If you ask most gardeners in this country why they cultivate their tilth, they
will say it is to create somewhere beautiful in which they and their family
can spend time relaxing. Over the past few years, growing your own food has
become important, but, ultimately, producing pretty plants — edible or not —
is still going to come out top of the polls.
For Bob Flowerdew, however, the beauty is all in the bite. His garden in
Dickleburgh, near Diss, Norfolk, is a huge testing ground for the best
produce for his plate — and those of the 920,000 listeners to BBC Radio 4’s
Gardeners’ Question Time, on which he has been a panellist for 17 years. His
recommendations of the tastiest tomatoes for outdoor cultivation or how to
grow pineapples are as much part of the middle-class aural wallpaper as Ruth
and David Archer squabbling in the cowshed.
Flowerdew, 57, has lived in his three-bedroom bungalow for 26 years. He now
shares it with his Jamaican-born wife, Vonnetta, 30, whom he married in
2002, and their four-year-old twins, Malachi and Italia. Although he writes
prolifically — his books on organic gardening have sold more than 500,000
copies — he keeps a low profile. “Well, I’m not trying to be a celebrity,”
he says. “I’m trying to remain an expert.”
Interviewing Flowerdew, who is also president of the Norfolk group of the Soil
Association — and yes, that is his real name; the family has been in the
county for at least 500 years — is like a one-on-one Gardeners’ Question
Time. The man hardly draws breath, cheerfully dispensing horticultural tips
as if he were giving away free packets of lettuce seed.
It is not that he is pompous, just that he can’t help talking about the thing
he loves. And he is certainly not fussy about looking smart: on a chilly
day, he flings on one of his wife’s cardigans and slips wellies over his
bobbly old tracksuit pants. Were it not for his trademark waist-length
plait, you would suspect him of caring not a sun-ripened fig for
appearances. “My wife says, ‘Will you please look in a mirror? You’ve got
mud all over your face.’garden, covering three-quarters of an acre, is,
basically, a giant allotment that produces year-round organic food for the
family. Ornamental plants hardly get a look-in. Nor does Vonnetta, so it is
a good thing she doesn’t want to join him in the veg beds. “My previous
girlfriend loved gardening. The trouble is, she wanted to take over,” he
jokes. “It wasn’t my garden any more.” The battle between the sexes over the
beds is an issue that often comes up on Gardeners’ Question Time. “The
answer is, find a partner who doesn’t like gardening. A plane can only have
one pilot.”
Judging from Vonnetta’s impressive red-painted talons and gorgeous high-heeled
shoes stacked in the hallway, if she were to take over the cockpit, the
garden would have more emphasis on beautiful borders. As it is, Flowerdew is
more concerned with thrift and nutritional value than visuals; his is no
decorative, Villandry-style potager.
If newspaper makes the best mulch and saves on weeding, he will spread it out
on the ground. Piles of old tyres make not only good walls, but containers
to grow strawberries. Citrus fruits and tender plants are raised in old
plastic buckets that, in winter, can be brought under cover in the large
polytunnel. Here the paths are made from old white radiators, laid flat to
bounce around the light, and there is another bubblewrap tent within,
providing an inner sanctum in winter for more tender plants such as sugar
cane and pineapples, which are warmed with a 1kW fan heater.
Old chest freezers, with their seals pierced to let in air, make convenient,
if not exactly picturesque, storage for apples and pears in the sheds
outside, and by an old sofa is a pile of what looks like sheep’s wool: in
fact, it is Vonnetta’s discarded hairpieces, which Flowerdew hangs on lines
to scare the birds off his seedlings.
He has recently published the paperback edition of Grow Your Own, Eat Your
Own, the ingredients of which include growing instructions and recipes, as
well as different ways of extending the season by growing under cover and
staggering sowing newspaper. When there is a glut, as well as using the freezer,
he shows us how to smoke and juice, bottle and jam, pickle and crystallise.
He also wants us to experiment: to nibble away at the fruits of a swiss cheese
plant (the pulp is like a cross etween an apple and a banana), the berries
of a fuchsia (the ‘Californian Dreamers’ series and F procumbens have the
best flavours), the sweetly fleshy and perfumed strawberry guava (Psidium
cattleianum, which needs winter protection from frost) and, for the brave,
the chokeberry (aronia), full of vitamin C, although that might be a
challenge too far in terms of astringency — “To use the Norfolk, it draws
your arse up to your elbow”, says a chortling Flowerdew.
With all this produce, including honey from beehives and meat and eggs from
his chickens, you would think he never visits the shops. Not so. “I spend a
fortune,” he confesses. “The Norfolk catch of anchovies is very light most
years, and so is olive-oil production. I’ve had olives here for
twentysomething years and have only had one olive. It came with the original
tree.”
It is refreshing to meet someone so content with what they have, seemingly
possessed of a Candide-like appreciation that, in order to be happy, we must
cultivate our gardens. As he says on his website: “I’ve also played in a
local band, sung in a choir, I draw, paint and pastel, and have been hung in
Norwich’s School of Art, sculpt and carve, cook fabulous food, make the best
juices, wines and delights, so live better than a king.
BOB’S CROP TIPS
If you are new to veg, throw away 36 of the 40 seed packets you have bought.
You should start off with four or five favourites. Don’t commit yourself to
too big a patch, as the weeding and watering takes a lot of time.
- It may be easier to buy young plants — there are plenty on the shelves at
the moment — than to start from seed, as there is a lot to learn. Stick them
in the ground and they are almost guaranteed to produce.
- Fruit bushes and trees can be taken with you if you move house. For example,
you can lift pear trees at any age, as they have a small, fibrous root
system - Thin out fruits such as apples that are growing opposite each other
on a stem: the one you leave will grow much larger without the competition.
When storing, keep only those in perfect condition or they may rot. Use
blemished ones for jams, purées and so on.
- Extend the harvesting time of salad leaves by lifting alternate young plants
and replanting them; they will mature a week or two later than those left in
the ground.
- To salt french and runner beans for storage, top and tail them, then mix
with salt in a ratio of 3:1 in weight. Pack into jars with plastic lids and
the salt will turn to brine as the beans give up their water content and
shrink, so you can repeat in a week or so.
Grow Your Own, Eat Your Own by Bob Flowerdew (Kyle Cathie £14.99)