Page 45 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2022

Gladioli from the allotment Aug 9th
foods contain a higher proportion of potash. Plants grown for their leaves such as cabbages want a higher proportion of nitrogen. Growers of large onions give them a good nitrogen feed to increase the size.
You should have plenty to harvest this month, runner, broad and French beans, turnips, beetroot, cabbages , cauliflowers, tomatoes, cucumbers, salad crops and many more. Keep digging up potatoes when you need them. Try to harvest crops as soon as they are ready, while they are young and tender, particularly runner and French beans. If these beans are left too long, they become tough and stringy.
To test if sweet corn is ready, peal away some of the outer sheath and press one or two grains with your thumb nail. If the liquid that squirts out is watery, the cob is not ready. If it is ripe, the liquid should be milky. Another indication is that the silks at the top of the cobs turn brown . This is the first thing to check because if they are still green it is too early to open them and test the grains.
Here are a few more jobs you can do this month. Make sure you keep up with the watering, both in the greenhouse
and outdoors as I said last month as we are likely to get more hot weather. If you are growing celery, this is a crop that particularly needs water because in the wild, it is a marsh plant. If you use water butts, they are likely to keep emptying with all the watering. It is a good opportunity to give them a good clean out.
Another thing about celery is that the plants need blanching and so do leeks. I use builders damp proof material cut into rectangles of different sizes. The height
of the blanching material is increased as the plants grow. The rectangles are turned round to give different heights.
Also, keep up with the tying of tall plants to their supports and keep dead heading annuals. I wrote in June about “stopping” dahlias and Chrysanths to cause them to produce laterals which will carry the flowers. These laterals easily break off if they are
Sweetcorn ready for harvesting
not tied in. I just bind some string round the plants to support them. If you grow sweet peas on the cordon system, meaning growing them on a single stem, they will need securing to the cane every few inches with twist ties or sweet pea rings.
When dahlias and Chrysanths begin to flower, they form a central bud on each
lateral surrounded by smaller buds. If you want large flowers, these surrounding buds should be removed when they are large enough to handle. The exception to this are spray Chrysanths, in which case all the buds are allowed to flower or you could , as exhibitors do, remove the central bud because this gives a more even spray.
Penstemoms
Simply Vegetables 45