The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Busy times ahead
John has got his first tatties in the ground – and it’s also a good time to think about sowing some annual flower seeds
Ihave always tried to work to a plan for sowing and planting on my allotment, with timing based on previous year’s experience. Last year we had a mild winter followed by an early warm spring, so plans were brought forward by two weeks with potato planting starting at the end of February. This year we still got a mild winter but ending with continual rains keeping us off the wet ground, so gardening has been put back by a few weeks.
Potato planting started in mid-March with my first early Casa Blanca, though the ground is still very slow to warm up.
To give the spuds a good start, I take out a furrow, add good garden compost along the bottom then plant my sprouted tubers a foot apart along the row.
After covering over the row, I add some potato fertiliser. Second early and main crop potatoes will go in towards the end of March.
Pick a few dry sunny days and start with some outdoor seed sowing. End of March is a good time to sow a row of Leek Musselburgh.
Sow thinly so the small plants have room to grow and make a sturdy plant for transplanting in a couple of months’ time.
Late March is also a good time to sow some annual flower seeds such as poppies, godetia, candytuft, cornflowers and Livingston daisies.
Annuals are great for adding some colour and interest wherever you find a bare patch of ground.
Land set aside for courgettes, pumpkins and sweet corn will lie bare
Annuals are great for adding some colour and interest wherever you find a bare patch of ground
till the beginning of June as these crops are all very sensitive to cold weather and frosts, so take this chance to increase the soil fertility by sowing down a green manure crop of clover, ryegrass, vetches or field beans, or even mustard if you do not have a clubroot disease problem.
These grow fast so are ready to trample down and dig in about three weeks ahead of planting.
Outdoor tasks are now getting under way with the first cut for lawns now the grass is putting on a fair bit of growth.
Raise the blades for the first couple of cuts and check for weeds and moss if you want the perfect lawn.
However, ignore the weeds if the young kids are still around and prefer a lawn with daisies, buttercups, dandelions and other interesting weeds, sorry, flowers!
Harvesting last year’s cabbages, sprouts, kale, leeks, swedes and parsnips is now scaling back as crops become depleted, but now young rhubarb clumps are in full growth and soon pulling a few sticks for dessert is very welcome.
Give the clumps a feed of fertiliser and a mulch of well rotted garden compost to retain moisture.
Early strawberry Christine can be encouraged to flower and fruit two to three weeks ahead of normal by erecting a low polythene tunnel over the row, but make sure all the weeds are removed first as well as any old straw left over from the previous year.
Check over outdoor spring flowering pots and tubs and replace any failures with fresh spring bedding plants such as pansies and polyanthus.
Now is the time to sow crops for this year’s vegetable patch and greenhouse.
These need warm conditions so windowsills facing south are very handy.
Cabbage Kilaton, cauliflower Clapton and sprouts Crispen (all clubroot resistant for my soil), kale, lettuce, spring onion, can all be sown in shallow seed trays then pricked out later into cellular trays.
Beetroot has to go in cellular trays as you cannot prick them out without damaging the roots. Tomato Sungold and Sweet 100 were sown in cellular trays with seeds (only five per packet) left over from last year.
Very pleased to see all 10 seedlings came through. Tomato Alicante have plenty seeds so no problem with numbers.
Tuberous begonias dried off last autumn have now all been boxed up to bring them back into growth.