Page 46 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2023

with balanced fertilisers during growth but benefit from a higher proportion of potash when they begin to flower. Tomato foods contain a higher proportion of potash. Plants grown for their leaves such as cabbages want a higher proportion of nitrogen.
You should have plenty to harvest this month, runner, broad and French beans, turnips, beetroot, cabbages , cauliflowers, tomatoes, cucumbers, salad crops and many more. Keep digging up potatoes when you need them. Try to harvest crops as soon as they are ready, while they are young and tender, particularly runner and French beans. If these beans are left too long, they become tough and stringy.
To test if sweet corn is ready, peel away some of the outer sheath and press one or two grains with your thumb nail. If the liquid that squirts out is watery, the cob is not ready. If it is ripe, the liquid should be milky another indication is that the silks at the top of the cobs turn brown . This is the first thing to check because if they are still green it is too early to open them and test the grains.
Here are a few more jobs you can do
September
You can still sow winter and spring cabbages, cauliflowers, lettuce, radish and corn salad. I mentioned the varieties to sow at this time of the year in July
and August. You can still sow hardy annual flowers and green manure as I suggested last month.
You may have plants ready for planting from earlier sowings, such as cabbages, cauliflowers, and broccoli. Onion sets can also be planted for spring use if not done before. I told you the varieties of these last month.
There are varieties of garlic for planting in spring and some for planting in the autumn. These can be planted now or in October or November. Elephant garlic is in practically every catalogue. Both Dobies and Suttons have Messidrome, Germidour, Carcassonne Wight, Edenrose and Caulk Wight. The
last variety is also stocked by Browns and Fothergills. Carcassonne Wight is also in the catalogues of Marshalls and Browns. Garlic varieties are classified as either “softneck” or “hardneck”. Hardneck varieties are hardier and more suitable for Northern gardens. All the varieties mentioned above are hardneck apart from Messidrome and Germidour .
It is also time to plant spring bulbs. Tulips are normally left till November to prevent a disease called “tulip fire”, but daffodils, narcissi, crocuses and others can be planted this month. They look better planted in drifts or clumps of several bulbs rather than singly. There should be plenty of choice of varieties in shops and garden centres.
this month. Make sure you keep up with the watering, both in the greenhouse
and outdoors as I said last month as we are likely to get more hot weather. If you are growing celery, this is a crop that particularly needs water because in the wild, it is a bog plant. If you use water butts, they are likely to keep emptying with all the watering. This is a good opportunity to give them a good clean out.
Another thing about celery is that the plants need blanching and so do leeks. I use builders damp proof material cut into rectangles of different sizes. The height
of the blanching material is increased as the plants grow. The rectangles are turned round to give different heights.
Also, keep up with the tying of tall plants to their supports and keep dead heading annuals. I wrote in June about “stopping” dahlias and Chrysanths to encourage them to produce laterals which will carry the flowers. These laterals easily break off if they are not tied in. I just bind some string round the plants to support them. If you grow sweet peas on the cordon system, meaning growing them on a single stem, they will need securing to the cane every few inches
Dahlia bed on allotment
with twist ties or sweet pea rings.
When dahlias and Chrysanths begin to
flower, they form a central bud on each lateral surrounded by smaller buds. If you want large flowers, these surrounding buds should be removed when they are large enough to handle. The exception to this are spray Chrysanths, in which case all the buds are allowed to flower or you could , as exhibitors do, remove the central bud because this gives a more even spray.
46 Simply Vegetables
Cactus dahlia Hillcrest Candy
Many of the jobs to do now are continuing to do what I suggested last month. For example, carry on giving veg and flowers such as Chrysanths, dahlias and gladioli supplementary feeds every few weeks. I wrote about it last month, explaining different types of fertilisers
for different crops. Tomatoes in pots or growbags need feeding once a week and keep on removing side shoots on cordon grown plants. Also, make sure you keep up with the watering on all plants when they need doing, dead heading and making sure all plants are securely tied to their canes. Another job I mentioned last month was blanching leeks and celery. The length
of the blanching material is increased as the plants grow. They may have finished growing by now but if they haven’t, you need to continue the blanching.
Summer raspberries can still be pruned as I described in July, and also blackberries and loganberries. Just cut down the canes that have fruited and tie in the others.
Now for a few jobs that I didn’t mention last month. When tomato plants have reached the top of the greenhouse, pinch out the tops. You don’t want them to keep growing and producing tomatoes that will not ripen. It is more important that the plants give their energy to ripen tomatoes already produced. Also, the shading that