Page 36 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2023

Utilising our cold greenhouse over the winter
EMILY PLUMB FNVS
We came by a couple of new (to us!) greenhouses last year which were surplus to requirements in their previous location. Therefore, last spring, we put them up. Although they are a good number of years old, they still had almost all their pieces and with a little bit of time and effort we got them put back together again.
There were a few parts that we had to get new like glazing clips, and a couple
of new automatic opening window mechanisms as some of them had seized up and we wanted the option to have a couple more in any case. However, all in all, a good find on Facebook marketplace!
As we only put them up in May 2022, we used them throughout last summer to grow peppers and tomatoes and onions, etc. However, last winter was the first winter that we’d had them up so we thought
we’d see if we could make use of them throughout the year and to get some earlier crops for the spring months.
However, we’ve managed to get quite a lot of produce from them over the past few weeks and months. Below is an overview of what we tried in there. As well as this, it’s been a great place to bring on younger seedlings and start to acclimatise them before they head outside.
The plants below were sown in the late autumn and planted out in the greenhouse just before Christmas. However, we did
also have an earlier sowing of each of the brassicas that we planted in one of our other cold greenhouses which we have just finished harvesting in the last week or so. For the lettuces, we have done a succession of sowings throughout the late autumn and winter to try and get a constant supply of lettuce throughout the spring.
Spring greens
These are a variety called Greyhound
which we have grown many times before. They don’t take up much space as you
can grow them quite close together (about 6” apart) for the purposes of spring greens and they still manage to make little hearts before they are harvested. That being said, we often have to start eating them before that stage, i.e. when they are still just a cluster of leaves, as otherwise they start to go over the top before we’ve managed to eat them all. They grow extremely fast as the weather starts to warm up and go past their best if you’re not careful!
You can alternatively plant them further apart and they will grow into a lovely pointed cabbage, something which we have also done in the past. They are usually a summer/autumn maturing pointed cabbage but they don’t seem to mind being grown throughout the winter for some early spring greens either.
Broccoli
We are growing two varieties of Broccoli: Atlantis and Kabuki. The Kabuki is a miniature calabrese, the plant itself as opposed to the broccoli heads produced – these are still relatively large. However, the plants are about half the height they would typically be and have been bred to be compact which is great for greenhouse planting where space is of the essence. They are also a fast maturing variety and can be ready in 65-70 days after planting out. Although ours took a little longer than this, they are still relatively fast maturing given they have done their growing during the coldest months and shortest days of the year. Once the main head has been harvested, the plants also throw up lots of tender side shoots which are lovely.
Atlantis is a brokali, i.e. part broccoli and part Chinese kale. It produces long tender and juicy stems of broccoli and has a high yield similar to the Kabuki. We tried both
Kabuki
Atlantis
varieties for the first time last year and were impressed, so thought we’d give them a go in the greenhouse this year. We’ve included a couple of photos of the broccoli head and side shoots we got last year to illustrate what the plants are capable of producing.
Lettuces
Lastly we tried some Winter Gem. At
the time of writing (towards the end of April), it’s starting to get a bit hot in the greenhouse for them and it won’t be
long until they start to bolt. However, the various succession sowings we’ve done of them throughout the winter have meant we’ve had fresh lettuce to eat for the past couple of months which has been nice.
It won’t be long before we can get some lettuces planted outside and then we can continue our crop of lettuces throughout the summer.
Last year broccoli
Lettuces
Spring greens
36 Simply Vegetables