Page 45 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2023

Sweetcorn ready for harvesting
Another crop you can sow in spare beds is green manure. When it has grown it is dug in to enrich the soil.
So much for sowing, so what is there for planting? I mentioned planting strawberries last month if you didn’t do them then plant them as soon as you can so that they will be established before the cold weather comes.
You may have cabbages, cauliflowers, and salad crops from earlier sowings ready for planting. You can start planting onion sets this month for use next spring. If they are not in the shops and garden centres now, they soon will be and can be planted during the next two or three months. You would get a better choice of varieties from a specialist supplier, for example Senshyu yellow (D, S, M, B,), Shakespeare (D, S, M,
B, F,), Autumn champion (D, S, M,), Radar (M, B, F, ), and Electra ( D, S, B, F,). I plant them direct in the bed but not the onion bed because this bed is manured in winter, and I couldn’t do so if there were onions growing in it. I plant them in the bed which next year will be the root crop bed because this bed isn’t manured in winter. For the key to all these suppliers that I have mentioned, please see the beginning of the July notes
Cordon apples and pears, plums, cherries, gooseberries, red and white currants, and summer raspberries can still be pruned as I described last month.
Many plants should be growing well now and would benefit from extra feeding. I have explained plant foods in the past, but it is worth repeating for newcomers to our
hobby. Liquid feeds mixed in the watering can are best at this time of year because they are quick acting. The instructions for use, the analysis and dilution rate should be on the bottle / pack. There are three major plant foods, Nitrogen (N), Phosphate (P) and potash (K). Very simply, nitrogen
is for leaf and stem growth, phosphate is for root growth and potash for flowering and fruiting. The analysis on the bottle will be the proportions of these three elements (the N, P, K, ratio). What we call “balanced” or “general” fertilisers contain equal part of these three elements and suit many plants. All plants need each
of these three elements, but some need different proportions at different stages of growth. Chrysanths and dahlias are happy
Penstemoms
Exhibition onions harvested
Gladioli from the allotment
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