REAPING WHAT YOU SOW
With the soil warming, it’s now time to start thinking about growing your own vegetables
As we approach the last week in March and the soil continues to warm up, it’s time to get growing if you want to be harvesting fruit and vegetables from your own garden plot this summer.
Most outdoor crop seeds need the soil to be 7C for them to germinate, so depending on what part of the country you are in, it may pay to delay sowing until April. Alternatively, fleece or cloches can be used to protect early outdoor sowings or, better still, a small polythene tunnel.
If you’ve never done this before, here’s a few pointers to get you started. The vast majority of fruit and veg will do best in a sunny position. It used to be that kitchen gardens would be confined to the end of your plot behind a hedge but these days many gardeners are happy to show off their efforts, so if the sunniest position is near the house, then that’s the best growing spot.
Some veg are attractive in their own right such as the architectural leaves of rhubarb, statuesque artichokes and French beans climbing up wigwams. But you can also dress the area with flowering nasturtiums and marigolds.
Herbs look great too and can attract beneficial insect predators such as the ladybird which will hoover up aphids. They like herbs such as mint, chives, coriander, fennel and dill.
Next, your soil. This needs to be fertile and
well drained. If your soil is very poor, installing raised beds with a mixture of topsoil (60%) and compost (40%) is a good solution. It cuts out all that digging and each year you can enrich with a new layer of compost. Raised beds are easier on your back as well as there’s less bending over, and the soil warms up earlier than the ground soil.
Try to use untreated wood when constructing the beds – the last thing you want is creosote oozing onto your veg.
Crop rotation means not growing the same type of veg in the same soil every year as this leads to a build-up of pests and diseases specific to that plant.
Instead, each year plant a different type of veg in the soil. Traditionally this has been done by dividing the veg plot into four sections – one for potatoes and tomatoes, one for peas and beans, one for roots such as carrots and parnsips, and a section for the brassicas (cabbage, cauliflowers etc).
If you’re only using a small area, you could cultivate potatoes one year, cabbage the next, or you could use containers to supplement your space.
If you’re gardening on a balcony or smaller patio spaces, be creative and think vertical. This could be a stepped ladder to grow herbs on or hanging baskets for strawberries, lettuce and tomatoes – which also keep slugs and snails at a good distance.
In towns and suburban areas space is increasingly at a premium and gardeners are becoming wonderfully inventive about where to grow food.
A warm south-facing wall could produce quite a crop of herbs and fruit. There are also lots of dwarf varieties of veg and fruit trees so you can seek out what you like to eat.
If you’re ready to sow, the following can go outdoors now: broad beans, salad leaves, carrots, parsnips, radishes, broccoli, summer cabbage, kale, spinach and turnips. You can also plant onion and garlic sets, potatoes and asparagus crowns.
Some crops are tender which means they will be damaged by frost, so these you start indoors. They include tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and aubergines. They will also need a bit of heat to germinate, so use either a warm windowsill or a heated propagator.
As with all gardening, if you haven’t grown your own before, I won’t pretend it’s all plain sailing. There will be failures as well as triumphs. But it is wonderfully satisfying when it works.
In our heads we often say I’ll try that next year. Well, now is next year – the perfect time to get growing your own.
There will be failures but it’s also very satisfying