Page 46 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2021/22

Potatoes chitting
out in the garden or allotment.
If you didn’t buy your seed potatoes
last month there is still time. They should still be available in garden centres and chain stores so get them and chit them as I described last month.
If you planted your shallots in pots last month or last December, they should be growing now. When the roots have filled their small pots they need potting into larger pots, four or five inch (10 or 12.5cm).
Spring cabbage can be fed this month with a feed high in nitrogen. Another job in the vegetable garden is to give perennial crops such as rhubarb, asparagus and Jerusalem
Winter onions growing
artichokes a mulch. Use well-rotted manure or garden compost.
In the fruit garden, autumn fruiting raspberries can still be
about this time in preparation for the coming season is to sort all my canes, of which I have hundreds. I examine
pruned as I described
last month and tie new
growth to their supports.
It is also a good time to
tidy the strawberry bed.
Remove all dead or dying
leaves and any debris
that has collected among
the plants. Fruit trees and bushes will also benefit from a mulch of manure or compost.
If you haven’t washed your seed trays and pots as I suggested last month, do it as soon as you can. Another job I do
each one to make sure they are still in good condition then sort them into their various sizes and tie them in bundles. It is a job I do in the greenhouse on a day when the weather isn’t fit to work outside.
I temporarily clear one side of the greenhouse to make room.
Crops you may have for harvesting this month are broccoli, spring cabbage, sprots, swedes, leeks, celeriac, kale and parsnips.
It is also a good time to tidy the strawberry bed
March
This month you can still sow tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, aubergines and celery in the greenhouse as I described last month. They are still better sown in a propagator if you have one.
Now that the soil is warming
up, there are more seeds that can
be sown outdoors, provided, of course, that you have got the ground prepared. These include radish, carrots, salad onions, salsify and scorzonera. Sow them thinly in drills
about half an inch deep (one cm.) then thin them out further when they germinate. Carrots tend to fork in heavy soil, so I prefer to make bore holes and fill them with fine compost to sow the seeds in or grow them in tubs or buckets of compost. For long carrots and parsnips, I grow them in long tubes made from builder’s damp proof material filled with fine compost or in large drums.
Lettuce, beetroot, spinach, rocket, endive and pak choi can also be
sown outside in drills but I prefer
to sow these in cell trays and plant them out later. Sow a few seeds
in each cell and thin them to one when they germinate. Cabbages, cauliflowers and Brussel sprouts
can also be sown in drills outside
but I sow them in small pots in the greenhouse, 3 or4 seeds in each thinned to one when they germinate. The same applies to peas but because the seeds are larger, I only put one in each pot. For sowing peas
Brassicas in 7cm pots
Onion seedlings potted up
46 Simply Vegetables