Riches from the Garden
The Bannockburn House Trust Garden Blog
– by Margaret Pollock
Summer 2025 is proving to be a bumper year for all our crops. In June and July we had mountains of Blackcurrants. Our harvested onions are huge and now we are picking boxes of delicious, ripe tomatoes.
We have grown six varieties this year: ‘Moneymaker’ and ‘Shirley’ are the biggest ones. ‘Gardener’s Delight’, ‘Sweet Million’, ‘Sungold’ and ‘Black Cherry’ are the scrumptious, small tomatoes. My personal favourite is the ‘Black Cherry’ which is more of a mahogany-purple colour when ripe and has a sweet but tangy taste.
Tomatoes are so common in our kitchens that we almost take them for granted yet it was only the invention of plate glass, featured in the Great Exhibition of 1851 at Crystal Palace, that allowed large-scale cultivation of tomatoes to begin in British glasshouses. This offered the plants protection from our cooler climate and extra warmth to ripen the fruits, thus many people became commercial tomato growers.
Originally grown in Mexico, for thousands of years, tomatoes first appeared in Scotland in the16th century but, as they were initially thought to be poisonous, it took a few hundred years for them to become the accepted food we know and love.
When do you think tins of Campbells Condensed Tomato Soup first appeared on the market – a) 1897; b) 1927; or c) 1987? See answer * below…..
The neighbouring farmer was busy last week bringing in the barley. Fortunately he completed the harvest, gathering and storing all the straw bales before the rain came. There is such a difference in the landscape once the quivering barley has been cut.
Only the yellow stubble remains, then hordes of pigeons, crows and starlings appear gleaning the fallen grains to augment their autumn fayre.
The Doo’cot stands, silent, amid this glowing, golden field, the rugged texture of the furrows accentuating the rough texture of its ancient stone walls. It has dominated this scene for 327 years, witness to many harvests. When it was built in 1698, it was quite a status symbol as you needed to own a substantial area of land to support the flock of birds within. You see, pigeons will happily eat your grain and your neighbour’s, so in 1617, a law was passed, stating that you could only have a doo’cot if you were producing grain over a 2 mile radius around the building. This was to ensure that the pigeons only fed on the landowner’s own crops.
You should have harvested your potato bags by now and it would be lovely if we could have some photographs of your achievements.
Did you remember to water them or did the novelty wear off and so you only got a few tatties? Maybe you were on holiday and the dry sunny weather caught you out or you genuinely forgot to look after them….
We’d love to see some pictures of your successes or failures so please send us some feedback (reply to this post ) on our Facebook page.
Here’s a picture of the harvest from a couple of our plants grown in the ground.
As you can see, we got quite a return from two plants!
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* Quiz answer: – Campbells tomato soup first appeared in 1897
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