Page 22 - ALG Issue 3 2016

General
On the Kings Plot in March, April and May
– by Andrew Tokely, Seed Purchasing Manager for Kings Seeds
Many of you will be like me and have probably never known a spring like this year. The weather was so cold in March and April; it took weeks for the soil to warm up. Easter was early and I saw many plot holders beavering away, but it was far too cold to do any seed sowing. Every year I see plot holders with itchy ngers starting to sow too many crops too early in the cold soil. The soil temperature should be a minimum of 7C (45F), otherwise there is always a high possibility of germination failure. A few years ago NSALG member Allan Cavill told our MD Les Day that to be sure it is warm enough for sowing, there should be seven consecutive days and nights at 7C before you even think about grabbing a seed packet and sowing outdoors. This year in East Anglia this was not the case until the week commencing the 9th May, which is later than usual. Around these parts, many older gardeners traditionally had other ways of checking cold soil, including dropping their trousers and if the soil felt too cold on their bottom, they would wait until it was warmer to plant seeds. This method still works today but is not advisable on a busy allotment site or
if your plot is close to the road; in such circumstances Allan’s method is far less intrusive.
Although sowing outdoors started later, germinations have been very good, and these sowings in warmer soils will soon catch up or even overtake those sown earlier in cold soil. My parsnips, beetroot and radish look good so far and my carrots sown under enviromesh have very full rows. The pea ‘Hurst Greenshaft’ germinated well
and will follow on from the pea ‘Avola’ I raised under glass and transplanted outdoors. These are now on ower at the end of May. I have found onion sets to be slow to move this year, but since some good rain showers they now look much better.
I did plant two rows of early potatoes under eece at Easter; these look well and I will probably have tatties to lift by the middle of June. The remainder of my second earlies and main crops that I planted later are growing well and look on track despite the later start.
Large exhibition onions and leeks raised under glass were transplanted out at the end of April. These are looking promising but it is early days as yet. These will have a high Nitrogen feed in early June so they keep on growing, and hopefully produce some whoppers by autumn.
I love my own salads and the rst of my lettuce ‘Analena’ were ready to cut at the end of May. I sow my lettuce under glass every
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