Vegetables

Although the weather may be cold, every opportunity should be taken over the next few weeks to dig and manure the vegetable garden, leaving the ground exposed to the ongoing winter weather, a practice which will help ensure it is in good order for next season’s crops.

Sweetening the soil with lime added immediately after turning over the ground helps most crops, although potatoes are an exception.

Old cowpad base and stable manure improve heavy, clay soils by adding humus to the garden.

Dig softwooded hedge clippings directly into the soil to decompose over the winter, or add them to the compost bin. Gather the last of the autumn leaves and stack separately to form a seed sowing/ potting mix or add them to the compost heap. Left alone, most leaves take about a year to decompose into leaf mould. In the compost heap, they should be ready within half that time to use as a mulch or to dig into the soil.

Also useful for the compost bin are vegetable scraps from the kitchen, seaweed, sawdust, lawn clippings and the contents of the vacuumcleaner bag.

Jerusalem artichokes should have the dead tops cut off but dig the tubers only as required. In storage, they shrivel and toughen. However, the tubers can be lifted and kept in a corner of the garden covered with loose soil or sawdust, as recommended for carrots. The drawback with this is that any tiny piece of artichoke left in the soil or sawdust will sprout.

Asparagus plants should be cut close to the ground. An old practice was to leave the tops on the bed until they were thoroughly dry. They then were burned there, allowing the ashes to lie on the soil. As well as adding nutrients to the soil, burning destroyed any ripened seed, preventing random, inferior asparagus plants appearing. Unfortunately, fire bylaws in most areas mean this is no longer possible, so the cut stems should be removed and any berries picked off the soil and thrown away.