Stop the press!

Tatton celebrates its first majestic pineapple crop

There's been lot's in the news and on the radio recently about Tatton Park's impressive crop of Pineapples... you may have heard about the first crop grown on the estate in over 100 years!

So if you haven't heard and have been wondering what all the fuss is about here's the success story of the glorious, regal fruit....

Tatton Park is the only garden and property in the country with a traditional working pineapple house, We recently celebrated the revival of the Great British pineapple by welcoming Councillor George Walton, Mayor of Cheshire East Council, who was presented with the first of hopefully many pineapple crops from the pinery. 

'The King of Fruits'

This highly prized fruit was greatly valued in the 18^th century (around £5,000 in today’s cash!). Known as ‘The King of Fruits’ it was celebrated when Tatton re-created a historical scene from the late 1600s when Charles II was presented with the first pineapple cultivated on English soil by his gardener John Rose - Councillor George Walton, who also chairs the Tatton Park board, was presented with Tatton’s pineapple by gardener John Hoxworth who is responsible for the pineapple house.

Above: Tatton’s pineapple being presented to Councillor George Walton by one of Tatton Park's gardeners John Hoxworth

Above: Charles II presented with the first pineapple cultivated on English soil by his gardener John Rose

It's a big achievement for Tatton's garden team as it has been over 100 years since the last pineapple crop was grown at Tatton - imported fruit killed their social status - and in time the pinery became a vinery and then gradually fell into disrepair. Thanks to £2.5m from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the former Cheshire County Council (now Cheshire East Council) the National Trust and Cheshire Rural Enterprise Tatton’s six-acre walled kitchen gardens have been gradually restored to their halcyon days.

The pinery was officially opened in 2007 by Sophie, Countess of Wessex. Two years on saw another milestone when the first pineapple was produced after a labour intensive propagation process, (and some TLC from our garden team). Now five years on, Tatton celebrates its first fully functioning crop.

'The King of Fruits'

Here's the science bit...

Pineapple cultivation involves the rotation of three bays for planting, growing and maturing the fruit. They are grown in the traditional way in a pot on a special mixture of oak–leaf compost which creates the same levels of heat as tanner’s bark, a waste product from the tanning industry, originally used when growing pineapple but now no longer available. The complex process which sees a little slip turn into a full plant can take up to three years and requires a combination of heat and humidity for successful germination and growth.

Our head gardener,  Simon Tetlow, explains, “from set up, to establishing a full crop it has taken five years! But it has been well worth the wait, and we hope to soon be growing as many as 300 pineapples a year, which will supply Tatton’s Garden Shop and restaurant”

Above: Head Gardener, Simon Tetlow, with the prized fruit.

You can read coverage on the pineapples on BBC News England and Manchester Evening News.

Caroline Jackson, Marketing

Alliums all over the place!

In the last few days I have been planting out the leeks and onions in the kitchen garden. We’re using Musselborough leeks, a traditional variety and Ailsa Craig onions – a large, bulbing onion which is also a traditional variety.

With the leeks I’ve been topping and tailing them – that’s where you take an inch off the roots and an inch off the top because you plant them using a dibber and you just drop the leek into the hole and water them in. I’ve planted over 50 so far since 8.30am this morning! I’ve got three crops of leeks to go in this year, plus my giant winter leeks so there’ll be plenty for the garden shop and soup-lovers everywhere!

I’ve been looking at reducing the amount of ‘thick necks’ that we have in the onion crop. This can cause ‘neck rot’ when they’re in storage. There are various reasons for this including the soil being too loose and/or too firm. If the soil is too firm the onion has to force its way through the soil, which is why it develops a thick neck. So in order to counteract this they have to be planted at the same height that the bulb is on the stem. However, if you plant it too high, it’s loose in the soil and it bolts. Tricky business! Onion varieties we’ve sown include Bedfordshire Champion, Red Brunswick and Red Baron.

I have over 60 baby pineapple plants now, of which there are probably ten ready for potting up to go in the Pinery. This is the largest number of plants we’ve had since the restoration of the Pinery and we’re now running two beds. One of the beds is a fruiting bed and the other is a succession bed, producing side shoots for potting up, that will eventually go into the fruiting bed. It is the usual practice to take the first two to three side shoots of each plant due to the fact that any produced after the third one usually has much less vigour than the first two or three (I found this out after some experimentation!).

The current fruiting plants are ready to be potted on and are likely to fruit in the next sized pot which will hopefully be in the next eight months.

John Hoxworth

Craftsman Gardener

The diagram above shows the layout of the restored Pinery. At present, the West Compartment is used for fruiting and the East Compartment is used for producing side shoots from plants which have previously fruited.

Pineapple House Re-Stocked

I’m a member of the glasshouse and Kitchen Garden teams. In the last week, I have been working on re-stocking the pineapple house with 40 new pineapple plants, of the variety ‘British Queen’, which are all already fruiting. The Pinery/Vinery was restored in 2007, to re-introduce pineapple production to Tatton, a traditional feature of the kitchen gardens.

Unfortunately, due to the extreme winter we lost all our previous crop in January and February. We’re hoping we’ll be harvesting some fruit from these new plants by the autumn. This is a good time to crop them because, by then, they will hopefully have reached their full size and will taste at their best.

The plants have been potted up and then plunged into the pineapple pits in the Pinery/Vinery. The bed consists of fermenting oak leaves that provide bottom heat to generate root growth. This is a traditional method – others use ‘tanner’s bark’, but this does generate a lot of heat and can be hard to regulate, whereas oak leaves provide a more uniform heat around the pots.

The idea is to produce good pineapples rather than just growing them. This means, we need to pay attention to watering and ventilation, and ‘damping down’ (sprinkling water across the paths, walls, glass and misting over the top of the pineapples themselves). All three things are important and need to be in balance in order to produce a good fruit. This is something I will be checking on a daily basis during my working days.

John Hoxworth, Craftsman Gardener