Page 28 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2024/25

Seasonal jobs
DEREK BROOKS FNVS
January
The most important job outside this month is to continue getting the beds ready for the coming season. I did suggest that you started doing so in
the autumn which I usually do. I never get it finished till well into the New Year. Clear the remains of all finished crops and put them on the compost, providing that they are not diseased. Fork over the ground, providing that it isn’t too wet or frozen, removing all weeds. I don’t put weeds on the compost. I have enough material for composting without weeds. They are put in the council bin at home. If there are too many I take them to the re-cycling centre.
I must mention crop rotation again because I think it is important. I have four vegetable beds that I crop in rotation. Crops are grouped together that require similar treatment. The four beds are 1) potatoes
2) other root crops 3) brassicas 4) I call
this my ”others” bed because it consists
of crops apart from those just mentioned. They are dwarf and climbing French beans, peas, sweet corn and courgettes. I grow marrows along the edge of the potato bed and grow runner beans in a bed of their own and also onions, leeks and rhubarb.
I test the pH value of each bed. This
New roses planted
measures the acidity or alkalinity of the soil. You can buy cheap pH testing kits at garden centres. pH 7 is neutral which suits most crops, below 7 is acid and above 7
is alkaline. Potatoes like it on the acid side which helps to prevent scab disease and brassicas want it alkaline which prevents club root. To raise the pH value, lime or limestone is added. 12 ounces (350gms
per sq metre) of limestone per square yard increases the value one unit, i.e.. from 7 to 8. I have some manure delivered this month
and I fork it into all the beds except the root crop bed. This is not manured because
it causes carrots to fork. If a bed that is manured also needs lime they mustn’t be added together. Lime needs adding first and given at least a month to do its job before manure is added.
I have always said that flowers are essential in vegetable gardens to attract beneficial insects to pollinate our crops.
I grow sweet peas on the same bed
as runner beans. I dig out two parallel trenches about 3 feet (1 metre) apart, one for runner beans and the other for sweet peas, a spades depth and width. I fork over the base and add a thick layer of green material such as kitchen waste and the stems of finished bedding plants. When
I have done this to the first trench, I start digging out the second one and the soil from this is used to fill the first trench. Then the soil from the first trench goes into the second one. I then fix a row of 8-foot (2.4m) canes along each trench, 9 inches (25cm) apart. Each cane is tied to a horizontal one along the top. Shorter horizontal canes go across between the two rows and diagonal canes go between the rows to strengthen the structure.
There is not much that can be planted outdoors so early in the year, but rhubarb
28 Simply Vegetables
Sprouts ready for picking
KEY TO SUPPLIERS
D – Dobies
S – Suttons
B – Browns
F – Fothergills R – Robinsons
Sh – Shelleys M – Marshalls T – Thompson and Morgans