Care and cunning will help boost your vegetable crops
Making the most of our plot by cultivating healthy and productive plants must surely be one of our aims. There’s a bit of luck involved but attention to detail can minimise disease and invasions of unwanted pests.
Now is the peak time for planting potatoes. Over decades, Scottish seed potatoes have earned a reputation for being disease-free. It’s risky to plant an “eating” potato bought at the grocer. It could be harbouring one of three new threats – brown rot, ring rot or dickeya. It’s not being alarmist to say that if these diseases get a hold, they have the potential to wipe out commercial crops as well as those on our plots. So please play safe and only plant certified disease-free seed potatoes.
I’ve noticed how some plotholders consistently have good crops of large, unblemished potatoes. Enquiring about their secrets of success, I conclude that it’s all down to care. Spacing is important. First earlies, ready for harvesting in about 12 weeks, can be planted about a trowel’s length apart, but main crop potatoes need at least 30cm between them. They will thrive on some special potato fertiliser, compost or seaweed meal at planting time.
My first sowings of broad beans in cardboard tubes are sufficiently well-grown to plant outside. Some years swarms of blackfly attack the tender growing shoots and migrate down to the emerging beans. Once the pods are beginning to form, it helps to deter this pest by nipping out the tops of the plants. At the same time as planting out the broad beans I’ll be scattering some nasturtium seeds nearby as blackfly seem quite as happy dining out on them and sparing the beans.
It’s a challenge to grow pest-free carrots. Carrot fly can wreck your crop. The maggot burrows into the root rendering it useless. In times past, gardeners relied on a toxic mix of chemicals, happily all now banned. Today’s tactics rely on low cunning to thwart the pest. Advice suggests sowing carrots between
Main crop potatoes need at least 30cm between them
two broods of emerging carrot-fly. The professionals may manage to get the timing right but for those of us on an allotment, it’s hard to predict exactly when that time will be. Some reckon that surrounding the crop with strong smelling chives or spring onions will drive the pest away. My way is to surround the rows of carrots with a 60cm barrier of fine mesh – too high for the pest to fly over. ■