Kitchen Gardener Rob Smith gets the plot in shape ready for spring
The gradually extending daylight hours mean more gardening time
As the light’s getting a little stronger and lasting longer, it’s getting easier to find time to get jobs done in the garden.
I’m removing some of the celery plants I left in the kitchen garden over winter; they were mulched well and kept for the leaves, which I use to flavour stock and soups in the colder months. Now I’ve frozen what I need, I’ll start adding manure to the beds that haven’t had it in autumn, so the celery’s off to the compost bin, along with a couple of cabbages that have started to rot. I’m also cutting the outdoor mizuna (which has coped pretty well with the recent rain and snow), as I’m hoping the haircut will force it to put on a spurt of new, tender leaves for me to harvest before it goes to seed, or I need the bed for something else. This is a bit of an experiment as I’m not sure it’ll work, but as the saying goes, ‘every day’s a school day’! With March just around the corner, I’m making sure I winter prune any remaining fruit that needs shaping before it comes into leaf; this includes apples, pears, medlars and my little quince tree, which seems to be growing a little wonky, with one side racing skywards. I’m also thinning the centre as there are a few branches growing inwards, so I’m hoping this will make the tree look a little more shapely and let it produce its gorgeous flowers and fruit. Red and white currants, plus gooseberries, can also be pruned this month if you haven’t already done so.
One final plant I’ll be taking my secateurs to is my lemon tree, which needs the dominant branches cutting back to shape it now I’ve harvested the fruit. This is the same for all citrus – they can all be shaped this month. Make sure you wipe away scale insect or sooty mould which can be present on citrus now.
I’m also sowing a few more veg this week, starting with a new tomato that’s been recommended to me – ‘Rubylicious’. This small cherry apparently has a really good flavour and a lasting sweet aftertaste, so I’m sowing a few seeds now in the heated propagator ready to pot up and plant in both the greenhouse and outside, as it’s also supposed to have great blight resistance. I’ll be sowing other varieties as well, including ‘Rosella’,
‘Marinda’, and ‘Crimson Cocktail F1’. When sowing, I start the seeds in good quality peat-free compost in a tray, then I prick the individual plants out into their own pots. I’m sowing extra this year as a friend is having a new greenhouse built and so doesn’t have the space to sow seeds at the minute.
Along with a line of radish seed under a cloche, I’m also starting some Batavia lettuce ‘Relay’ in the unheated greenhouse. These types of lettuce are sweet, crisp and slow to bolt, so should produce a nice loose-leaf, red lettuce within a couple of months.