Transition Derby

A short visit at any time of the year to Meynell Langley Gardens just six miles from Derby, rewards the gardener with a chance to see hundreds of varieties of flowering and fruiting plants in tip-top condition at reasonable prices. A few Transition Derby people dropped by at midsummer and had a chat with full-timer Simon Bacon. Simon trained at Broomfield and has worked for the business run by the Walker family, for eighteen years. In the old walled garden he pointed out the extensive range of fruit trees – potted ones available in the summer months with bare-rooted ones to arrive in November for winter planting.

 For a small charge ‘The Trials Garden’ can be visited. This is where pruning demonstrations are run. The next one is on July 24^th. One specimen which you mustn’t leave the centre without seeing is the espaliered peach tree set on a south-facing wall in its own glasshouse. We were told that an elderly visitor recently said that her great-great grandfather had ‘tied-in’ the growths on the young tree – it’s believed to be the largest in the Midlands and to have been planted in 1845. I wonder if that makes it the oldest as well? We sampled one of the pale fruit from the heavy crop – very sweet and very juicy!

The Gardens has now cut its peat use drastically and uses Vital Earth products. This range of composts and growing mediums is what’s made just up the road in Ashbourne, from the contents of the ‘brown bins’ collected from Derby and Derbyshire homes. The brassicas were growing on a bed of it. Here the customer can serve themselves to young plants for ‘growing-on’. Lucy made a selection of caulis, brussels and cabbages – a total of 20 plants for just £2.50!

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