Page 50 - Simply Veg 3.21

Turnips growing
Potash (K) for flowering and fruiting. General or balanced fertilisers contain equal parts
of all three and these are suitable for many plants. Chempak have a range of products, a balanced one, one higher
final size are 12 inches by 18inches (30 by 45 cm.).
Another vegetable that needs blanching is endive. Tie the leaves together loosely, cover
Potatoes harvested from 9 bags in August
If cauliflowers are not cut when they are at their best the curds soon begin to open. When sweet corn is ready for harvesting the silks at the top of the cobs turn brown. If you peel away some of the husk and press your thumb nail into one of the kernels, the liquid inside should be milky. If it is watery, they are not quite ready. Salad onions can be harvested as soon as you think they are big enough. The large onions are best left
till the leaves go yellow. You can harvest some earlier, though, if you need them for immediate use. If you want to store them, leave them to ripen before you dig them up. They need to be left to dry and I put mine on trays in the shed. They will keep a long time when they are dry. Cabbages will keep for
a while without harvesting so just take them when you need them. Other crops that may be ready are turnips, beetroot and kohl rabi. In the greenhouse you may have tomatoes and cucumbers ready.
in nitrogen and one higher
in potash. Fertilisers higher
in nitrogen are best for leafy plants such as cabbages and those higher in potash for flowering and fruiting plants. For Chrysanths and dahlias I use a balanced one until the buds appear then change to one higher in potash.
Runner and French beans in particular need picking when they are young and tender
with an upturned plant pot and block the drainage hole to exclude light.
You should have plenty crops to harvest this month. Keep harvesting potatoes when you need them. I said before that you don’t need to dig them all up at once. You may want to dig them all up though to use the ground for other crops. If so, keep them
Tomato feeds are higher in
potash and we need to keep feeding them this month and keep removing side shoots from cordon grown plants.
When the buds appear on Chrysanths and dahlias there is always a central bud surrounded by smaller buds. If you want decent flowers these surrounding buds need removing when they are big enough to handle, just leaving the central bud to flower. The exception to this are spray Chrysanths. Exhibitors remove the central bud and leave the others, but you can leave them all if you wish.
Dead heading is another job with flowers, particularly annuals. If flowers are allowed
to go to seed they stop producing but if the dying flowers are removed before they go to seeds they keep producing more flowers.
A few more jobs in the vegetable garden now. When the curds begin to show on cauliflowers, bend the leaves over them to exclude light because too much sunlight tends to discolour them.
If you are growing leeks, they need blanching. Some varieties of celery are self- blanching but the other varieties will need blanching. Most books tell you to draw soil up round the stems. I use builders damp proof material wrapped round the stems. I have some cut in two sizes in a rectangular shape so that they are blanched in stages. The first size are 6 inches by 9 inches (16by 23 cm). They are wrapped round first at 6 inches high and later they are turned round so that they are 9 inches high. The next and
in a dark place till you need them, or they will become green and unusable. Try to harvest crops as soon as they are ready. Runner and French beans in particular need picking when they are young and tender. If they are left too long, they become tough and stringy.
50 Simply Vegetables
Some of my harvest in August