Rob Smith is in the kitchen garden
As we come into the darkest part of the year, we need to take every opportunity to get in the garden and complete jobs that need doing before spring comes around.
If you’re thinking of planting rhubarb or splitting existing plants, now’s the perfect time to get the job done. Rhubarb is a fantastic perennial in the kitchen garden, but to keep plants healthy and cropping to their best, you need to split crowns every five years or so to make sure they don’t rot in the centre. Now plants are dormant you can dig them up, then using a sharp spade you need to cut the plant into three or four sections, making sure each has a growing tip. You can then transplant the sections or gift them to gardening friends (making sure to replant one in your own garden!). Adding manure to the hole will help the plant establish and feed it when it bursts back into life in spring, and when planting make sure you don’t cover the growing tip – it needs to be slightly proud of the soil level.
You may remember that earlier in the year I started off a pawpaw (Asimina triloba) from seed in the greenhouse. Now the plant has dropped its leaves, it’s time to pot it up in the next size container to allow the tap root to develop a little and get the plant ready for spring. I’m using a mix of home-made compost, top soil and a scattering of mycorrhizal fungi to help the roots develop. I’ll then keep it in the unheated greenhouse in a shady area. Newly-growing pawpaw need a little protection from the sun and cold winters until they’ve developed at least 12 true leaves (usually two years), then they should be fine to plant outside in the majority of the UK.
I’m also potting up a grafted variety called ‘Sunflower’ from www.lubera.co.uk, which will hopefully pollinate my seed-grown wild variety; again I’m using the same potting mix and will leave them in the unheated greenhouse until spring. Plants grow wild by the side of streams and ditches in the US, so I’m hoping they’ll love the damper part of my garden.
While we’re talking fruit, it’s almost time to harvest the citrus, which will be ripening over the next few weeks. You can really see
the colour starting to change, so make sure to keep feeding with winter citrus food (or three quarter strength summer food) and only water when the top of the soil begins to dry out. I’m hoping to serve home-grown lemon with my prawn cocktails on Christmas Day – and maybe in a G&T, too!
Other fruit to get a head start on include strawberries; moving established plants into containers in the greenhouse should give you fruit earlier than those grown outside. Don’t overwater them through winter and the extra heat in the greenhouse should force them into leaf quickly. They’re perfect to grow in pots, baskets or troughs that can then be moved outside after the frosts to carry on cropping. I like
to use day-neutral ‘Delizz’, as they crop until the first frost!