Page 48 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2025

carrots growing in a bin
bore holes in the ground filled with sieved
compost. The main problem with growing
carrots is carrot fly. The maggots, when
they hatch burrow into the carrots and
make them unusable. The best method of
prevention is a physical barrier to prevent
the flies from getting near to the carrots.
In spring I use cold frames to harden off
my plants before planting. When they are
no longer needed, I take three of them
to the allotment to grow carrots in and
cover them with fine mesh to stop the
flies getting in. I make bore
holes in the frames and sow
the seeds in them. If you are
growing carrots in tall drums
about a metre in height they
don’t need covering because
the flies can’t fly so high but
in smaller drums or buckets,
put some fine mesh over
them.
Other crops that can be
sown now are lettuce, salad onions, rocket,
kale, radicchio, spinach and endive. Endive
is similar to lettuce and can be grown the
same way.
Seeds sown in drills last month will need
thinning in stages till they are in their final
positions, .
Watering will again be a priority,
particularly in greenhouses and
polytunnels. Always do it in the morning if
you can. If tomatoes get short of water, they
could suffer from blossom end rot because
it prevents calcium uptake. It causes a
sunken black patch at the base of the fruit.
Seeds sown
in drills last
month will
need thinning
in stages
Doors and ventilators can now stay open
for the rest of the summer to keep the
temperature down. Keep removing the side
shoots from cordon grown tomatoes.
If you grow Chrysanths or dahlias they
need to be “stopped” when about 6 inches
(15 cm.) tall. This means pinching out the
growing tips which causes the plants to
produce laterals (or breaks) which will
eventually carry the flowers. The number of
breaks determines the size of the flowers,
the more breaks you have, the smaller the
flowers will be. If you are not
particular about the size of
the flowers you can leave all
the breaks on, but if you want
large flowers, as exhibitors
do, then remove some of the
breaks. Chrysanth exhibitors
reduce the breaks to 2 or 3
per plant.
We still need to keep our
eyes open for pests and
diseases and take the appropriate action. I
mentioned last month about covering the
brassica bed to keep the butterflies off, but
another cabbage pest is the root fly. They
lay their eggs near to the plants and when
the maggots hatch, they go into the soil
and eat the roots. You can buy discs to put
round the base of the plants to keep the
flies off or you can make your own using
any suitable material.
If you grow gooseberries you need to
look out for sawfly. They can defoliate the
plants in next to no time if there is a lot. If
you can spot them early enough you can
Climbing French beans for planting Chrysanth plant stopped and showing breaks
48 Simply Vegetables
Potatoes in bags doing well
squash them but if there are too many you
will have to spray with a good insecticide.
You also need to keep looking for
greenfly and blackfly as I said last month
and spray if needed. There is also a risk of
whitefly in the greenhouse. You can spray
these as well, but these is a parasite called
Encarsia that you can buy to control them,
I have not used it myself, though. It works
well and there are other predators that will
control whitefly as well – Ed
What about diseases? Potato blight is
about the most widespread it starts with
brown patches on the leaves. The spores
wash down into the soil and affects the
potatoes, making them unusable. It can
also affect tomatoes. It doesn’t normally
appear till July, but I am mentioning it now
because you can spray with a fungicide to
prevent it.
Another common disease is chocolate
spot on broad beans as the name suggests
the leaves are covered with brown spots
and looks unsightly. You can spray to
prevent this as well. Another disease you
can spray against is mildew. This usually
attacks marrows and courgettes.
If you grow early potatoes, depending
on when they were planted, they may be
ready for harvesting. I suggest that you dig
up one plant to see the size of the potatoes.
If they are large enough you can harvest
some more. You don’t need to harvest the
whole crop unless you want to. You can
leave some of them or all of them to grow
bigger if you wish. If you are not harvesting
them all you should keep earthing them up.
Fixing nets over the brassica bed