A Busy time for planting and sowing

Spring looks like it has finally arrived

but more importantly for us growers, the soil temperature has reached a reasonable level and we are now playing catch up to get vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers sown or planted.

However, I am just going to sound a word of caution here. Don’t go mad and throw all your seeds into the ground, as there are still some reports of frosts coming later this week. I recommend making good use of window sills, greenhouses etc to protect seeds and seedlings; or if you prefer to sow straight into the ground, then you may want to wait a while.

If you have sown seeds in trays or pots then don’t forget to water them. It sounds obvious, but it is easy to forget and can dry out pretty quickly, especially if they are just in the little pots – I have put a reminder on my phone!

My sweet peas and marigolds are doing brilliantly. I am now putting them out during the day (if it is warm), but being sure to bring them in at night. Marigolds are fantastic companion plants and I will be planting these alongside my potatoes and squash as well as in my flower bed.

In fact when it comes to companion planting, marigolds definitely rock! They keep the soil free of bad nematodes and have rather a strong aroma which discourages harmful insects, including whitefly. You can also use the leaves to make a spray.

Take some leaves and crushed stems and add to a bucket of water, leave to stand and just stir every so often. After seven days, sieve the liquid to get rid of the plant material. I dilute the liquid with the same amount of water, mixed with some soft soap and use this to spray on my potatoes and tomatoes to try to prevent blight. There are different varieties of marigolds and the Mexican ones are not happy bed fellows for beans and brassicas.

Speaking of brassicas, most of mine were sown a couple of weeks ago and are settling in well in the new greenhouse. I open the front of this up, if is a warm day, but am sure to zip it up at night to keep them snug.

 This weekend was a very exciting one, as I managed to plant my spuds! Touch wood, that since having an allotment for the last couple of years, I have had some really good crops of potatoes that have lasted right through the winter.

My seed potatoes are from the organic gardening catalogue and I have found the Robinta, Orla and Desiree varieties to be a nice combination. I haven’t tried planting new potatoes and would welcome any feedback/suggestions on this.

I tend to order my seed potatoes in January and put them in egg boxes on a window sill to chit, before planting them from mid-March or April, depending on the weather. By the way, chitting is the process which encourages the seed potato to sprout before planting. Your seed potatoes will have a blunt end with some ‘eyes’ on it. This end should be stood up in the egg trays and the shoots will take about 6 weeks to develop.

Now digging a potato trench can sound a bit daunting, but don’t worry it does not need to be something from the Somme! You are aiming for it to be about 3 – 5inches deep (or about a spade depth). Leave about 30 cm between each row. Place the seed potatoes gently in the bottom of the trench (with the shoots pointing up), then cover them lightly with soil.  The exact spacings and timings are affected by whether your potatoes are ‘earlies’, ‘mids’ or ‘lates’.

As the shoots appear you need to earth up the soil so that the shoots are just covered and keep doing this. You will end up with a ridge about 15cm high when it comes to harvesting the potatoes. It is important to do this and to keep the potatoes covered. If they are exposed to sunlight then they will turn green and you certainly don’t want to be eating them.

The other key task achieved over the weekend was sowing my parsnips. You really want these to go in situ as they don’t like to be moved. The finer the soil, the better as this means the root can grow unchecked and therefore nice and straight! I had dug the bed a few times and finished it off by raking.

I have to confess that this is not my favourite job, as I find it rather monotonous and it is only when I look at an un-raked bed that I really see any benefit. However, there is no denying that it gives a nice fine tilth to the top which no doubt, the seeds appreciate.

I planted two seeds at around 15cm intervals, about 1.5cm deep in rows that were 30cm apart. Don’t forget to label your rows, as it is very handy for knowing where to water, before the leaves start to appear.

My carrots were sown a while ago, in a bath – but that is a story for another blog…

Second Rule of Foraging

‘Don’t pick lower than a dog’s cocked leg’

This was the mantra that went round and round in my head whilst blackberry picking last autumn. I was even starting to turn it into a song – foraging is great fun, but your mind can start to wander a little bit!

Rule number two – remembering that these are just ones I have put together and aren’t some sort of foraging bible - is really about being aware of the environment that the food you are collecting comes from. For example, if you pick blackberries from beside the road then they are going to have a rather nasty coating of exhaust fumes and roadside waste, which means they won’t taste nice or be very good for you.

Other potential hazards include farmers spraying their crops (and the hedgerows) with fertilizer and pesticides; contaminated ground water; human waste and factory pollution.

It is just about being observant: 

• If you are foraging by water and it is smelly, then you may be near a sewage outlet or industrial pollutant and should move to another area.

• Gardens and allotments are potentially excellent sites for foraging (taking vegetables from somebody’s beloved plot is undeniably stealing, not ‘foraging’) so it should definitely be yours or one belonging to a friend. However, many allotmenteers use herbicides and insecticides and you do not want to be eating food that has been sprayed. The signs to look for are a whitish deposit on the leaves, if the leaves are wilting, or someone walking around with a spray labelled herbicide or insecticide. 

• If there is a lot of evidence of dogs, then my rule is especially relevant. Of course some plants, such as nettles, aren’t higher than a cocked leg. But use your common sense and pick from behind the front row, as it is a brave dog that will go in amongst the nettles…

One of the joys of foraging is being out and about in our beautiful countryside, which means that you are likely to be away from many contaminates. However, I would advise taking time to study your foraging environment, as this is all part of the joy of reconnecting with and getting to know nature and its wildlife.

Don’t forget to always wash your foraged plants, berries, leaves etc

Gardening jobs I would have expected to have done…

… except that it is still snowing

It has been a tough start to the year for gardeners, thanks to a very wet winter and a snowy start to spring making it difficult to get outside and get the beds cleared, dug and prepared.

This late cold snap also means the soil is still very cold. I recently heard that you shouldn’t start your spring sowing/planting until you can sit comfortably (bare cheeked) on your soil. Since hearing this bit of gardening ‘wisdom’ I have been rather traumatised by the image of many of my allotment neighbours sitting on their plots with their trousers round their ankles, which would not be a pretty sight!

Anyway - pushing that image to the back of my mind - by the end of March I would usually expect to have a sown or planted a number of the crops on my allotment and to be enjoying the longer sunny days.

My chitted potatoes would definitely be in the ground, but they are still sitting on the window ledge. I would usually have started to sow carrots, parsnips and various other crops, but these are also delayed.

So what can we be doing? Well, I have covered my beds with some black fabric, not only to keep the weeds at bay, but also to try to absorb any warmth we get into the soil. The clocks have gone forward, so there are more hours of daylight (and hopefully sunshine) even if the wind chill factor is high.

I think the key thing to remember is to sow/plant by what the weather is doing, rather than just following what the seed packets say. Many of the crops that I would have expected to be underway can still be sown/planted in April or May.

However, I did spend the Easter weekend sowing seeds, including leeks, calabrese, Brussels sprouts and lettuces. These have all gone into my new purchase (pictured), as they don’t need to be indoors or in a snug greenhouse. I know that many of you will have fantastic greenhouse real-estate, but I am quite new to all of this and am rather proud of my little shelter. 

I don't sow carrots in pots or trays, as transplanting carrot seedlings wafts the smell around and the carrot flies come running, hopping, or whatever it is they do. Anyway, better to just sow them thinly where you want them.

However, I have sown courgettes, squashes, sweet peas and marigolds in pots and they are settled in on various window ledges and other surfaces around the house. I did have a slight mishap with this task - we all know that it is important to clearly label your pots/ seed trays etc with what you have sown, variety, dates etc. I must have been a little distracted as I ended up with a tray of sweat peas! Just have to hope that they don’t live up to this name…