What to do in the garden this week
Preserves that bridge the hungry gap
Early spring is a time of planning, planting and anticipation. All the new season’s crops are going in and we have high hopes of bumper harvests to come. But it’s also a lean time known as the hungry gap – winter crops are tatty or going to seed but the spring and summer veges aren’t ready to pick.
Last summer and autumn’s bottled, frozen, dried, and pickled produce can help bridge the gap. Preserving and storing excess produce is an essential part of food cropping. The trick is to actually use what you set aside for the lean months. Not only will you get the benefit of all the hard work that went into growing and preparing the preserves, you’ll also be making room for the bountiful harvests of the coming season.
I think there are a few reasons why we tend to overlook home preserves – they end up forgotten at the back of the pantry or the bottom of the freezer. Perhaps they lack versatility, or maybe they’re just not very nice.
Not only should you never grow things you don’t like eating, but you most certainly shouldn’t preserve them! So, give some thought now to the crops you’ll grow to preserve as well as those you’ll eat freshly picked.
Whole frozen tomatoes are versatile and give massive returns for minimal effort. They’re the ultimate in easy-peel too – just rinse under the hot tap and the skins will pop right off. Use anywhere you’d use tinned tomatoes.
Bottled tomatoes, tomato paste concentrate and savoury mixtures of tomatoes, chillies, onions, and herbs take more work (on sweltering hot summer days!) but take up less room in the freezer or pantry and are so handy for pizza toppings, soup, casseroles, pasta sauces and more.
Chillies are a breeze to freeze – just pop them whole into a bag ready to retrieve for any dish that needs a flavour boost. Chillies are generally very productive, but their heat levels vary enormously.
Although I love spicy food, last year’s chilli plant was either mislabelled when I bought it or went rogue, as it produced eyewatering, fiery bullets. Half of one of these lip-burning morsels is more than enough for a recipe and my fingers tingle for hours after I touch them. How much use are 50 frozen chillies if a single one is more than I can use in a week? I’ll be careful this year to choose a more palatable variety.
Tidy up your berry canes before spring
Give your berry patch a clean-up before their growth starts up again. Gently tug at all defoliated canes and dispose of any that snap or pull away easily. Also remove any wiry, weak or tangled canes plus those that have crept into places they don’t belong. Any runners that have taken root can be used to establish new beds in other parts of the garden. Attach brambles and berry canes to their supports. If you’ve only got one or two plants, tie up bunches of the canes into tepees. They won’t need stakes, just some twine at the top to keep them together. Once growth begins, this job will become all but impossible, so don’t mess about. Weed among the canes before spring too – it’s not much fun once thorns are involved!
Healthy soil equals healthy produce
It’s far easier to fix soil issues at the start of the season, when you still have easy access to empty beds. Beds need some time to settle before planting so lay out new beds and sort out issues with perennial weeds, drainage, and soil fertility before the rush to plant spring crops.
Compost adds humus to the soil, improving the texture, increases the moisture retention of sandy soil and improving the drainage of clay soils, but it’s not the only thing your plants need.
Compost isn’t fertiliser – it is not a complete plant food providing all the nutrients required for healthy growth. If you’re gardening year-round, it’s important to add nutrients back into your soil.
There’s a huge range of specialist fertilisers for almost every type of plant – roses, citrus, leafy crops, camellias, orchids and so on – but as a general rule you only need two types of fertiliser: a nitrogenbased blend to kick-start growth in spring, and a flowering/ fruiting formulation for later in the season, when you want plants such as tomatoes to concentrate on fruit production, not more foliage.
And on that note, tomato fertiliser can be used on all fruiting plants: from strawberries to beans. The exception to the rule is potted plants; it’s best to buy a specialist container food for them, as potting mix leaches nutrients more quickly than standard garden soil.
Plant out punnets of radicchio
Radicchio (or chicory) adds a wonderful punch of flavour and colour to salads and stir-fries and is quick and easy to grow. A punnet of seedlings transplanted now should be ready to eat in 6-8 weeks. Plant seedlings in full sun and – for the hearting types – space at least 20cm apart to give them room to grow. In colder regions it might pay to cover seedlings with a cloche until they get established.
Last chance to plant garlic and shallots
If you still have garlic or shallots to get into the ground, do it soon, as they need a period of winter chill to form bulbs (otherwise all you’ll get is leaves). And if you still haven’t bought any garlic cloves to plant, you can buy punnets of preplanted cloves in garden centres.