This Month's Tips

June, 2010

June is a landmark month in the veg plot because it's when we get the first sizeable harvests from seed sown this year. The combined effect of long days and the recent high temperatures mean things really are flying along right now. We've been enjoying some fantastic new potatoes, mange tout peas, lettuces, oriental salad leaves and garlic.

Garlic won't be fully mature yet, but that doesn't mean you can't eat it! It's called harvesting 'garlic in the green';. The taste's much milder and slightly sweeter than mature garlic, and you can eat the stems as well as the bulbs. Great when you just want a hint of flavour, for example in salads and omelettes. And it also makes outrageously good pesto.

Planting Out
To keep the harvest going, it's time to transfer all frost-tender plants raised indoors over the last few weeks to the outside. Plant out:

  • Tomatoes
  • Squash
  • Courgettes
  • Cucumbers
  • French Beans
  • Runner Beans
Make sure you leave enough space between plants. It's always tempting to try and pack them in too closely, but you'll get weaker plants that produce a smaller crop and are more susceptible to disease. Leave a couple of feet between tomatoes, and 3-4 feet between squash and courgettes. Courgettes and tomato plants are prolific producers so you only need a few plants.

When your courgettes come into flower, make sure you eat these too. Pick out the male flowers - the ones with no baby courgette at their base - and tear them up for adding to salads or stuff and deep fry. Delicious!

First Sowing
If you're planning to grow any of the following, but didn't sow last month, get some seeds sown now:

  • Florence Fennel
  • French Beans
  • Runner Beans
  • Parsley
  • Kale
  • Perpetual Spinach
  • Swiss Chard
  • Purple Sprouting Broccoli
These plants only need to be sown once because they take time to mature and/or have a long harvesting period. French Parsley for instance takes at least 12 weeks till it's pickable, but it will carry on producing fresh leaves right through till next summer.

Repeat Sowing
Veg that reaches maturity quickly and can only be harvested once - like beetroot - should ideally be repeat sown every month or two. That way you have a succession of plants reaching maturity and ready for eating.

If you've got the room sow some more of these right now:

  • Beetroot
  • Carrots
  • Coriander
  • Lettuce
  • Peas
  • Radish
  • Turnips
  • Spring onions
(Wait until July to sow salad leaves like mizuna and rocket otherwise you'll find the plants get nibbled to bits by flea beetles)

It seems counter intuitive to be sowing more seeds when you haven't necessarily started eating the first sowings, but you'll reap the benefits from a dramatically extend the harvesting period.

Gutters come in handy here if you're short of space. You can bring plants on in them until you're ready to replace the crops you're currently harvesting. And once you empty a gutter, make a habit of immediately filling it up with compost and load it up with some more seeds. We use them all the time.

Watering
Vegetables are very fast growing plants, and given that they're 95% water it's essential to keep them well watered. You can normally tell when plants running short of water. The leaves have a tendency to flop, growth will be slow and often foliage turns yellow. Some plants will run to seed prematurely, in a bid to reproduce in case water runs out altogether. These onions that we planted out last autumn (below) are about to produce pretty flowers, but sadly there's precious little to eat at the other end of the stem.

Watering tips:
Avoid watering around midday. Water droplets on the leaves can magnify the suns rays, burning leaves in the process. Morning watering is best because your plants are about to go into rapid growth mode once the sun hits their leaves, and this way they can get access to all the water they need before it soaks down into the water table.

Give them a deluge, not a dribble. By only dampening the surface of your soil you encourage shallow rooting. Better to give them a proper drenching on an infrequent basis, so the roots chase the water down, deeper into the soil where they'l have a more consistent supply.

Slugs and Snails
We receive more enquires about these little devils than any other topic. They seem to be the bain of many of our lives. We always recommend a two pronged approach:

  • Kill them. Make sure young seedlings are protected with organic slug pellets, otherwise they'll hoover the lot up. Beer traps are also good. There's no need to buy these - an open topped container like half a 2L milk carton sunk in the soil partially covered with a piece of wood/slate works a treat. There's no need to use beer either - any sweet smelly liquid will send out a siren call to lure them in, where they'll down in the liquid.
  • Create an environment they find unattractive. Remove dead/decaying leaves (their favourite food) from the soil. Surround delicate plants with horticultural grit or sand, and keep grass paths cut short so they have no damp places to hide during the day. Or even better - remove grass from paths all together. Since we started applying this 'scorched earth' policy we've seen a massive decline in numbers. All paths get regularly hoed to remove all grass and weeds. Or for a more 'aesthetic' alternative - lay out a sheets of weed control fabric between raised beds and cover with gravel. The more angular the gravel the better - slugs will hate it and it will look amazing.

And one last thing. Don't forget to earth up your spuds. Heap soil up around the leaves, and you'll double the crop.

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