Just before I started working in the Gairden I had a short stint as a ‘personal shopper’ in one of the giant retail multiples. This involved shoving a giant cart around a vast supermarket and picking people’s internet shopping items whilst being instructed and timed by a computer algorithm which scores you on your speed and accuracy; I wasn’t very fast and didn’t always get it right. Huge respect to all of you personal shoppers out there. Given the algorithmic scoring method I seldom slowed down for anything but I did encounter an item in the fresh produce section which halted me in my tracks and provoked a five minute rant (to no-one in particular). A twin pack of asparagus tips and tenderstem broccoli, one all the way from Peru and the other from Kenya: combined that’s a whopping 10,598 air miles. Both of those nations grow perfectly good produce, but really: that’s a long way for your food to travel, not to mention that out-of-season lack of flavour.
Kat, our treasurer at the stall … in the rain!
So we are encouraged to ‘buy local’ to reduce our carbon footprint and also to support our local growers. Not always so easy to find locally-grown stuff though, eh? There are some stand-out shops around the city which promote low-mileage produce: Root Down in Portobello, New Leaf near the Meadows, the Real Foods Shops, and there is a new branch of Locavore opening in Gorgie later this year. In the meantime we’ve just opened our own wee stall: JOCK TAMSON’S GREENS TO GO. This is one of the ways we distribute the produce we grown in the Gairden. GTG was partly prompted by members of the public chatting to the volunteers while they’ve been out for a walk round the Gairden, “Do you sell your stuff?” “That rhubarb looks lovely, I love a nice crumble” “Those sweet peas smell amazing.” We also wanted to find a source of revenue to help our work be more self-sustaining, so all of the money goes back into running the Gairden and it’s various activities.
Lots of work goes into getting fresh produce onto the stall. Take, for example, the humble tattie: it starts out being purchased back in late winter; chitted to produce healthy shoots in a cool shed; then planted out around Easter (depending on the frost) in a bed that took hours of digging and weeding to prepare; earthed up as the shaws grow; checked for signs of diseases; harvested and stored; selected, weighed and bagged up. We had two excellent crops this year: Epicure first earlies (the old ‘Ayrshire’ variety) and Kestrel second earlies – much of their success was down to the diligence of the volunteers who did all the hard work and some of it to the seaweed-enriched ‘Kelpie’ compost from Caledonian Horticulture.
Preparing the soil for tatties
Sorting the tatties
An important part of what we do in the Gairden centres around the people who work in it: our groups and volunteers. Learning new skills (ground preparation, sowing, maintenance, cropping, packaging, and selling). Working together with people you might not have met otherwise – tea breaks and blethering being just as important as the grafting. Some of the volunteers polished up retail skills they hadn’t used since student days and we all learned how to use the sumup card reader together. One of the Ians (we have three volunteers who answer to that name) has been making signs for us – he used his lockdown time usefully by doing an on-line sign writing course. Duncan is seen hard at work here making the prototype for the stall
Thanks to Ian for the wonderful signage he has made.
Duncan at work creating the Greens to Go stall
As a new charity, Jock Tamson’s is just coming towards the end of its first year and it’s been a wild ride what with the pandemic and the weird weather. We wouldn’t have got off the ground at all without funding from these generous bodies: National Lottery Awards for All, Duddingston Kirk, AEB Charitable Foundation, Foundation Scotland, and The Robertson Trust. The funding to help us set up Greens To Go came from TransPennine Express Transform Grants and from Edinburgh and Lothians Trust Fund. A huge thank you to all of you for making this project possible.
Greens to Go has proved very popular
So save yourself some airmiles and buy from Jock Tamson’s Greens To Go, you can find us in Duddingston Kirk Gardens between 11am and 1pm, Thursdays and Fridays.
We are always happy to welcome you to the Gairden and to have a chat with you, so please feel free to approach our volunteers on site. We’ve had a many people asking about volunteering – and we’re delighted to be able to welcome new volunteers just now Please message us using the contact page. Please be sure to put volunteering in the subject Lizz Spence, Manager Jock Tamson’s Gairden
The herb Gairden. Just a patch of soil a few months ago!
We grown mixed leaf salad here in the Gairden and its been getting good reviews from our customers at the Greens To Go stall, “Recommend the veggies from Jock Tamson’s, the salad leaves were not only delicious but had flower petals, so wonderful for presentation. Will be doing this again”. Nothing looks nicer with salad than a colourful sprinkling of edible flowers, and many contain vitamins, so we try to grow as many varieties as possible; the bed also makes for a glorious view from our Bothy at tea-break time.
The edible flower bed
I’ve always enjoyed growing things that are unusual enough to catch the eye and to entice people to eat things that they might never have considered before. This started for me when I was gardening at the Camas Outdoor Centre on Mull where part of the job was to entice young people to try eating veg when many of them were highly suspicious of anything green. Actually showing them a tomato growing in the polytunnel, for example, was enough to reel them in.
All of the flowers described here are very easy to grow and can mostly be started in modules in a cold frame or sown direct. All of the seeds are readily available, cheap to buy and easy to collect after the plants have flowered. I hope you’ll try your hand at your own edible flower border.
Volunteer with Calendula
Calendula
Calendula (calendula officinalis)
Also known as the ‘pot marigold’ this lovely daisy-like bloom comes in a variety of bright yellows and oranges. This hardy annual is very easy to grow and will readily set seeds for next year which means you’ll find lots of wee seedlings appearing in the bed the following year. Just gently pull off the seedlings and sprinkle over your salad or put a couple of whole flowers on the side of your head. Calendula also has several medicinal uses but I’ll leave that to you to research yourself. Modelling the Calendula today is one of our fabulous hard-working Gairden volunteers.
Volunteer with Clary
Clary
Clary sage (salvia sclarea)
Modelled for us here by another marvellous volunteer – he leaves us all standing when it comes to digging power! He is always cheerful, despite claiming that he never smiles for photos…. Clary is a tri-coloured beauty and a member of the sage family but doesn’t have the same in-your-face smell as its common cousin. The colourful parts are actually bracts whilst the flowers are tiny and white. This one has a long history with its medicinal uses being mentioned by Pliny. A short-lived perennial, it is best grown as hardy annual and either started off in a cold frame or sown directly; it soon grows a glorious display of colours. Btw, the name ‘clary’ originates from the practise of using the sticky seeds to remove foreign object from the eyes and hence help you to see ‘clearly’. While that’s a fascinating bit of etymology, I wouldn’t recommend trying this at home, no really – use water!
The Rev. Dr Jim Jack with Nasturtiums
Nasturtiums
Nasturtiums (tropaeolum majus)
I nabbed the Rev Jim Jack whilst he was passing because I reckoned his blue clerical shirt would show these little beauties off to their best advantage. These are truly marvellous plants with so many uses – just grow them for their cheerfulness alone. All parts of the plant are edible: the flowers, the leaves (full of vitamin C) and the seeds (which can be pickled and used as a substitute for capers.) They attract beneficial insects such as bees; their strong scent repels certain pests and they can also be used as a sacrificial crop to encourage cabbage white butterflies to lay their eggs on their leaves and not on your brassica crops. ‘ They come in all sorts of bright colours, traditionally yellows and oranges but have a look for ‘Baby Rose’ a newer variety – a deep pink-red that looks fabulous in the salad . The various varieties also provide a range of leaf colours: dark blue ‘Blue Pepe’ to white/green variegation ‘Alaska Mixed’. They prefer poor soil – or else they’ll put a lot of effort into growing masses of leaves – so mix some of last years spent container compost in with the new stuff. Incidentally their name – tropaeolum comes from the Greek ‘tropaion’ (a trophy) where the flowers were originally used for the trunk of a trees where the shields and helmets of a defeated army were hung: the leaves resembling the shields and the flowers the helmets. Who’d have thought this innocent wee blossom would have such a gruesome association?
Volunteer with Hollyhock
Hollyhock
Hollyhock (althaea rosea)
This one is modelled for us by the volunteer you’re most likely to find concealed behind the jungle-like growth in the polytunnel, we think she enjoys the heat in there. This flower is an absolute big show-off! It comes in a huge variety of colours and can reach up to eight feet tall. It’s a short-lived perennial, so best grown as an annual, but will readily self-seed around the bed. All parts of the plant are edible and it has numerous medicinal uses. Just one of these big fancy blooms will enhance any plate, transforming a run of the mill dinner into a tropical delight….probably best with something fancier than mince and tatties though. The name hollyhock – is said to come from the ‘holy’ land where the petals were used as a poultice on the ‘hocks’ of injured horses during the crusades. Jings, these flowers and their military origins.
Volunteer with Viola
Viola
Viola (viola tricolour)
Shown here by another volunteer who claims not to smile for photos, I don’t know so much about that, but I do know that his cheery banter makes us all laugh a lot. This wee flower is, in my opinion, the prettiest of all small garden flowers with many varieties providing a great range of delicate colour. It’s a perennial but often looks quite scruffy by the end of the season so grow it as an annual starting the seeds under glass before hardening off and planting out. It will readily self-seed too. Again, this one has a wide range of medicinal properties one of which giving it the common name ‘Heart’ ease’ because a brew containing the flowers was thought to ease a broken heart: hmm, don’t’ try this one at home. The flowers will make any salad or dish look very posh indeed. There are lots of varieties to try, I’d recommend ‘Jump up Johnny’ and ‘Chickychicks’.
Volunteer with Borage
Borage
Borage (borago officinalis)
Modelled for us by a visitor to the garden who I met whilst she sorting out her wee boy’s shoe laces whilst cradling her new baby. I first met this lovely woman when she and her husband were celebrating their wedding in the Garden Room a few years back. This prolific plant gets its name from latin ‘burro – a hairy garment’, describing the furry, slightly jaggy leaves. Both the blue and the white varieties are hugely attractive to bees and therefore encourage pollination in your garden. Top tip: when you’re picking the flowers, take care to shake the plant first to make sure you don’t get stung – I speak from personal experience here. Again, this one has many medicinal uses with its most famous being ‘Starflower Oil’ – widely available to purchase, it is full of gamma linolenic acid which helps regulate hormones – for all you premenstrual and menopausal folks out there. As well as looking fab in the salad, you can also set the flowers in ice cube trays for adding to drinks. This is a hardy annual and is very easy to grow. Caution: will self-seed like mad – pull it out if it’s in the way or leave the odd one to act as a pollinator amongst other crops.
Claudia with Sunflower
Claudia with Sunflower
Sunflower (Heliantus anuus)
Here we have Claudia from Dr Neil’s Garden demonstrating that these are truly edible. The helio (sun) anthus (flower) gets its name from its bold good looks and from the fact that it is heliotropic, i.e. throughout the day the flowers turn their heads to follow the sun’s journey across the skies. Add to salads and garnishes by pulling the petals gently from the flower. Leave the heads on the plant to produce seeds to sow next season or to provide food for the birds. This one comes in a variety of colours ranging from the classic yellow all the way through oranges and reds to browns. Brown flowers? Really? I always associate them with 70’s wallpaper. Originally cultivated as a crop by the indigenous people of North America, the sunflower is now widely grown for the production of oil. They are also widely grown in gardens the length and breadth of the nation, in fact I think it might be illegal not to grow them in a community garden.
The edible flower bed was built by our team of volunteers who made many, many trips across the field with loaded wheelbarrows. A huge thanks to Edinburgh University’s Edinburgh Local Community Grant Scheme for their donation which made the construction of the edible flower bed possible.
Seeing the abundance of crops in Jock Tamson’s Gairden at the moment brings back a happy childhood memory for one of our trustees:
Flowers in the Glebe
When I was a wee boy my mother used to give us (me, sister & brother) a big basket of peas to shell and a bowl for the pods and one for the peas and we would sit on the kitchen doorstep in the morning sun.
Vegetables flourish in the Polytunnel
My mother told us that while we were shelling peas we had to keep whistling, no matter what, because it bought good luck.
Not peas, but potatoes.
So we would go out and think it was hilarious and we would happily shell peas and whistle and giggle and if we stopped whistling my mother would shout “ don’t stop the lovely whistling” so we whistle and giggled some more and had lots of yummy fresh peas at lunchtime.
It was years before I realised that you can’t whistle and eat peas at the same time. 🙂
Blooming in Jock Tamson’s Gairden
Editors note: This is also the reason why on sailing ships in days of yore the cook was the only one allowed to whistle!
We are just past midsummer and whilst the nights are technically drawing in the Gairden is rich with growth. It all adds to the sense of tranquillity that many volunteers seek.
The gairden with Thomson’s Tower and Duddingston Loch in the background
The Gairden, including the University of the Third Age plot.
The trustees recently had a development day in order to learn more about what is involved in being a trustee and to consider future plans.
We met in the Gairden and the sun came and went throughout the day, but we stayed warm and were able to have a very convivial and constructive session.
It was a delight to be in the Gairden and see how much growth there has been recently.
The recently planted herb garden, including many varieties of mint, sage and much more. This was just tiny seedlings a few weeks ago.
John was born to a minister, Rev. Thomas Thomson, in Dailly, a small village in Ayrshire. Early on his father decided that John should follow him into the ministry. However, John was not of a mind to do this and much preferred drawing and wanted to become an artist. This desire fell on deaf ears and therefore he started studying for the ministry at Edinburgh University. This turned out to be an advantage as the city provided an opportunity to gain more knowledge of the arts. One of the leading artists then was Alexander Nasmyth with whom John became acquainted and studied under for a while. Examples of both their works can be seen in Roslyn Chapel and the National Galleries of Scotland.
John’s father died in 1800 when John was only 21 and he returned to Dailly to succeed his father as minister. This turned out to be a big mistake as neither John or his parishioners were happy with the situation as it was obvious that he preferred painting to the ministry and this secluded village in Ayrshire wasn’t the place for him. His artistic leanings also meant that he had a sense of humour which did not go down well when leading his congregation. By 1805 things had reached a stage where it was better for him to leave Dailly and he headed to Edinburgh to continue his ministry at Duddingston Kirk. It was noted, however, that at no time did he neglect parish in either location. At Duddingston he was able to fulfil both his pastoral duties but also indulge his love of painting in the beautiful location of the manse looking out across the loch.
There is the famous tale of him converting the upper floor of the tower on the loch shore into an artist’s studio which he named ‘Edinburgh’ – that meant, with a clear conscience, he could leave a note for his housekeeper to tell any visiting parishioner that he had gone to Edinburgh, meaning he was undisturbed!
Over the next years he became an established artist and his sales of painting brought him an income well beyond his stipend. He was also an accomplished musician and entertained many celebrities of the day at the manse.
He died in 1840 at a manse window overlooking the loch.
A view of Duddingston Loch from the Manse
Since then, Duddingston Kirk has been blessed with a long list of able clergymen continuing John’s good work.
We are always happy to welcome you to the Gairden and to have a chat with you, so please feel free to approach our volunteers on site. We’ve had a huge number of people asking about volunteering -especially after the end of lockdown so we’re in the happy position of having a full team of helpers at the moment. There will be spaces available as the year progresses so please let me know if you’d like me to add your name to the waiting list. Message us using the contact page. Please be sure to put volunteering in the subject Lizz Spence, Manager Jock Tamson’s Gairden
Everywhere you look in the Gairden there are green shoots. I took this picture a week or so ago and it will be very interesting to follow the growing cycle through the year. It is a grand vista, with Duddingston Loch in the background, a hint of sunshine and new life appearing.
