous alright for the kiddies. But if I shovel it all up into a bucket and get it into the compost, it will not only makes the path much safer, but will sort us out for some great free compost.

8.  Dang! I just remembered. The greenhouse panes and panels need to be washed out inside with a mild bleach. Otherwise any mildews, mould spores or insect eggs will remain active into the new year and that could create problems for our tomatoes.

Get the disinfectant to cull those greenhouse spores

9.  That garden shed needs a bit of a spring clean. I think I’ll bring the radio down there and get that job out of the way before I go back to work.  

10 . Do you fancy some nice fresh home grown garden fruit this summer? I’m reading here in the newspaper that now’s the time to buy in and plant your apple, pear and damson trees. Why don’t I just pop up to the garden centre and get some before they’re sold out?

Time for an early Spring Clean in the shed. Now where is it exactly?

Now all you need is an excuse not to bring the kids out with you. 

Garlic - Our Garden's Superhero

In it’s cloak of good-guy white, and muscles of virtue rippling underneath, the pugnacious garlic bulb reigns supreme at the top of the superfood charts. And as every food or health writer keeps telling us, there’s no end to the miracles it can perform.

Garlic - the veg world's superhero

Apparently garlic health benefits include combating colds and flus, cutting heart disease, fighting infections, reducing blood pressure, purifying the blood, giving you healthier, more subtle skin.

It reverses outward signs of aging, cures baldness when rubbed on the scalp, strenghtens fingernails and toenails, eradicates erectile disfunction, helps dieters lose weight, doubles the strength of athletes, makes candidates perform better in job interviews, boosts that part of the brain which controls your fashion sense, enables you to win the X factor, trebles the ability of finance ministers to solve complex economic problems... and if enough people eat it, garlic can deliver world peace.

Eradicates erectile disfunction - they'll be fighting over you if you eat garlic!

Well perhaps not that last par.

But given that garlic has been used both as a vital food and a medicine since the beginning of time and that most great ancient civilisations relied  heavily on its applications, it’s not surprising that some lofty claims have emerged alongside its verifiable qualities. Galen, the gladiator’s physician, called it the “rustic’s theriac” (cure all).

It does contain high levels of vitamin C, vitamin B6 along with selenium, calcium, phosphorus, copper, iron and is brim full of alliin, an amino acid.

 Wilder claims include:
(a) Eating a six cloved garlic bulb enables a woman (only) to live forever (ancient Korea).
(b) A garlic bulb has the power to demagnetise stones (The Roman Empire - Pliny).
(c) A garlic bulb is a self contained deity to worship in its own right (The ancient Egyptians)
 In living memory, garlic was used before penicillin emerged to treat tuberculosis. In India it was used to treat leprosy, in Japan it was proscribed for impotency, and in Greece it was given to athletes at the Olympic games to increase energy levels.

No wonder it emerges, that in the thick of Ireland's economic meltdown,  finance Minister Brian Lenihan was been outed as a secret daily garlic chewer. He admits to keeping a stash of raw garlic cloves hidden in his pocket - it might repel vampires, but not the black suits from the IMF it seems.

Garlic breath minister yesterday....poooohh!!!

And so ensconced in the pub one night about this time last year, my Dad plonked a healthy looking garlic bulb in front of me. He had picked up three of them for a tenner in town. He split the other two and planted them and gave the third one to me. “Are you growing garlic?” he asks. The strange thing is, that having grown more than 60 different types of food in the last three years, I had never successfully produced a crop of garlic.

The old man didn’t know which particular variety of garlic his purchase happened to be -  other than the fact that the label had warned: “Very Strong.” To me, with its smaller, thinner cloves it looked like a wild strain.

He directed sternly that I needed to plant them “NOW!... That’s right NOW!” - this being emphasised by a finger jabbing the air and two highly raised eyebrows a la Bert (of Bert and Ernie fame). There was a long pregnant pause with the eyebrows held raised - and then the finger prodded air again to remphasise: “Right NOW!”

Dad with raised eyebrows: "Right NOW!"

There does seem to be a wide ranging dispute among growers about when to plant garlic and the importance of getting it right. All agree that the exact planting time is vital, unfortunately none of them agree when that actually is. Most pin a date some time between September and mid November.

I took it home, split it up (I got ten cloves inside) and the next morning planted them indoors in a window box sized container. Unfortunately, I’m not a morning person and until I have showered, caffeined and sat for a half hour to creak into life, I’m not really awake at all. It was only later in the day that I realised  I’d put the whole lot in upside down. The “butt” end is supposed to face downwards (where the roots emerge) and the “pointy” end faces upwards (this is where the shoots emerge). When I got home I dug them all up and started again. They’re supposed to be positioned about five to six inches apart and sunk two inches deep.

Some of our wild garlic harvest - note to self: plant the cloves butt end down!

More conflict on the internet where growers also disagree about whether garlic is easy or difficult to grow and whether it can be started indoors or not. Most seem to think garlic, like parsnips and swedes, needs a period of cold for its best performance. So my window box is going out of doors.

Much disagreement too about soil richness with some urging to manure it up and others warning that garlic doesn’t like high nitrogen levels. To be safe, I’ll keep mine in between.
What they do agree on is that garlic needs full sunlight and well drained soil and that it’s particularly important to keep weeds from choking it.

I discover that you harvest when the outer leaves start to turn brown and that the bulbs need to be dug up carefully around August to prevent bruising and thus ruining their storage life.

So I planted my cloves and was rewarded with a windfall of tiny wild garlic cloves currently stored in the fridge. While they're about twice as small as the regular shop bought cloves, they're about five times stronger. We learned this lesson when we dosed up a casserole with just three small cloves and ending up smelling for a week like a frenchman's belch.

Our wild garlic to the left, shop bought to the right

Today the snow is on the ground outside and it's heartening to find that already poking through the white sheet, in one of our raised beds, is this year's brand new garlic crop. From just one bulb last year, I got ten to twelve more all of which I split and planted. From this I got about 120 cloves, half of which were replanted for this year. All for free, or three quid were you to buy that one clove.

This year's fresh crop poking through the snow yesterday

My planned culinary experiments this coming year include attempting to make my own garlic oil and I might even try my hand at black garlic, the new asian culinary phenomenon sweeping the west in the form of heat fermented bulbs.

The other great thing about garlic is that its extraordinary qualities also repel all pests - no crop eating beastie will get its fangs into it. Which reminds me -  I can personally confirm the truth of at least one garlic legend - it’s ability to ward off vampires. I’ve been eating the stuff for years and I haven’t been bit yet!!

Some garlic claims are bona fides.