Page 8 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2024

Kelvin’s Comments
After the weather over the winter period, itistobehopedthatwegetagood spring and summer, anyone who still does not believe in climate change must be living on another planet! On the
radio tonight parts of Scotland had the highest temperature ever recorded in January, the early crops will be coming from the north this year! After the cold spell in mid-January, I can see why they changed the name from global warming to climate change. Overall, this winter has been mild (well up to the end of January it has), my lawn continues to grow albeit slowly but will need cutting in February unless cold weather returns, and many hardy plants are showing signs of growth. If this continues, we will need to prune roses and similar shrubs before March as they will be in full growth by then.
The main weather concerns in the south of the U.K has been the number of storms with some very high winds and a lot of heavy rain over a prolonged period of the winter. The soil is definitely at field capacity (holding the maximum amount of water it is capable of), and all of my water butts are full although three have sprung leaks which is annoying. I have also filled every other container I have that will hold water ready for the anticipated drought!
At present I have Hellebores, polyanthus
and snowdrops in flowers and other bulbs making good growth. Vegetable wise
the overwintering onions look good but have not made a lot of growth yet but
that could be a good thing. The carrots in the polytunnel have made no growth in the last 2 months and are disappointing, hopefully they will pick up as the day length increases assuming the slugs do not eat them first. The salad crops in the greenhouse are looking
a concern as if growers are not composting what are they doing with their green waste? If disposed off site or garden (i.e.
in the council collected bins) their fertility
is going with it. This means that they need to buy in manure, compost, or some other form of organic matter to maintain the
soil fertility which is a both of a waste of money and resources. All the research and books I read these days make the point
good and ready to start growing but the winter lettuce have been a disaster as I have lost the lot owing to botrytis – I always tell students botrytis is a sign of an untidy gardener not following good hygiene practices; I had better keep my mouth shut in the future!
I always tell students botrytis is
a sign of an untidy gardener not following good hygiene practices
that the organic level of the soil needs maintaining or improving.
If you are not composting, why not? Compost supplies organic matter, recycles nutrients, improve the soil fertility and structure (whatever type of soil you have except peat) and provides food for billions of soil fauna and flora that plants need to grow well. The addition of organic matter to the soil
is absolutely essential go
I recently read that
only 30% of gardeners
composted; that rather
shocked and surprised
me as I thought most gardeners made compost but apparently not. I had a look around the allotment site when I was digging and could see 8 or 9 compost bins out of 40 allotments which funnily enough is under 30% but rather supports what I read. This is both disappointing and a bit of
grow good crops and flowers. Try to get whatever organic matter you can, compost if required and then apply to the soil or incorporate if a digger.
Moving on to one of my other regular rants I have been watching a series of videos (no not that kind!) on health and aging. We have an aging society not only in the UK but much of the developed world which is increasing and will do so more
in the future which will put increasing strain on the NHS. We all need to take responsibility for our own health and can easily do this by regular exercise / activity of which gardening is a very good form. We need to maintain good general fitness and a healthy weight (obesity is increasing at an alarming rate especially amongst the young which does not bode well for the future). Growing and eating fresh fruit and
Espalier Apple
Botrytis on lettuce
8 Simply Vegetables
KELVIN MASON FNVS, NATIONAL MAGAZINE EDITOR