My easy slug-proof 'Moat Method' to keep slugs out of propagation areas!

What if you don't have a polytunnel - or even a garden - can you grow anything? 

My 'stepladder garden' beside the recycled skip bag raised beds in late March shows what you can do in a very small space, with lettuce, spinach, celery leaf, peas & herbs. Large attractive pots, if you can afford them, are very nice to look at - but if you're trying to save money, then 10 litre recycled mayo or coleslaw buckets from the local supermarket deli are good too, and they always have those at every deli counter. Ask nicely and you'll be amazed at what they have. Once you start on the "What can I fit some soil into?"  route - then frankly the only limit is your imagination - and of course any desire for tidiness! That's not something that bothers me greatly, I have to say, if I'm getting wonderful veg - and you can always hide the bucket by growing something trailing in it! In fact you can grow in anything that you can fit soil or compost into! If containers are large you don't have to fill the whole thing up with good compost. You can fill up the bottom with any kind of garden rubbish that you would normally put on the compost heap, to bring up the level. Things like soft prunings, old pot plants (only organic ones as others may contain nasty chemicals), last year's container soil/compost etc. perhaps mixed up with cardboard and newspapers - and if you mix in some garden soil as well this will all compost down nicely at the same time!

My method of planting potatoes in pots to transplant for outdoor cropping!

I now grow all my outdoor potatoes by starting them off in pots, as it guarantees that I will miss the early blight season and it's really useful if the ground is still too wet and cold.  It's well worth it, as we've had early blight here even at the end of May once or twice over the last few years.  Some of the potatoes I grow are extremely rare and hard to replace varieties, so doing this guarantees that I won't lose them.  OK - so it may be a bit of a 'faff' starting them off in pots and then planting them out - but no more so than planting out beans, Dahlias or bedding plants - and few people have a problem with that!  It just requires a change of mindset that's all!  They may occasionally have to be covered with fleece if frost is forecast - but doing this it means that I never have to spray with anything - not even copper-based organic fungicides.  My soil is heavy clay anyway, and copper can build up in a clay soil creating imbalances and other problems. 

I also live in an area which grows a lot of horticultural crops including potatoes - and these are often left in the ground and sometimes not even lifted if it's not financially worth it - with the result that there is more and more early blight around here now.  There are also more aggressive new 'super-strains' of potato blight emerging due precisely to this bad practice I believe, which are more resistant to chemical fungicides (as always happens eventually with most chemicals) - so planting early before the weather warms up enough for blight is the only way to avoid it, and absolutely guarantees a crop. As regular readers may know - I'm not keen on the 'Sarpo' varieties, as in my experience here in my local climate, they're really not much more blight-resistant than many of the other varieties I grow. I also happen to think that the Sarpo's are not that tasty either really - so really what's the point?  We don't eat tons of potatoes every day as they're very high in carbs -we only eat them about twice a week. So despite being able to lower their carbohydrate content by about 50% by retrogradation - I would still sooner go to the extra trouble of just starting off my favourite potato varieties in pots just a bit earlier.  I grow about 20 different varieties of great-flavoured potatoes each year, some very rare - especially the purple ones.  I'll be starting all of them off in pots over the next week or so.

People often think that the difference between the earlies, second earlies and maincrops is the time that you plant them - it isn't. The name just tells you how long it will take them to crop. Early and second early potatoes are the fastest growing and need the shortest time to produce a useful crop, but most will keep just as well as the maincrop varieties. Many become floury and mash well too - particularly Red Duke of York. I also start my maincrops off now too - because they take longer to produce a decent harvest. 

The old traditional way of planting potatoes straight into cold ground on St. Patrick's day no longer works unless you are prepared to use toxic, expensive and often completely useless sprays against potato blight. That method may have worked many years ago - but our climate and weather have changed and become unpredictable -  and so have the fast-evolving new strains of blight. Also if ground is saturated it means planting isn't delayed because you're waiting for it to dry out. Using my method - it's unnecessary to use any sprays, organic or otherwise, so it's much cheaper and healthier too! 

So whatever the weather - there is plenty we can do though, to prepare for when the weather changes. March is the serious start of major production in the garden - up to now anything sown indoors has just been the rehearsal!  Anything we can do to get ahead now, despite the weather, will save a lot of time and hassle later - and lay the foundations for good crops. Otherwise work starts to pile up - and if it does gardening can become a bit of a stressful chore, if you're trying to grow all your own food like we try to do here. It's meant to be enjoyable as well as productive!  The birds are already gearing up for the breeding season though. The sparrows are all chasing each other round and arguing over nesting sites as usual and it's almost impossible to concentrate on any writing, because the starlings are performing their noisy morning ablutions in the gutter just above the back door, accompanied by much splashing, cat calling and 'wolf-whistles'! I can see them from my kitchen table 'desk' beside the kitchen window and they are so entertaining! 

Time to Sow Leeks 

Leeks sown in modules of peat-free compost 

 

I'm going to sow my favourite leek Bandit later on today - just as I'm using some of the last of them in the delicious smelling chicken stock (or bone broth as some now call it) that's bubbling away aromatically on the range right now.  I was a bit too late sowing them last year - I didn't sow them until the beginning of April and they weren't quite as large as usual. It's surprising the difference three or four weeks makes even this early in the year. Above Bandit is pictured growing in one of the raised beds a couple of years ago, with sugar loaf chicory in background. In the foreground the bed is covered with clear polythene to dry it out and warm it up, as I mentioned earlier. Seed of Bandit is available from several suppliers now. It is a wonderful late variety that's very healthy and disease-resistant, very reliable and great for organic growing. It's also one of the best tasting leeks in my opinion and a really valuable late vegetable when supplies are starting to run short. I usually multi sow it 3-4 seeds per module and then plant them out later, just as they are, if only 3 germinate. At roughly 1ft/30cm spacing - they make a good bunch of 3 which I find a really convenient size to dig up for most meals. If four come up then I carefully detach one and plant them singly for even bigger leeks. I sow them in exactly the same way as I sow my onions - in module trays of peat-free compost - as I describe in the polytunnel section of this month's diary.

My method of multi-sowing onions and leeks to cheat the weather!

 

 

Onions from seed are always crop far more successfully than sets, particularly in a bad year - and of course they don't run the risk of bringing in onion white rot disease which sets may sometimes do. That can be even more likely in a wet year - and as it can survive for up to 20 years in the soil, destroying all your onion crops - you really don't want it!. The good news is - it's still not too late to sow them, if you get a move on and sow them now! I've been multi-sowing my onions and leeks for about 35 years now. It saves pricking out and gives me exactly the size onions I want for various different kitchen uses.

 

 

I have a neat trick up my sleeve for onions - and this one is really worth trying if you are ever delayed when anything sensitive needs planting out from modules. After sowing them in module trays, as soon as the roots start to show through the bottom of the modules - I then sit the module tray into a larger tray of peat-free potting compost. This means that instead of wrapping around and around inside the modules - the roots will immediately start to explore a bit further. I find that despite this involving lifting them gently later in order to plant - I get far fewer 'bolters' this way. I also grow on my leek seedlings leeks this way too.

 

 

  Onion seedlings in a module tray, sitting in a larger tray of peat-free compost

 

 

I first thought of this particular trick when I was behind with my work in the garden for some reason (weather, or back problems probably!) so that I couldn't plant out my onions and leeks at the right time. This meant they were in serious danger of becoming starved and root bound - which they hate and is far more likely to cause bolting. What I do is to sit the module tray on top of roughly an inch of fairly loose compost in a large plant tray. I put something like a sheet of newspaper on the bottom first - just to stop the compost falling through, then I put in 2-3cm of organic peat free potting compost - which I water well - and then just sit the module tray on top. This completely avoids the fiddly and time consuming job of having to pot on over 100 modules just for the sake of a couple of weeks or so - and means that the onions, leeks or whatever get absolutely no check at all to their growth. They keep on growing - sending their roots out exploring downwards, happily completely unawares and not being the least bit bothered at all. When I'm finally ready to plant them into the ground - I give them a good watering, very gently ease the tray up out of the compost - take each plug of multi-sown plants out of the module tray and plant as normal. I may get only one or two 'bolters' out of 3-400 onions - so it obviously doesn't bother them in the least! They will usually have put on a couple of centimetres or so of root into the compost underneath in this time - but by easing them very gently out they never even know they've been moved and don't receive any check at all. This was a great success a few years ago, when the weather was so wet that many people's onions were a complete disaster. I had a terrific crop as usual as a result of this trick, most of which ripened well and kept all winter long. 

 

 

  

Experience is always the best teacher - and like many of the odd things I do, while it may not be not the most conventional way of doing things - it works!  Being 'conventional' has never bothered me very much though!  I've always felt that 'conventional' was there to be challenged - particularly if it didn't suit my hectic lifestyle, with so many other things to do!  Given that we now also have to cope with unpredictable and erratic weather patterns brought on by climate change - it means that we can often be delayed and unable to do jobs when we would like to!  The onion trick is something which I've learned works really well from experience. I would otherwise often have to go to a lot of bother and time potting on to avoid plants getting a check - using a lot more compost. Saving time is often as important as saving money for me!  If you don't do this, or don't pot them on and just leave them sitting on a hard surface getting starved if their planting is delayed - then the roots will start going round and round inside the modules, becoming very congested.  As a result - they will then be far less efficient, the plants will get a check and won't grow as well as they should when you plant them out and may be more likely to 'bolt'. If they're sitting on capillary matting - the effects can be even worse! This is because they will start to root into the matting - the roots then get broken off when you try to lift them up off the matting - and this can cause them to get such a severe shock that many of them will definitely 'bolt' - running straight up to flower instead of producing the nice firm, ripe, long-keeping bulbs that you want.  I actually do this every year now with my onions - I like to sow them early to get nice big plants so that I eventually get nice big well-ripened onions! I'm still using the last of last year's 'Golden Bear' and 'Red Baron' onions and they are as firm as ever! It's really worth keeping this trick in mind, when we can't always rely on the weather to behave in the predictable way it always did - and we are all so busy! 

 

 

Although leeks aren't quite as sensitive to being moved as onions - this is still a very useful trick that works really well for them too - especially if you have to go away at short notice or are held up in some other way. If you have time beforehand you could row them out in a small patch of a veg. bed if they are large enough instead of doing this and plant them out as usual later - but if they're still small that's risky as they're far more vulnerable to slugs!  This way success is guaranteed!

 

 

Following the same advice given in old gardening manuals just because that's how it was always done is outdated now. Our climate is definitely changing and we'd better learn to be adaptable and think laterally. That's why I call it - 'seat of the pants'  gardening!

 

How to make a protected propagating area outside if you don't have a greenhouse or polytunnel

Improving difficult soil 

Even if your soil is really rubbish and full of concrete-like clods - as it often is in the so-called 'garden' of a newly built house -  there is hope after builders! Pictured here on top of my soil now is a lump of the 'soil' I started off with 8 years ago in my new polytunnels! It makes a stark contrast with what the soil looks like now! If your soil looks like that - you can raise your plants in modules, then plant them out and they'll be fine. If it's seriously bad the first year, you may have to even make little pockets of compost in the soil to plant into as I mentioned last month - but after that the plants will grow on afterwards quite happily, the roots finding their own way around the clods or even breaking them up, as long as you keep the soil moist. Plants want to grow - as anyone who has ever left a forgotten few spuds at the back of an untidy veg cupboard will know!  I'm sure you probably tidy yours out more often than I do mine, so perhaps you haven't experienced that interesting phenomenon!!  I'm afraid once it gets to this time of year, any thoughts of 'spring cleaning' inside the house completely disappear off my agenda (if they were ever on it in the first place)! That's after I've cleared out any odd packets of nuts etc. that escaped my notice at the back of the cupboard and fed them to the hungry birds!!

First - Some General Advice for Seed Sowing:

There are quite a lot of things you could sow now in pots or modules either in the house on a windowsill, or in a propagator in a greenhouse or polytunnel, for planting out later in a tunnel, greenhouse or sheltered cold frame.  Most seeds will germinate at normal house room temperature - and as things take a week or so to appear anyway - you can sow some things inside the house and then put them out into good light in a greenhouse or frame as soon as the seedlings are up. Seedlings like lettuce, spinach and hardier salad plants will be fine then, with just some protection from frost with a couple of layers of fleece. Light governs their development to a great extent - so you can save money and energy by not wasting any heat needed for another couple of weeks yet - no matter how keen you are. Don't forget you can also do your seed sowing inside in comfort on the kitchen table - there's really no need to go outside in the freezing cold unless you're a masochist! 

In over 40 years experience I've found that using a good organic peat-free seed compost is by far the best and most reliable choice for sowing everything - not just from a plant health point of view, but also for environmental reasons.  Any extra expense is well worth it in terms of valuable seeds and seedlings not being lost to the diseases or pests which peat composts encourage.  After sowing - cover your seed trays or modules with clean, recycled polythene bags and put them somewhere in your house at average room temperature.  Most seedlings will be up within a few days or a week. I find seeds like lettuce take about 3 days at normal cool room temperature - they don't need a lot of warmth. Tomato seeds generally take around 5 days in the 70-75 deg F /or 21-24 deg C on the back of my kitchen range, if they are fresh seed. Make sure to put them somewhere where you will remember to check on them twice a day though, as seedlings like lettuce can become leggy very quickly if not given good light immediately they have germinated.

Speaking of light - once they have appeared, probably in a week or so for most things at this time of year, they will then need the very best light you can give them - which means either a tunnel, greenhouse or perhaps a cold frame against a south facing wall. They also need very good air circulation - so sowing in modules either individually or in 2's or 3's to thin later is the best option. This avoids handling vulnerable seedlings while 'pricking out', which may result in damage and possible 'damping-off'.  If the weather is too cold for them to be outside, or if your windowsill is the only option, one trick I learnt many years ago, was to take off the top and one side of a cardboard or wooden box, and paint the rest of it with white paint, or cover it with foil, or those cheap plastic mirror tiles you can buy from DIY stores, to reflect any light from the window back onto the seedlings.  This helps to prevent them from getting too leggy and drawn. It won't perfectly compensate for the lack of direct top light, but it still makes a huge difference.  Leggy, drawn seedlings are far more likely to suffer from diseases like 'damping off' as I mentioned earlier.  I have never used grow-lights - I think they're not just a waste of money but also a waste of energy - something we should all be far more conscious of now.  Reducing our carbon footprint should be a priority - even though we're growing crops which may help, even in a small way, to mitigate CO2 emissions.  In last month's Polytunnel Potager - I talked about being more conscious of our energy use in this blogpost:

"Should we be Heating Greenhouses for Early Crops?": http://nickykylegardening.com/index.php/blog/759-polytunnel-potager-february-march-2022

Remember - the suggestions below are for things which you COULD sow now if you want to - NOT things you MUST!

Pests on grapes. 

Growing Physalis Peruviana - (edulis or aka Chinese Gooseberry/ Inca Berry/ Golden Berry) 

Finish winter pruning of apples etc. now if you can walk on the ground 

Give fig trees in pots an early spring feed now - they'll be starting into growth soon too. The top buds on mine are already just showing signs of moving.  Scratch off a bit of the top soil in the pot - feed them with a balanced organic feed or seaweed meal, top up again with a little good compost, and water it in. Wait until next month to feed those outside as they'll start growing later and the food will just wash away, be wasted and pollute groundwater. Take off any overwintered fruitlets that are larger than pea size if you haven't already done so, these won't develop and will either drop off or rot on the stem - possibly causing disease.

The other option is to grow your earliest tomatoes, aubergines etc in the cheapest and least carbon-guzzling way possible, which is what I've tried to do for over 40 years.   After initially germinating them over the pipes at the back of the kitchen range, which is always around 70 deg F/22 deg C, as soon as they're up and need good light - I transfer them to a small electric propagator in the polytunnel, which can be kept at a temperature of approximately 50 deg F/10 deg C.  Filling every little gap between pots in the propagator with recycled bubble-wrap to insulate them and prevent any heat loss.  This is fine for giving seedlings and small plants the root warmth which they need to grow on well - they don't need more than that.  If you need more space to grow on a lot more plants later - then a heated roll-out mat which is a bit like an electric blanket will do the same.  Both will need some kind of sturdy structure over them so that you can cover plants on cold nights with bubble-wrap or fleece, secured with wooden clothes pegs, to prevent the tops being damaged by frost.  Propagator lids are always far too low for anything but small seedlings. You can get extenders to make them higher - but they're horrendously expensive, and if you have a good look around at home most of us can find something that does the job just as well.  The only limit is your imagination!  Over the years I've variously used old freezer baskets, wire laundry baskets, clothes horses and other things to make structures, and my current method is to use an old walking frame, which is very sturdy, fits neatly over the propagator and does the job perfectly!  You can see my magnificent edifice pictured above!  It looks a bit 'Heath-Robinson' - but does the job just fine!   At night for the first few weeks, I add more bubble-wrap or fleece to guard against cold, taking it off again in the morning and just leaving one clear cover on the plants, so that they get the best light possible, but without drafts. 

My ever-faithful little Robin friend signifies everything that I will keep faith with and stand up for until my last breath

Stand up for Organic, Peat-Free, Real Food now if you want a Healthy Future for our Children, Biodiversity and the Planet.

The fact is that the powerful global agrochemical/seed/biotech companies such as Monsanto/Bayer, and Vilmorin & Cie feel threatened by people becoming more aware that they are trying to control our global food system by taking over small independent seed companies whenever they can, and have no compunction in destroying the planet for profit. (Many people are unaware that they actually own Suttons, Dobies, The Organic Catalogue etc for gardeners) -information here: - https://www.vilmorincie.com/en/strategy/external-growth/ )The more threatened they feel - then the more their supporters on social media will try to attack and undermine all those of us who know without question that organic and peat-free is the only way forward if we want a healthy future for all life on the planet, and are brave enough to say it!  

After I tweeted about this 5 years ago, I received a veiled threat by DM (direct message) from one particular ' celebrity' bully - insinuating that he would sue me for actually telling the truth!  Needless to say I immediately unfollowed him so that he couldn't contact me secretly again!  Someone else very recently told me that she had also been threatened - and yet some people still don't seem to realise who these people are, and what's really going on - because many of them seem clever and amusing! But there is a sinister dark underbelly there that most don't see. 

It's vital that we continue to be brave and stand up to bullies wherever they are - whether it's about organic farming or anything else happening in society. I've been supporting organics in particular for over 40 years now - and like many of you I suspect, I often get tired and wish that those who are destroying Nature would just go away, and that things could go back to the way they were, before the massive rise in toxic agrochemicals over the last 70 years destroyed so much.  But we must not be afraid, and give up and go away as the bullies hope we will - so that they can continue to destroy more of Nature for short-term profit!  Science is so close to proving that organic is the only way forward to protect the future for our children, their children and indeed all of Nature.  It is far too important to give up now.

I have a much-treasured collection of the old Soil Association magazines 'Mother Earth', on the front of which are some wonderful quotes. They often make me wonder if we have learnt nothing during the more than 70 years that Nature has been gradually disappearing, along with the massive rise in antibiotic resistance and diseases such as cancer, type 2 diabetes and other NCDs or non-communicable diseases. This quote from the summer 1950 magazine, by Sir Albert Howard, is so relevant right now - if only people would listen:  "The crucial test of real scientific achievement is whether it recognises and respects the supremacy of Mother Earth, or ignorantly attempts to substitute the false for the true."

Pesticides and Pollinators? - It's OUR choice!

Apricot buds just bursting into flower in late February	Peach buds about to burst in the polytunnel in late February

Orange tip butterfly on Orychophragma in early spring a few years ago

 

Despite the cold nights things are already starting to put on a surprising amount of growth. Joy Larkcom's beautiful Chinese brassica, Orychophragmus Violaceus (bit of a mouthful!), which the Chinese call the 'February Orchid' (much nicer), is living up to it's name and about to open it's first flowers. Seeing it in Joy's County Cork greenhouse a few years ago completely stopped me in my tracks - it was absolutely stunning in early March! I just had to have it - and she was kind enough to give me some seed. It has quite large flowers for a brassica, which are that lovely soft lilac-pink colour of sweet rocket. Sadly no scent though - but nevertheless the bees love it and it's a firm favourite with endangered orange tip butterflies, as this photograph from spring 2011 shows. So it deserves a place in any garden just for that reason. It would certainly be worthy of a place in any flower border.  I've picked lots of leaves over the winter, and they're pleasant tasting in a salad, with a slightly 'cucumber/cress' flavour - not very strong - with quite an interesting texture. The flowers are really pretty in a salad too, again they have a slightly 'cress-ish' taste but they look so lovely it's almost a shame to eat them. I'll be saving seed again this year as it's very hard to obtain and I find it germinates best from fresh seed - but I know that occasionally, Brown Envelope Seeds in Cork have them.  

The beginning of February marks the mid-point of winter - half-way between the shortest day and the spring equinox

 

It's also the time when the ancient Celtic calendar marked the Festival of Imbolc - or the 'Feast of Light' - which celebrated the returning of light to the earth and the beginning of the end of winter.  An important day, this pagan celebration of light - which was seen as being both healing and life-giving. In Celtic times people rejoiced to see the sun returning just as we do today - but they understood how dependent they were on nature - an awareness that many of us seem to have lost now. They knew how vital the sun was to their lives and just how much they depended on those primitive seeds they had harvested so painstakingly the previous autumn and guarded so carefully all winter. They were totally in tune with the rhythm of the seasons and the forces of nature. Those of us today who are gardeners or nature lovers still feel the rise of that age-old visceral thrill of anticipation, and experience the same sense of celebration at the anticipation of longer days and delights to come.  It truly connects us to our roots, both physically and metaphorically. 

  

Our two late 'rescue' dogs - Flotsam and Jetsam - were real sun-worshippers!  Immediately even the weakest rays of sun showed they would rush outside and arrange themselves to maximum effect against a south facing wall. Just like eager tourists dashing for the sunbeds - in order to catch every available scrap of precious sunlight!  Our two new rescue dogs do just the same! They love to be outside all day if the weather's fine - occasionally tearing around playing and then flopping down onto their bale again! I hate to think of all the poor creatures that are left on their own all day, shut in up houses away from sunlight. All creatures have a desperate need for light and an innate sense of just how important the sun is. This particular animal (me!) makes a point of spending some time every day outside in the light, no matter how busy I am in the house. The sun feels surprisingly warm on one's face sitting in the polytunnel even at this time of year. The 'Trust Me I'm A Doctor'  BBC TV series researched the theory that spending more time out in Nature was beneficial for us. Unsurprisingly, (to us organic gardeners), it of course found that it was - and that even spending 2 hours extra a week outside has massive benefits - reducing stress levels, lowering blood pressure etc.!  Not a problem during lockdown - if you have any outside space, you can feed the birds and watch wildlife! That's something I find very therapeutic.  And happily, in a polytunnel you can also provide plenty of habitat and food for so much beneficial wildlife, as I've mentioned above - all of which will help you to grown food organically without using chemicals.

  

 

In the last week or so there's really been an amazing surge in the growth of some of the plants - despite the cold weather!  Plants know what time of year it is from the light just as all of Nature does - and they are ready and primed to start their yearly cycle once again. All the tunnel salads have really responded to even the small amount of increased light! The Oriental salads are positively burgeoning - the watercress in particular - growing at least six inches in a week! It's such a wonderfully reliable salad all year round, just needs regular watering - not running water - contrary to what some say. The only thing that makes it unhappy is being very short of water, which makes it flower. Then it becomes stringy, tough and very peppery - but bees really love the flowers though! If you only grow one salad - then do try growing it!  It grows like a weed, from just a bit of stem stuck in a jar of water, comes top of the list for healthy nutrients and is chock full of immune-boosting, cancer-fighting phytonutrients such as sulforaphane. My watercress, like my kefir, is something I rely on and have kept going for many years. I was so thrilled to be able to gather lots of it's luscious leaves yesterday for a lovely fresh salad. My hens also really enjoy disposing of any old salads lingering in the fridge. There's never any food waste here!

 

 

Fruit trees suitable for polytunnel growing. 

 

 

This morning I noticed a tiny hint of movement in the buds on the peach trees planted in the ground in the polytunnel - despite the low temperatures we've had recently. I'm so looking forward to their luscious fruits again and meanwhile carefully eking out the last of the frozen and dehydrated ones. Peaches, along with grapes, strawberries and of course figs are very easy to grow in polytunnels if you have enough space. My two 11 year old peach trees provide masses of fruit every summer now. I love peaches and it's well nigh impossible to get organically-grown ones. I always cut up the excess and freeze or dehydrate them for smoothies, sorbets or other treats. I think that peaches are the very best fruit tree to plant in a tunnel if you have space for only one tree - they're usually self-fertile and are easily kept within bounds by correct pruning. If you forget for a year, you can hack the hell out of them and they'll still come back for more - but if you aren't brave enough and don't prune them - they'll quickly outgrow any polytunnel or greenhouse and seriously threaten the roof!  

 

 

The really great thing about growing peaches in a tunnel is they don't get peach leaf curl - so don't have to be sprayed with any nasty fungicides. One of the other great things about peaches is that because of the way they are pruned - you can keep them to whatever height and width you want. So as long as you have roughly 15ft or 3m of tunnel width - you've got room for a very productive peach tree. It's vital to prune them properly though - and remember that they mostly fruit on the previous year's new green growth, as I described in this January's Fruit Garden Diary. Soon both Lidl and Aldi will have bare root fruit trees on sale again. At around a fiver each - they're fantastic value and in my experience are very good quality. Bare-root planting is always best with any fruit tree and I talked about that last month too. They always establish far better than anything bought in a container. The vital thing to remember is to always leave a minimum of 4 in. or 10 cm between the bulge of the graft union on the stem, and the top of the soil. if you don't do that you will lose the dwarfing properties of the root stock.

 

 

Other trees, particularly cherries, can be an absolute disaster, unless  you have a lot of time to fuss over them - particularly in the usually damp-ish atmosphere of the average tunnel here in Ireland. They really only work well grown on very dwarfing root stocks in the specialist fruit tunnels which I've seen in Herefordshire/Welsh border - where my family comes from and where many still live. Even then they need a lot of regular pruning to keep them under control. Specialised fruit tunnels have sides which can slide up, and tops that open up too - so that you get maximum air circulation and also good pollination when you need it. I'd love a specialist fruit tunnel - but sadly the finances won't stretch that far - so like most people I try to do as much as I can in one! It's so windy here that one might not be successful anyway! Over the last 35 years, I've tried all the latest dwarfing root-stocks for sweet cherries, even the 'minarette' ones, and none of them really work unless you are constantly pruning, snipping and fussing to keep them within bounds - something I really don't have time for. It's also difficult as you can only prune cherries at certain times of year - and this also happens to be the busiest time elsewhere in the garden. So take your eye off the ball at all and you'll find the cherry has lifted the roof off your polytunnel. Believe me - I've tried!. I would never recommend planting one in a tunnel. They seem quite innocuous for a year or so - and you might think - what's she talking about? But believe me - when they think you've taken your eye off them - they can take off like rockets! I've tried them in tubs too - and they're not that happy in those either for very long. On the other hand - Morello cherries, which are pruned in a similar way to peaches - can work fairly well in pots for a few years - but you'll never get huge crops from cherries in pots - and huge crops are what I always aim for! I'm a greedy fruit fanatic and the dark, sour or Morello cherries are also one of the best fruits for anthocyanins which are proven to lower inflammation and ease arthritis.

 

 

A reminder to order seeds now - if you want a tunnel full of healthy veg next winter!

 

 

A neighbour came to look at my tunnel the other day, and was surprised to see how great a variety of things there were to eat at this time of year. He has a small tunnel - and wanted to know how he could do the same next winter. It's really only a matter of remembering to sow the right seeds at the right time. Late June or July is the best time to sow many of the chicories, chards, oriental veg. etc. otherwise they don't have enough time to grow before the days really begin to shorten - when growth of many things slows dramatically. Summer is not always the most popular time to be anticipating winter though, much nicer to enjoy sunbathing instead! But gardeners must think well ahead if they want to produce food to be as self-sufficient as possible all year round food. So do remember to order seeds now of things like claytonia, chicories, endives, Swiss chards, leaf beets, sugar loaf chicory, Chinese cabbages, lambs lettuce, pak choi, winter radishes, winter lettuces, watercress and land-cress (you'll find a delicious soup recipe for these last two on the recipe page). Stupidly - many garden centres tend to take their seeds off sale once summer gets under way. They think that gardeners won't want seeds then - but REAL gardeners, growing real food do! So make sure you have them.

 

 

I am constantly amazed at the number of people who only get round to clearing up the remains of last year's mouldy and disease-ridden old tomato and cucumber stems or other crops now! They could have been eating delicious home-produced salads and other veg all winter..... not only are they completely wasting precious and expensive cropping space for at least one third of the year - but they then wonder why their lovely summer crops almost immediately get hit by pests and diseases as soon as they plant out this year's crops. This is because the spores of fungal diseases like botrytis etc. will be flying around the minute they go to clear up the mess! Any protected cropping space is so valuable - and often so hugely expensive to put up initially - that every inch of it it should be earning it's keep all year round!

 

 

How to afford what some call the 'luxury' of protected polytunnel cropping?

 

 

Several people have said to me in the past - "It's all right for you - I don't have a tunnel - I can't afford one - so I don't bother reading the bit about greenhouses and tunnels, because I can't do it!".  - Well do you know what?  For a start - you could actually grow many of the lower growing crops in a large polythene cold frame - that's what I did, long before I had my first small polytunnel. You could even make your own as I did!  If you work out how much you spend all year round on vegetables and fruit - particularly now with food prices rising - and then compare that against the price of a small tunnel - where you could grow a huge amount of it yourself - I think you would be surprised at just how quickly it would pay for itself!  Not to mention the convenience and added health benefits of absolute freshness, or being able to garden in any weather - even at night after work to de-stress!!  Some of the DIY stores sell plastic-covered greenhouse frames very cheaply now - for less than €100.

 

 

But if you really don't have the space for a greenhouse or polytunnel, or can't afford one, you may have a large glass porch, or you could make a polythene frame easily and very cheaply, sit it on a concrete path and grow in containers if you don't have any soil to grow in - so there's really no reason why you can't grow even a few winter salads at the very least!  In something that size you could also grow bush tomatoes, peppers or aubergines in the summer. I did that very successfully when I first started gardening years ago, making up my own frame from recycled timber and polythene, and I promise you that if I can do it - then anyone can!  DIY is most definitely not my thing!  I grew my best peppers and aubergines ever in that rickety old recycled frame! It lasted several years too - I was very proud of myself! So please don't use the "I can't" excuse - that is, unless you don't even have so much as a path to your front door!  

 

 

Winter salad beds in the tunnel - Endives, land cress, ragged Jack Kale, lettuce etc.

 

 

One thing I can absolutely guarantee, is that when it comes to polytunnels or greenhouses - what I call my 'law of handbags' applies. That is - no matter how big your handbag, greenhouse, or freezer - it will NEVER be big enough for everything you want to put in it, once you've experienced it's delights!! 

 

  

So always buy the biggest one you can possibly afford - you will bless every inch of it I promise you! I'll be making a new 'grow frame' this year, for hardening-off veg seedlings to be planted outside later. More protected cropping space is always useful here because it's so windy - and in late spring, when the tunnel is literally bursting at the seams, a grow frame or cold frame is a great halfway-house for hardening off plants to grow completely unprotected outside later on.

   

 

Will you have 'Extra early potatoes' for Easter?

 

Your extra early potatoes could already be up about an inch or so if you planted them as I described last month in pots. Make sure they're covered every night with fleece - even if you're not expecting frost - just in case. In the middle of this month, they may be about 10cm/4-5in. high, then you can plant them out carefully, keeping the root ball together, into a tunnel bed, covering with a double or even treble layer of fleece if severely cold nights are forecast. Or you can leave them in their pots. You'll be eating these in mid-late April!  You can also plant well sprouted seed potatoes directly into a tunnel bed any time now, again covering if necessary. These should be ready to eat in May, roughly in about 10-12 weeks, depending on the variety. As mentioned in previous diaries -  I've always found 'Lady Christl' to be the very best for really earlies in the tunnel, good flavoured, it's by far the quickest to 'bulk up' - one can often find usable potatoes underneath it after just 8 weeks - if you're impatient like me and do a gentle, exploratory 'finger-dig', leaving the rest to grow on undisturbed!  'Duke of York' or 'Red Duke of York' is next best for earliness (and also the best flavour of the lot), 'Mayan Gold' is only a few days after them - planted at the same time - and of course has an unsurpassed flavour - 'Apache' is a delicious early too and then 'Sharpe's Express' - 'Annabelle' is also not bad. I've tried all of the other earlies - including 'Rocket', Swift and 'Premiere' and quite frankly they were utterly tasteless compared to any of the ones I grow. Flavour is a very subjective thing however - and let's face it - given enough butter almost anything tastes good!! 'Mayan Gold' seems to be generally available now in Ireland (I smuggled mine in via my daughter's backpack years ago)! Try it and I can guarantee you will be as rapturous in singing it's praises as I am!! Never boil it or it falls apart because it's so floury - steam or roast it instead. Mayan Gold is also energy saving as it actually cooks far more quickly than normal varieties - in about half the time!

 

Winter watering

 

Water only if absolutely necessary in the tunnel at the moment. Doing it in the morning is best if you can - as this allows any surface moisture to dry off before evening. If you're covering crops with fleece it also helps if the soil surface dries off a bit during the day or fleece tends to absorb more. I watered 3 days ago - for the first time in over 3 months! Plants were wilting in the sunshine - which is getting a bit stronger now. Also ventilate as much as you can whenever possible, to keep the air moving and avoid the atmosphere becoming too damp - which encourages fungal diseases. Keep an eye on weather forecasts for very strong winds though - you don't want your polytunnel taking off into the next parish - (a story there - tell you sometime - I'll never forget losing a polytunnel in hurricane 'Charlie' in the mid 80's!). Growth of all plants will suddenly start to increase in the next week or so - thanks to the light - so you can increase watering accordingly when you need to. 

 

Also it's important now to continue scrupulous housekeeping! Tidy up any yellowing, rotting or diseased leaves etc. and also the remains of finished crops. Don't leave anything hanging around that could cause disease!

  

Waking up our soil friends after the winter 

 

If there's not much worm activity in your soil generally - then do a pH test. Worms like a pH of about 6.5 - 7 and if your soil Ph is right and worms have plenty of green food to eat - then they should be lively and bright pink - not sluggish and pale. If you find your soil is a bit too acid then add some calcified seaweed to gently raise the pH. You can't go wrong with this, as it's very gentle and also contains lots of other valuable micro-nutrients and trace elements. Then lightly scratch over the ground, add some nice well-rotted compost and perhaps a few handfuls of seaweed meal which worms also love. If you don't have compost then a handful per square yard of a general organic fertiliser like 'Osmo' will add more nutrients but if you've got time before the next crop planned for a particular space - maybe 6 weeks - then sowing a fast growing green manure is a really good idea. Not only does it help all the biological activity in your soil but it also adds humus which makes soils more resilient and helps them to hold onto moisture like a sponge. Even claytonia - not usually used as a green manure, is brilliant. The worms go mad for it - it's like crack cocaine for them! This will help to kick start all the biological activity in the soil as it warms up - giving the worms, microbes, fungi and soil bacteria some TLC and a welcome gourmet breakfast, just when they're starting to wake up. Interesting fact - did you know that there are more billions of microbes, soil bacteria, fungi etc. in just one teaspoon of soil - than the total number of people who have ever lived on this earth? If it wasn't for them - we wouldn't even exist!! So learn to love your microbes! 

 

 

Organic growing feeds the soil and all the vital microbial life it contains with compost and animal wastes just as nature does. It doesn't directly feed the plants with synthetic chemicals. That's the most important thing to remember - because if you by-pass all the microbes and funghi that evolved to interact with plant roots symbiotically and produce their by-products which keep plants healthy, you will  ultimately produce unhealthy plants. A healthy, vibrant, living soil grows healthy, vibrant, nutritious plants. Healthy plants make healthy food for people. This is particularly important to remember in a polytunnel, where things tend to be magnified, happen a lot faster, and we are totally responsible for the growing environment.  

 

 

Time to start sowing early seeds in modules

 

 

To make sure I have something to plant as soon as the winter crops are finished both in the tunnel and outside, I started sowing a few early crops in mid-January. Details of what you can sow now are in the 'What to sow in Feb.' section, so I won't repeat them here. Things like onions, leeks, beetroot etc. can be multi sown in the modules - in 3's or 5's - depending on how many you want in a clump - or how big you want your onions (less in a clump for bigger onions) and they're planted out later without thinning. These will push each other apart as they grow and develop quite normally. You can do the same with summer spinach, chards and 'baby leaf' or salad mixes. Rather than use an expensive propagator at this time of year I germinate everything near the back of my range cooker - which keep things at a steady 65-70 deg F/16-20 deg C. As soon as the first seedlings are showing they need good light, so then I put them out in the polytunnel, on a roll-out heated mat which provides very gentle bottom heat of about 50 deg F/10 deg C - or just above during the day - and is very economical to run. This is all most things need to grow on nicely without forcing. In another 2 weeks in the warmer propagator I shall sow my aubergines Bonica F1, (the very best and most reliable one) these develop quite slowly at first and need a long growing season. I'll also be sowing my earliest tomatoes - Maskotka, Latah and John Baer. These are always ripe in the first week or so of June. I can't wait for ripe tomatoes again! Talking of which - there may be some very exciting news soon on the tomato front - but can't reveal it yet!!

 

 

What are 'Blind seedlings' that don't develop?

 

 

Occasionally there are seedlings that develop they're first seed leaves or cotyledons as they are known - but after that they don't grow any more new leaves.  These are known as blind seedlings. In cases where you may only want one plant per space - like lettuces or hybrid calabrese - it's normal to thin seedlings to one per module, but only do this after they have clearly developed their first 'true' leaves - not the seedling/cotyledon leaves - as 'blind seedlings they will never develop 'true' leaves and grow on. This is quite common with brassicas and if it happens you could waste space on a seedling which will never develop any further - so don't thin them too early! With calabrese seed in particular - which can be expensive - it also wastes seed and money!  I've never seen any of the 'so-called' experts telling you this - they always tell you to thin as soon as you can handle the seedlings! Over 40 years of experience (OMG can't believe it!) does actually teach one a few useful things!

 

 

 

Sowing early peas and broad beans in pots

 

 

Sprouted broad beans sown in 500g yogurt pots

Sprouted mangetouts sown for pea shoots and pods

 

At this time of year - I always soak my broad beans and peas for a couple of hours before then sprouting them on damp kitchen paper on a plate covered with cling film and put in a warmish place. I always get the best germination this way. It saves the seed sitting in cold wet compost for too long and possibly rotting. They sprout in about 2-3 days and then as soon as the 'radicle' or main tap root  appears - I then sow them in large pots as you can see above (I use recycled 500 ml yogurt pots - they're the perfect size!). 3 broad beans to a pot or a small handful of peas (don't count them) per pot. I don't thin the beans or the peas as it's totally unnecessary - I've tried doing it over the years but the plants produce just the same crop per plant - so obviously crop more per sq.ft/m if on a deep, raised bed. Thinning them after germination is not only totally unnecessary, but is also time-consuming and wastes valuable seed. These potfuls will be planted out about 30cm/1ft. apart when big enough.

 

I am always amazed at just how much better the germination is with home-saved seed. I got 100% germination of the yummy Crimson Flowered Broad Bean as per usual (good job as we've just finished the last from the freezer!). Beans and peas are the only things I cover with organic peat-free seed compost after sowing - everything else is covered with vermiculite - which promotes good air circulation and drainage around the seedling stem, virtually guaranteeing no 'damping off' disease - as long as you are careful with your watering. After sowing anything - only ever water again from underneath. This is easy to do by sitting the tray or module in a tray of water for a few seconds. And as I've often said before - if you do happen to overdo it by mistake - and we all do it occasionally - don't despair and leave them to rot in cold wet compost!  It's very simple - just sit the tray of seedlings on a newspaper for 1/2 hour or so which acts like a wick to draw out the excess. All seeds need is a good seed compost, a little thought and plenty of TLC to grow - it's not rocket science!

 

Despite all the years I've been gardening - I never cease to be surprised, thrilled and full of wonder at Nature's miracle of a tiny seed and it's determination to grow. That perfect little pre-programmed parcel of DNA - full of history and priceless, unique and irreplaceable genes. And - best of all - packed with a delicious promise of healthy food!  

 

Do you know someone actually complained to me a few years ago that there's too much information in my blog?  I suppose these days everything is presented in small bites - which often leaves one with not enough information to do things properly - so then you think it's your fault when it doesn't work!  Luckily many others disagree and really appreciate the work I put into it - so for it's for those nice, appreciative people that I write it!  I try to put on new, improved and relevant stuff each year - depending on the latest research. Although there's no substitute for experience - and you never stop learning in gardening - every year is different. I hope you find my experience useful.

 

 

I can remember only too well what it was like many years ago - trying to find out how to grow chemical-free food for my very sick child!  You couldn't even buy organic vegetables and fruits then!  Although there is much more availability of organic produce now - it's not only much cheaper, more satisfying and far fresher if you can grow it yourself even if it's only salads - but you can also have a far wider choice of produce and nutrients by growing your own food. If you want to grow a lot of things then you need all the information to be successful. Very often gardening advice in magazines seems to have been written by people who either haven't actually done what they're talking about - or are complete novices and are just repeating stuff from old gardening books almost verbatim! That won't do any more - our climate is changing, soil science is moving on and we are better informed than ever. Despite that though - we should never assume as some arrogant scientists do that we know it all - because Nature doesn't give up her secrets easily! True science is humble - it continues to learn and evolve to meet new challenges.

 

 

Early spring has already arrived in the tunnel - and I couldn't possibly garden without one now!

 

 

As I've been saying ever since I got my very first tiny one - about 40 years ago now - 'If I only had a small garden - I would cover the entire space with a polytunnel'.  I definitely think there should be government grants for back-gardeners to put them up! Just think of how much they'd save the health service with all that gentle exercise, fresh air, light and healthy chemical-free food! It's just what the doctor ordered!  It's truly wonderful to be able to walk into the tunnel and feel the gentle background warmth and dryness when the sun shines at this time of year - it's so full of hope. Every time I open the door and walk into that other world, I thank the Garden Gods once again for the blessing of such a snug and richly-productive space to grow things in.

 

 

As Fionnuala Fallon so beautifully put it in her Irish Times article about my polytunnel in November 2010 - "....it was a bit like walking into the wardrobe of C S Lewis - not quite Narnia perhaps, but definitely a very different universe....." - Indeed it is! Here's the link to her article below: 

 

  https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/2.770/for-all-year-abundance-it-s-best-to-have-tunnel-vision-1.678550

  

 

(Thank you so much to all the people who have taken the time to write and thank me for my work - or thanked me on Twitter. I really enjoy sharing my original ideas and 40 years experience of growing and cooking my own organic food with you. It's most satisfying and naturally also very complimentary if others find "inspiration" in my work......But if you do happen to copy any of my material, or repeat it in any way online - I would appreciate it very much if you would please mention that it originally came from me, as it's the result of many years of hard work. Thank you.)

Pruning pays off for productive peaches!

 

 

I thought that showing you a picture of some juicy peaches might encourage you to try growing some this year! Happily avoiding the unpredictable weather - I'm hoping to find time to finish pruning my polytunnel peaches in the next week before the fruit buds start to swell - it's so easy to knock them off then and lose fruit as a consequence. I won't be pruning any other stone fruit like plums or cherries outside yet though, even if the weather is dry - as that risks encouraging 'silver leaf' disease. Most stone fruits should always be pruned only if absolutely necessary, if a branch has broken, or for shaping the branch system in their early years - and then only when the sap is rising and growth has started in the spring. But most fruit trees undercover can be pruned at pretty much any time of year in my experience - although peaches and apricots flower early so it's best to do this before the buds start to swell. As the pruning methods in most fruit books apply to greenhouses with lovely walls or to traditional bush shaped trees - I had to invent my own method for growing peaches in a polytunnel! 

 

 

Like many of the things I do - my method of peach pruning is just a little unorthodox but it works very well for me and I get huge crops! The peach pictured here is pruned as a rough fan/bush shape - which reduces the height, leaving some productive younger green shoots lower down that will fruit this year. It's not a traditional way to prune peaches - but I find it easier and it's not too time-consuming. The shoots don't need 'tying in' to supports as they would if it was strictly wall trained - and in fact it's far more productive than a wall trained tree would be! Being planted about 60 cm out from the tunnel wall means there's space for the slightly bushier form while still retaining fairly good air circulation. If your tree hasn't been pruned for a few years and has become a mess of old wood, then you may have to take a lot off now to encourage young shoots to form lower down the tree. Peaches will do this quite readily and will often produce lovely young shoots even from the trunk. If you don't take off most of the older wood the tree will put all it's energy into the topmost branches and this just makes the problem even worse - so you have to be brave and harden your heart!

 

 

Nectarines and peaches are pruned slightly differently to plums and cherries. As they always fruit most prolifically on the previous year's (green) wood, they need a certain amount of the older wood pruned out each year to stop them getting too big, particularly in the tunnel, not just to avoid them bursting out of the polythene at the top but also to promote younger fruiting growth, leaving enough well-spaced young growth on which they will fruit this year. You also need to be able to reach to thin and pick them! If you don't do this they soon become an unmanageable, crowded and unproductive mess. It's sometimes difficult to take out enough wood in summer though, so I often need to take out more at this time of year, particularly on the older trees. Then I can see exactly what I'm doing because the trees are naked, with no leaves and the young, greener growth formed last summer is much easier to see.

 

 

They start into growth much sooner inside and already the fatter and rounder fruit buds are easily distinguishable from the growth buds which are slimmer and more pointed. Trees can quite easily put on over a metre of growth during the summer - so controlling them is vital. Pruning the top growth also naturally reduces further root growth correspondingly, which is a good thing as otherwise they can rob nutrients and water from crops growing in the raised beds near to their root area. The roots of any healthy tree will always extend over an area of at least roughly three times the height of the tree.  After looking at them carefully, take out some of the older branches back to a point just above where some new green growth which the tree made last summer appeared - bearing in mind the height you want. Later on in the summer, just after fruiting, prune out some of this year's longer new growths in order to keep them a manageable size and promote good air circulation. 

Prune trees right back after planting, to just two or three lower buds on each branch, pointing in the direction you want them to grow. New green growth will come from those in it's first year, and this will help the tree to develop a nice low branching system from which to select the branches you want to keep for fruiting the following year.  It will fruit on those next year and you will reap the benefits of having a little patience!  Each year after fruiting - cut them back again to establish a nice young branch system in whatever shape you like. Then go over them again in winter and just tidy up. Last year, yet again each of my fan/bush trees at the north end of my tunnel produced well over two hundred perfect large peaches each, and we've been enjoying the frozen fruit as sorbets, smoothies etc. all winter, and the dehydrated fruit as Nature's sweeties! There really is nothing like sinking your teeth into that first luscious, aromatic home grown peach!

 

For the last few years, both Aldi and Lidl have had bare-root trees available really cheaply, sometime over the next couple of months. That's where I originally got mine, for only a fiver each, and they were one of the best investments I've ever made!  Although one was labelled 'Peach' and the other 'Nectarine' - they both turned out to be unnamed varieties of peaches.  But happily for me - serendipity was at work!  One is an early variety and the other is a later, even more delicious one - so they spread the crop very nicely and we have fresh peaches for around two and a half months in summer, with masses to freeze!  Named peaches are generally available in garden centres - but they are much more expensive as they will be container grown - often in peat compost, which I hate. Peat is not a natural growing medium for peaches! 

 

If you have the room for a peach they're far easier to grow under cover in a tunnel or greenhouse because not only can you always keep them pruned to the exact size you want, but growing undercover means that they don't get peach leaf curl disease. Peach leaf curl is a fungal disease which is caused by rain washing the disease spores down into the buds before they start to grow in early spring, if they're growing outside. My peaches are planted at the north end of my larger tunnel, where they also don't shade anything. They are roughly fan-trained over a width of 15 ft/4 metres overall, with a height of about the same, or slightly less. At their feet in a narrow bed about 3ft/1 metre depth, I have planted perennial herbs like various thymes, alpine strawberries, oregano, a few early bulbs and lots of scented single flowers to attract beneficial insects and pollinators. This works well for me.

 

It's a good time to finish winter Pruning both in the Polytunnel and outside if Ground is dry enough to walk on.

  

Having said that - if your ground is wet then you'd be better staying off the ground around any fruit trees, or indeed anywhere else, until it dries up a bit!  If you don't you will compact the soil and cause permanent damage, which then leads to drainage problems. Poor drainage can also then have a 'knock' on' effect' on nutrient uptake - leading to a condition called 'bitter pit' - which is a symptom of poor calcium uptake in apples and other disease problems. All fruit really hates bad drainage. If the weather turns drier over the next couple of weeks and the soil dries up a bit I'll do the pruning of the apples in the new orchard. If you have polytunnel fruit though - this is a great time to prune it as growth will be starting again soon and if trees are pruned properly you can look forward to a summer of luscious fruit!

 

 

 Bare-root benefits

 

I usually prefer to plant bare-root trees, whatever I'm planting, if I can get the varieties I want with bare roots, because they establish and adjust to your soil far better.  Container-grown trees in peat composts can take much longer to establish as their roots as the can be reluctant to explore the world outside their pot - even if you loosen some of the outer roots a little!  Peaches aren't that fussy about soil but they do like it well drained, with a pH of about 6.5 to 7. Scatter a couple of handfuls of bonemeal and calcified seaweed over the planting area of about 2 sq. metres, these will supply phosphate, slow release calcium and other trace elements. If your soil is poor and lacking in humus and organic matter, and possibly compacted - that will mean it's also low in biological activity, so it could benefit from adding one of the beneficial mycorrhizal granules available in sachets now from garden centres. These form a fungal network which helps roots to establish a symbiotic uptake of nutrients quickly, and this will increase over the years. Fork all of these in really well and evenly when preparing the soil and scatter some of the granules over the actual roots as well. 

 

A Peat-free Plea!

 

Before planting, I also fork in a light dressing of good, well-rotted, but not too rich, crumbly compost - not tons of nitrogen-rich manure which would promote too much soft, sappy growth.  If you don't have some  crumbly old home made compost, a bucket of a good quality organic peat-free potting compost will do just the same job.  Please don't use peat!  It's not necessary or in fact suitable for the plants or trees you're planting!  I know that some people may feel that using peat-free compost my seem a bit extravagant when planting - but if you just think how much even non-organic peaches cost each - and how long the tree is likely to produce fruit - then you'll see it's worth every penny!   

 

Using peat, whether in potting composts or just for soil conditioning is quite literally costing us the earth - as every crumb of peat extracted is accelerating climate change!  Just a few peaches will repay the cost of any peat-free compost at the price they were last year!  Last year, organic peaches - if you could get them - were over one euro each!  Only 12-15 peaches pays for a whole bag of the best, top quality organic peat-free compost!  (I use the peat-free certified organic potting compost from Klasmann which is excellent).  A peat compost or plain peat will not do the same job either - as it completely sterile, containing no vital microbial life, and eventually clogs the soil too.  The Spaghnum moss which makes peat is so sterile that it was used to make sterile wound dressings for soldiers during the First World War!

 

The addition of organic compost opens up the structure of the soil, makes it more 'root friendly' and introduces important microbial life, which will adapt itself gradually to the type of tree which is grown there. All types of plants have specific kinds of microbes that like to live symbiotically with the roots of that particular plant - and if you start them off at the correct soil pH, with some compost to feed on at first, they will soon multiply and form a huge living community around the root structure - supplying the plant with the vital nutrients it needs from the soil.  A symbiotic relationship is a bit like a 'middle man'/or a sort of 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' kind of thing! The plant makes root exudates - sugars which feed the microbes - and then in return all the microbes make the nutrients in the soil available to the plant's roots - in a form that they can absorb. Basically it is pretty much the same way as our digestion works - so the soil acts a bit like the plant's stomach if you like - as I've explained before. Every year after planting, a light scattering of compost and a couple of handfuls of seaweed meal (for potash and trace elements) will keep them happy and busy, but will not make the tree not too vigorous. 

 

There's still just time to order bare-root fruit trees, bushes and canes for mail order delivery before March

  

The sooner you do this the better if you're planning on buying any - you don't want to be right at the back of the queue just getting the dregs of what's left at the end of the planting season. If you're looking for a new raspberry - then I can thoroughly recommend the autumn variety Joan J - pictured here. It's definitely the best tasting variety yet.  I grew it in pots in the polytunnel a few years ago and it fruited from June until almost Christmas. "An autumn raspberry fruiting in June" I hear you say? Yes - if you prune them MY way! Many people recommend pruning them right back after they've finished fruiting in late winter - but I always leave about half of the canes that formed and fruited in the previous autumn un-pruned. These then fruit early the following year - after which I prune them right down to the ground. Those will then form new canes which will fruit slightly later in the autumn than the new canes which grew up from those pruned in winter - thereby spreading their season even more and giving you a continuous crop for much of the summer and autumn. It doesn't harm the plants at all pruning this way, as autumn varieties are very vigorous anyway. I just feed, mulch and water them well. Like so many of the tricks I've learned over the years - I discovered this one literally quite by accident - by not getting round to pruning at the accepted 'right time' - due to an accident!  All autumn raspberries will do this if pruned this way - but if I only grew one raspberry variety - it would be Joan J. It has enormous fruits which aren't just delicious fresh but which also freeze incredibly well. 

 

Which Apple Varieties are suitable for a Small Garden?

 

Someone asked me recently to suggest two apple varieties which would be suitable for a small garden, which would fruit reliably early in the season, are good freshly picked and would then make apple juice for freezing. 'Discovery' is an excellent and productive early season apple that ripens through September, it's crisp, sweet and has very pink-tinted flesh compared to many apples. The internal colour indicates that it's full of healthy antioxidants too. Depending on the season's weather and where it's planted - the apples that are in full sun always colour best. Crisply delicious when just picked, it doesn't keep for more than a couple of weeks or so once it's ripe, but it does make a delicious pale pink apple juice - particularly when combined with the early cooker 'Grenadier' which ripens at the same time -  in early/mid Sept.  We don't make juice here any more as juicing discards the flesh of the fruit, wasting many healthy nutrients like antioxidant phytochemicals & vital gut- healthy fibre. This also means that juice is very high in quickly available sugars too - which are not good for us. Eating whole fruit is better for us - so we tend to make 'slushies here now - which are our half-frozen smoothies using whole fruits blitzed in the Nutriblender and diluted with a little spring water. These are delicious and thirst-quenching on a warm early autumn day!

 

As Discovery also flowers at the same time, being from the same pollination group, they make very good partners for a small garden. Grenadier is a terrific early cooking apple with plenty of sweet/acid flavour - good for all sorts of cooking uses in late August, September and October.  If you store either of these apples after that they tend to lose their flavour and acidity though, becoming 'woolly', which affects their flavour, so the two are ideally matched.  Both varieties are widely available and are good, reliable and disease-resistant. If you have room for three trees in your garden and would like a longer-keeping cooker - then they also make perfect partners for Bramley's Seedling. This apple is what is known as a 'triploid' - meaning that it has no good pollen of it's own, so therefore it needs two good pollination partners which reliably flower at the same time.  Discovery or Katy - two early eating apples which don't keep, and Grenadier - an earlier, non-keeping cooking apple partner it perfectly. So it's a productively fruiting 'menage a trois' if you like!

 

If you only have room for one apple, then an offspring of Discovery - a result of a cross with an apple called Kent which was bred more recently in 1975, is a really good apple called Red Devil - (pictured above cut in half).  It's disease resistant, incredibly productive and self-fertile, in flowering group 3, so doesn't need a pollinator partner nearby. If you do have other apple trees nearby though, it's also a very good pollinator, and will pollinate trees in flowering groups 2 and 4 - which overlap their flowering times with group 3 trees to a certain extent. A delicious apple, it stays lovely and crisp for 3 months in my apple store, and is very high in polyphenol antioxidants which have many health benefits. Unlike Discovery, it is picked a little later in early October depending on the season - but will keep until Christmas or beyond - which I find more useful in an apple as there are always plenty of September ripening apples around - too many at times - but they become more scarce after October. Last week I chose a couple from my apple store to grate into a smoothie - it was just slightly less crisp - but still juicy and delicious and full of colourful antioxidants as you can see here from the colour of the flesh of one I cut in half to remove the pips! 

 

My old broken upright freezer recycled for storing apples!

If you would prefer a long-keeping eating apple and have room for three trees - then I would recommend 'Ashmead's Kernal' pictured here in my 'low-tech' recycled dead freezer apple store in January.  It's a healthy, disease-resistant and very productive apple, which is at it's very best naturally stored from mid-December until April It's not an apple which many people know as it's almost never available to buy in garden centres or nurseries - but it's a very aromatic, crisply mouth-watering and nutty tasting apple, with a good sweet/acid balance which regularly beats the more famous Cox's Orange Pippin in taste tests and is considered to be one of the highest quality late dessert apples ever. It flowers in pollination group 4 - so it overlaps it's flowering time with Red Devil which provides good pollination for it most years. 

 

Ashmead's Kernal is a late-keeping, russet dessert apple bred 300 years ago by Dr. Ashmead near Gloucester. It's one of my favourite late apples. Although often selected in competitions as even better-tasting than Cox - it's far less well known and unlike Cox is scab-resistant and far more tolerant of damp climates like ours here in Ireland, which encourages scab. Also a triploid - the heavy-cropping Ashmead's also needs 2 other apple trees nearby which will pollinate it - but this isn't usually a problem in urban gardens. It crops really well on the M26 semi-dwarfing root stock, and picked in mid-October - it keeps really well until April in cold storage. Useful for cooking from October - later on in December it matures into a delicious dessert apple with a very distinctive and mouthwatering 'pear-drop' flavour.

 

We're currently eating the stored Ashmead's which we picked in late October last year, and every time I bite into one of them, I thank old Dr. Ashmead of Gloucester who raised it in around 1700!  My rather unconventional apple store keeps these really well. It's an old broken freezer which I re-purposed and it has several drawers which I can pull out to inspect the apples daily for any that may be deteriorating. It also has perfect insulation, which keeps out either heat or severe cold, and I can vary the humidity by adjusting the door opening slightly. The apples are kept in a sort of natural suspended animation, so while still alive, they go on just quietly breathing and developing their flavour a lot more more slowly than they would otherwise have done if they'd been left on the tree. This means they will keep for several months, staying crisp and retaining all of their healthy nutrients.

 

I often wonder what dear old Dr. Ashmead would think of my apple store? Or if he could possibly have imagined that people in the 21st century might still be enjoying this wonderful apple and writing about how HE was the person who bred it?

My apple store is not just full of deliciously healthy, pure delights - it's also like having a treasure chest full of fascinating stories and rich social history! 

 

The importance of choosing the right root-stock for fruit trees

 Other fruit jobs to do now

Contents: On your marks, get set - grow!. Grow Great Kale All Year round.... Why organically-grown potatoes are more healthy than conventionally-grown.... Some tips if you're only just starting to grow your own food..... Seed orders are the main priority..... Why spend time NOW making a cropping plan?.... Why not try growing Oca this year?..... Another job for now is organising your seed sowing equipment.... Recycling saves money and avoids plastic waste.... A home made cold frame is useful if you don't have a greenhouse or polytunnel..... Grow some 'extra early' potatoes for Easter?.... 

Jack Ice - an exceptional lettuce for winter or all year round growing	Lattughino Rossa - another hardy winter and early spring lettuce

On Your Marks, Get Set, Grow! - To grow your own health, reduce your carbon footprint, TRULY help the planet AND save money at the same time by growing your own peat-free organic food.  What's not to like?  

In mid January, as the light starts to increase, the sap starts rising in us gardeners and I always get the urge to sow something!  Pay no attention to those who tell you it's far to early to sow anything!  Things are much quieter in the garden right now, so we all have a bit more time, and if you take care to harden things off carefully and gradually when they starting to grow well and are big enough - there are plenty of vegetable seeds you can sow now for earlier spring crops!  I shall definitely be sowing more of two of my favourite hardy lettuces in the next few days - Lattughino Rossa and Jack Ice - both of which can be sown now for early spring crops in the polytunnel or outside.  Both of them are open-pollinated - meaning that you can save your own seed from them and not be reliant on seed companies who may drop wonderful old heirloom varieties without notice, something which I wrote about in this month's polytunnel blog.  I saw that the now 'Big Ag' owned Organic Catalogue dropped Lattughino last year, when I checked for you to see if it was still available.  Luckily I've saved my own seed of Jack Ice (available from Real Seed UK) and Lattughino for years now, but when I looked to see if Lattughino was now available anywhere, the only company now listing it is: https://www.sativa.bio/en/vegetables?p=2  It's a terrific lettuce well worth seeking out, and also saving your own seed in future, which is very satisfying and costs you nothing except a little effort!

Waiting until mid-February or early March to start sowing seeds may be fine for those who don't have frantically busy lives - but decades of experience have taught me that if something unforeseen happens then - that may delay things further and I may not get crops of some veg at all.  Anyway - I'm always impatient to get going too - so I like to steal a march on spring and get a few seeds in early, to ensure I have crops of some of my favourite healthy salad greens and other veg.  In fact, I find the best time to sow anything is when I have the time and the inclination!  You can find my list of what you can sow in January here: http://nickykylegardening.com/index.php/blog/803-what-to-sow-in-january-2023 

Mixed Red Ruble and Ragged Jack kale leaves and flower shoots in early March from the polytunnel

Grow Great Kale All Year round 

Kale is a member of the hugely varied brassica (cabbage) family, thought to originally be native to the Mediterranean and Asia Minor, which has been grown by humans for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks and Romans are recorded as having grown kale in the 4th century BC, and by the Middle Ages, it was the most widely eaten green vegetable throughout Europe. No doubt this is because it is so thoroughly reliable and hardy, withstands most conditions except waterlogged soil, crops for a very long time, and you can pick just a few leaves as you want them, rather than having to cut the entire head off the plant at once, like a cabbage or cauliflower. I love generous leafy vegetables like kale as they are far less work, with just two or three well-timed sowings giving you year-round crops. What many people don't know is that kale also produces another valuable crop - delicious flower shoots just like sprouting broccoli in spring, if you allow it to. It really is such a good-natured and reliable food plant, and if you grow open-pollinated, non-F1 hybrids as I do, you can even save your own seed if you discover a particular variety you like. That can save you quite a lot of money when you look at the price of seed these days! The seed lasts for several years kept in a dry, cool place, as long as you can keep those dratted mice away from them! They adore them and know what's good for them!

Kale is one of the most useful, versatile and super-nutritious vegetables you can grow, and it's very easy to have lush crops of baby or larger leaves all year round. It is not just versatile in the ways you can grow it, but also in the kitchen. It can be used in a wide variety of dishes, both raw and cooked, but is actually higher in sulforaphane, a powerful anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer phytonutrient when it is eaten raw, or only very briefly cooked, just for a minute or so. It is high in Vitamin A, E, K, and B (especially folate), and is high in iron (the less easily absorbed, non-heme kind) and Vitamin C, and also contains more calcium gram for gram than a glass of milk! Some people worry as they may have heard that it contains goitrogens, like all the cabbage family, which may affect the functioning of our thyroid gland by interfering with iodine absorption, potentially affecting hormone production. But frankly, if you eat food grown with pesticides, smoke, take some medications like NSAIDs, use non-stick PFOA/Teflon-coated non-stick pans pans or use other products containing hormone-disrupting, goitrogenic chemicals, you need to worry about those far more than kale, unless you are eating tons of it raw every day! If you have existing thyroid problems, then don't eat it raw, as cooking inactivates the goitrogenic compounds.

But isn't kale just a winter vegetable though? Not here it isn't, because I want tender baby kale leaves all year round, when they are at their most delicious and nutritious! Most people just sow kale in May, to grow over the winter outside, but I usually multi-sow it three times a year. In late January or February for fast-growing crop of baby leaves in the polytunnel or under cloches through spring into summer outside, in May for eventual overwintering outside, and in late June or early July, for growing in the polytunnel over the winter. All of these will also eventually produce fat, tender flower shoots like sprouting broccoli if allowed to. The tunnel-grown ones being particularly valuable in spring, when the few plants that I leave to develop more seed produce precious early nectar and pollen for pollinators like bees, hoverlies and other beneficial insects.

By multi-sowing I mean that I sow a small pinch - perhaps 5 or 7 seeds - into individual modules of organic, peat-free compost, either on a windowsill if sowing very early, or later in my polytunnel. This is a very space-saving way to grow seeds if you only have a small propagating space, as just a few modules will give you a lot of plants. Also by not sowing in the ground outside, they are protected from bad weather much safer from slugs, mice and other pests, so you are guaranteed plenty of plants which you can thin or split up into smaller clumps of fewer plants when big enough, before they get too crowded and hungry. It may seem a lot of handling, but it saves on seeds, and realistically only takes a few minutes to split and pot on a lot of plants. The ones I grow for overwintering in the polytunnel I usually leave in clumps of three or five, potting them on as needed until their space is freed up in the tunnel after summer crops are cleared. I then have leaves within just a few weeks, which I can pick continuously all winter long.

One of my favourite varieties which I save seed from, and the one I have grown for the longest time, is Ragged Jack. This has very lush and attractive frilly green leaves, often with fascinating little bunches of tiny frilly leaves growing off the leaf veins too. I have been growing and saving seed of it for ovdr 40 years now, originally having obtained it from the HDRA (now re-named Garden Organic) Heritage Seed Library. Ragged Jack is also called Red Russian by some people, but there are many slightly varying strains of this wonderful kale, about 20 in all according to experts at NVRS Wellsbourne, in the UK. It is hardy, resistant to almost everything, and absolutely delicious. The other variety I love and grow every year without fail is the stunning variety Red Ruble, which was originally developed for baby salad leaf production, but actually makes delicious larger leaves and flowering shoots too. Red Ruble is not only very high in iron compared to most other kales, but its stunning deep purple colour shows that it is also very high in valuable, health-promoting anthocyanin phytonutrients. I like to try one or two other types of kale each year, as new ones or re-discovered heirloom varieties become available. Variety is definitely the spice of life as they say!

Kale is a member of the hugely varied brassica (cabbage) family, thought to originally be native to the Mediterranean and Asia Minor, which has been grown by humans for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks and Romans are recorded as having grown kale in the 4th century BC, and by the Middle Ages, it was the most widely eaten green vegetable throughout Europe. No doubt this is because it is so thoroughly reliable and hardy, withstands most conditions except waterlogged soil, crops for a very long time, and you can pick just a few leaves as you want them, rather than having to cut the entire head off the plant at once, like a cabbage or cauliflower. I love generous leafy vegetables like kale as they are far less work, with just two or three well-timed sowings giving you year-round crops. What many people don't know is that kale also produces another valuable crop - delicious flower shoots just like sprouting broccoli in spring, if you allow it to. It really is such a good-natured and reliable food plant, and if you grow open-pollinated, non-F1 hybrids as I do, you can even save your own seed if you discover a particular variety you like. That can save you quite a lot of money when you look at the price of seed these days! The seed lasts for several years kept in a dry, cool place, as long as you can keep those dratted mice away from them! They adore them and know what's good for them!

Kale is one of the most useful, versatile and super-nutritious vegetables you can grow, and it's very easy to have lush crops of baby or larger leaves all year round. It is not just versatile in the ways you can grow it, but also in the kitchen. It can be used in a wide variety of dishes, both raw and cooked, but is actually higher in sulforaphane, a powerful anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer phytonutrient when it is eaten raw, or only very briefly cooked, just for a minute or so. It is high in Vitamin A, E, K, and B (especially folate), and is high in iron (the less easily absorbed, non-heme kind) and Vitamin C, and also contains more calcium gram for gram than a glass of milk! Some people worry as they may have heard that it contains goitrogens, like all the cabbage family, which may affect the functioning of our thyroid gland by interfering with iodine absorption, potentially affecting hormone production. But frankly, if you eat food grown with pesticides, smoke, take some medications like NSAIDs, use non-stick PFOA/Teflon-coated non-stick pans pans or use other products containing hormone-disrupting, goitrogenic chemicals, you need to worry about those far more than kale, unless you are eating tons of it raw every day! If you have existing thyroid problems, then don't eat it raw, as cooking inactivates the goitrogenic compounds.

But isn't kale just a winter vegetable though? Not here it isn't, because I want tender baby kale leaves all year round, when they are at their most delicious and nutritious! Most people just sow kale in May, to grow over the winter outside, but I usually multi-sow it three times a year. In late January or February for fast-growing crop of baby leaves in the polytunnel or under cloches through spring into summer outside, in May for eventual overwintering outside, and in late June or early July, for growing in the polytunnel over the winter. All of these will also eventually produce fat, tender flower shoots like sprouting broccoli if allowed to. The tunnel-grown ones being particularly valuable in spring, when the few plants that I leave to develop more seed produce precious early nectar and pollen for pollinators like bees, hoverlies and other beneficial insects.

By multi-sowing I mean that I sow a small pinch - perhaps 5 or 7 seeds - into individual modules of organic, peat-free compost, either on a windowsill if sowing very early, or later in my polytunnel. This is a very space-saving way to grow seeds if you only have a small propagating space, as just a few modules will give you a lot of plants. Also by not sowing in the ground outside, they are protected from bad weather much safer from slugs, mice and other pests, so you are guaranteed plenty of plants which you can thin or split up into smaller clumps of fewer plants when big enough, before they get too crowded and hungry. It may seem a lot of handling, but it saves on seeds, and realistically only takes a few minutes to split and pot on a lot of plants. The ones I grow for overwintering in the polytunnel I usually leave in clumps of three or five, potting them on as needed until their space is freed up in the tunnel after summer crops are cleared. I then have leaves within just a few weeks, which I can pick continuously all winter long.

One of my favourite varieties which I save seed from, and the one I have grown for the longest time, is Ragged Jack. This has very lush and attractive frilly green leaves, often with fascinating little bunches of tiny frilly leaves growing off the leaf veins too. I have been growing and saving seed of it for ovdr 40 years now, originally having obtained it from the HDRA (now re-named Garden Organic) Heritage Seed Library. Ragged Jack is also called Red Russian by some people, but there are many slightly varying strains of this wonderful kale, about 20 in all according to experts at NVRS Wellsbourne, in the UK. It is hardy, resistant to almost everything, and absolutely delicious. The other variety I love and grow every year without fail is the stunning variety Red Ruble, which was originally developed for baby salad leaf production, but actually makes delicious larger leaves and flowering shoots too. Red Ruble is not only very high in iron compared to most other kales, but its stunning deep purple colour shows that it is also very high in valuable, health-promoting anthocyanin phytonutrients. I like to try one or two other types of kale each year, as new ones or re-discovered heirloom varieties become available. Variety is definitely the spice of life as they say!

As most organic gardeners will know - there are many toxic chemicals such as artificial fertilisers, fungicides, pesticides and herbicides like Glyphosate used in the growing of conventional potatoes. You will also know if you are a regular reader of this blog that I have been studying the effects of such chemicals since my daughter was born with serous allergies over 40 years ago, when our unusually enlightened doctor for that time recommended a totally chemical-free, organic diet. The reason I am going into a little bit more technical detail than usual here, is because I was asked a question on Twitter last week by a doctor who was perhaps questioning my knowledge of such chemicals, as often happens on Twitter!

In addition to all those used during the growing and harvesting of potatoes, there is another which is used after harvest - a so-called 'sprout-suppressant' chemical which prolongs the storage-life of the tubers by preventing them from sprouting, as they would normally start to do in mid winter, once the natural dormant period of potatoes is over. Many people are completely unaware of the use of these toxic chemicals, which I believe everyone ought to know, given their toxicity. 

Potatoes for processing, commercial and table use often need to be stored for 6-9 months, and so some sort of sprout suppressant is required for this unnatural, long-term storage - whereas the homegrown potatoes I have stored here are already starting to sprout. Although there are several chemicals used -  the most wide-spread and most commonly used is one called CIPC or Isopropyl N-(3-chlorophenyl) carbamate or Chorapham.  It is a selective systemic herbicide - 'systemic' meaning that it is translocated and present throughout the plant tissue of the tuber. CIPC has been in use for more than 50 years, and has been the most commonly found residue in potatoes in all surveys since 1994. According to studies, it is among the pesticides which have been found in the highest concentration in the diet of the average American, and comprises 90% of the total synthetic chemical residue found in US potatoes. Studies have also reported that toxicological evaluation of CIPC, as tested and documented under lab conditions, is an underestimation.  Recently various important safety concerns have surfaced over its long-term and continuous use, due to the higher toxicity of it's metabolites (the degradation or breakdown products it produces in the potatoes after treatment) and the fact that the levels of these can increase with the multiple treatments carried out during the storage period, something which was unknown at the time the chemical was first used. 

CIPC belongs to a group of pesticides known as Carbamates.  It is applied by a process known as 'thermal fogging' in order to reach all the stored potatoes, and this step causes not only the thermal degradation of it, but also its breakdown into aniline-based derivatives which have a high toxicity profile. One such breakdown product of CIPC is  3-chloroaniline (3-CA ) and being an aniline-based derivative, it is considered more polluting and highly toxic that the parent compound itself and potentially carcinogenic to humans. According to the Extension Toxicology Network, chronic exposure of laboratory animals to CIPC has caused "retarded growth, increased liver, kidney and spleen weights, congestion of the spleen and death." In the UK, over 6 million tonnes of potatoes are produced annually, and more than half of this production is stored for the fresh market and for food processing. CIPC is currently used as the main sprout-suppressant in commercial potato stores.

Perhaps you might not find those non-organic baked potatoes or crisps quite so tempting now? - Sorry!........ And you'll also now understand why I recommend that you only use organic potatoes to get them sprouting for your' extra-early' potato crops which I talk about later on - otherwise you could be waiting a very long time!  This is obvious in the picture above, showing a comparison between the nicely sprouting organic potatoes in the top of the picture, and the same variety of non-organic ones at the bottom - which have clearly been treated with a sprout-suppressant chemical!

Overture and beginners - some tips if you're only just starting to grow food

Welcome to a new gardening year here on the blog and an especially big welcome if you're a first time reader!  The main advice I would give to any beginner just starting off, is don't be tempted to start off by trying to take on too much - because that can be a recipe for disaster. Start off growing your own food by doing it a little at a time,  then any disasters you may have will only be small ones - not so big that they make you feel utterly useless and you give up!  If you're only starting on a windowsill - or you've even taken on an allotment for the first time, do it a little at a time. Don't try to run before you can walk! 

If you have an allotment - PLEASE don't listen to the old timers on the site who will tell you to spray everything off with weedkillers like Roundup which contain Glyphosate!  Not only do ALL weedkillers kill vitally important soil life that would otherwise help you to grow naturally healthy, more disease-resistant plants - but what the manufacturers don't tell you is that they're actually a complete waste of money, as they don't kill weed seeds.  So as soon as you touch the soil with even a hoe and uncover long-buried seeds, they will grow, because that's what Nature designed them to do!  Seeds will also blow in from other places, and you can't avoid that, but don't worry - there are plenty of non-toxic, nature-friendly ways to beat weeds! 

Instead of using a weedkiller - blocking out the light which encourages weed seeds to germinate is the best thing to do. You can do this by covering the whole site with some sort of mulch and then cardboard or thick wadges of newspaper with cardboard or recycled polythene on top.  Don't be tempted to buy in farmyard or stable manure which may well be contaminated with chemicals like weedkillers or worm-destroying veterinary 'worming' medicines. In the first year, you could either uncover just a small patch, or grow stuff in large boxes or containers on top of the weed-suppressing mulch - that's how I started in my first garden 43 years ago.  Start off with just a few lettuce plants if you can get them - they'll give you faster results and something to pick quickly to spur you on.  But most garden centres won't have them until March - so buy some really cheap 'value' seed like lettuce mixes, or oriental salad mixes, Claytonia etc (see my what to sow list) (non-F1 hybrid seed is cheaper and often more reliable as they are older, more commonly grown varieties).

One thing I would never advise is trying to save money on compost - this is where your growing budget is best invested!  Buy the best quality organic peat-free seed compost you can get.  This will last well if you keep it in a dry place or you could also share a bag with a friend. Buy some organic peat-free potting compost at the same time. Why do you need that? Because it has more nutrients than seed compost and will either be suitable for growing plants to maturity, or for potting them on into larger pots until conditions are suitable for planting either outside or in a polytunnel.

Don't buy expensive seed trays and pots - save money, recycle and ask friends to save for you - soon you'll be inundated! Ask for mayonnaise or coleslaw tubs at supermarket or local shop deli counters - they always have them as they buy that stuff in and then just throw them into the plastic reycling bin when empty.  They'll save you loads of money, make great growing tubs after you put drainage holes in them, they're free and last years if you keep them out of the light when not using them, as light makes the plastic brittle. Some of mine have often lasted for over 30 years!

Start to grow your own nutrients. Make some worm compost - feed worms instead of feeding your council food and garden waste bin!  It's much less hard work as the worms do it for you - then all you have to do is put food waste in and magically get the best super-charged compost out!  Worms turn food waste into wonderful stuff, which doesn't smell, and which is high in nutrients and important beneficial enzymes and microbes.  Making one is a very easy project for cold days.  You could get a suitable bin in the Jan sales - or perhaps you may have something suitable already which you could re-purpose?  Here's a link to my 'How to make your own worm' bin article: http://nickykylegardening.com/index.php/blog/537-how-to-easily-make-an-affordable-home-wormery

Grow some 'extra early' potatoes for Easter.

Planting well-sprouted seed potatoes in pots

Extra Early potatoes 'Lady Christl' & 'Mayan Gold'. Harvested late April.

 

This is usually the month when your stocks of stored main crop potatoes may begin to run low - unless you grew acres of them. If you need some inspiration, then just think of new potatoes, with lashings of butter, in mid-April - yum!  OK - so they're quite high in carbohydrates - but you can reduce their carbs and turn them into what's known as 'resistant starch' by cooking and then chilling them for at least 8 hours in the fridge, then reheating by using whatever method you like. Doing this can reduce their carbohydrate content by up to 50% and make them more gut-healthy. But anyway - if you're not living on them all the time they can't do you any harm occasionally! They're also nutritious and the resistant-starch encourages the good bacteria in your gut to multiply, which is good for your immune system too. If you're still worried about carbs, then just cut back on them in other areas of your diet so you can enjoy some new potatoes - they're one of life's great pleasures!  I'd rather have them than sugar in my tea any day - and we rarely eat cakes or biscuits here, as healthy veg always come first!

 

 

Purple potatoes are one of my obsessions - I just love their deliciously nutty, 'baked potato' taste and the fact that they are higher in gut-healthy antioxidant polyphenol phytonutrients which have many health benefits, like lowering blood-pressure and even blood sugar.  There are more varieties of these great potatoes becoming available now to home gardeners, and different varieties can often be found in farmers markets too. They are an unusual and tasty alternative to the more ubiquitous white or yellow-fleshed varieties, and they're becoming increasingly popular with celebrity chefs for their stunning looks. I've grown many varieties of them since first discovering them 35 years ago.  In 2020 - I grew the Blaue Anneliese for the first time, and it was so blight-resistant that one row took over a whole bed in the polytunnel and I was still digging them in early September!  I grew it again last year and was equally delighted with it!  I'm starting some of those off in pots now too, so that I get some earlier, as they are slower to start being a maincrop.

 

 

Purple potatoes are grown in exactly the same way as any other potatoes, but the one thing which is very important is to ensure that purple potatoes are always well 'earthed-up'. This is to prevent any tuber 'greening' from light reaching the tubers and causing areas of the toxic and indigestible phytochemical solanin developing, as this is very difficult to see on a dark purple tuber. There are several good varieties available now - Violetta, Salad Blue and Purple Majesty are three of the best that I have grown, and these are generally available online.  

 

 

At the moment - there isn't very much that can usefully be done outside 

Now is the time to get on with inside jobs while you have the spare time - because there won't be too much of that in March!  If you try to do anything that involves walking on your garden soil - you will actually be doing more harm than good by compacting and squashing the air out of it. If you have heavy clay like mine - when it dries out it will turn into concrete! I've often been tempted to make bricks or a cobb house out of it - and I have in fact made small pots just to prove it!

The well-known rule with winter soil is - if it sticks to your boots or if you sink into it - then it's far too wet to work - so just stay off it!  Get on with some jobs you can do inside in the warm instead, like getting all your seed sowing kit ready, cleaning seed trays and pots, and ordering the last of your seeds if you haven't already done that - this will be a real help when the spring rush of jobs arrives! It's closer than you think - so it's really time to get on the starting blocks and be ready for action! So keep to the paths if you need to do things! If you're growing in the traditional way on the flat - and you have to step onto the soil to harvest things like brassicas (cabbage family) and leeks - then get a wide plank to walk on in order to spread your weight a bit. This will minimize damage to the soil as far as possible. If you grow in raised beds - as I do - they're great because you can always work from the path without compacting soil at all. This is far better for all the soil life that actually needs air too. Raised beds are also a lot easier on the back, which does make life easier at this time of year.

Why spend time NOW making a cropping plan?

Seed orders are the main priority right now

 

 

If you haven't already done your seed orders - before you order any, just take an hour or so to organise your existing stock. Then you will know exactly what you already have and what you need more of.  I’ve tried several methods over the years - but the one I find best is to put them into a sort of filing system - sorting them into groups: roots, brassicas, peas and beans, spinach, lettuces, salad mixes and oriental leaves, tomatoes and aubergines, squashes and pumpkins, herbs, lettuces, other miscellaneous etc. - in a similar way to how you would plan your rotations. I stand them up in large recycled fruit punnets or deep plastic meat containers, with a large cardboard label at the front of each punnet. This keeps them all together and makes each vegetable group or packet of seeds easy to find quickly.  

 

 

When you've organised your seeds - you can then get on with ordering those you need as quickly as possible - many of the new or popular varieties will sell out quickly - especially since growing  your own has become even more popular with Brexit and Covid.  Definitely do it by the end of this month if you don't want to be disappointed. Many seed companies also give a discounts for ordering early, but sadly tahe UK ones can't send to Ireland now, so if I want anything I get it sent to a friend or family member there. Having my seeds organised in the way I've described is something I've found really useful over the years as it means I can keep checking my stock of seeds as I'm ordering. This stops me either duplicating or ordering too much. If you're anything like me, the seed catalogues all end up dog eared and marked everywhere with all the things I'd like to try. I then go through what I've already got - and after a major reality check (I don't have three gardeners - only me!) I then probably only order half or less of what I've actually marked in the catalogue. If I don't do this - and order online instead - I end up ordering far too much! Do compare prices too - it's amazing the huge variations for exactly the seeds in different catalogues. It's definitely well worth making the effort in these cost conscious days - and this month you have time to shop around!  Order your seed potatoes too - then you can get them well-sprouted which gives them more of a head start when planting.   

 

 

 

Why not try growing Oca this year? 

 

Colourful oca tubers like the ones pictured here are available from Real Seeds now - but as they're always in short supply - order as soon as possible. They're a deliciously different member of the sorrel family - sort of 'lemony/artichokey' flavoured - and a good occasional potato alternative with fish and no problems other than rather ambitious territorial tendencies. They make a nice clump of the large tubers you can see pictured here. They also form masses of small tubers wherever the stems touch the ground - so just like Jerusalem artichokes - once you have them, believe me you'll always have them! I can't understand why they're apparently so rare, I have to weed them out in my veg garden now! I grew them a few years ago as a 'break crop' in the tunnel rotations and they really enjoyed it in there. I'm now weeding them out all the time in there too - but I can usually dig them up and give them away to grateful recipients!  As they don't really tend to bulk up their tubers in late autumn though - it's best to grow them where they can be easily protected from frost. They're not too fond of containers either - they're much happier in the ground like most things. Although having said that - last year I tried planting them at the bottom of a container and then earthing them up as they grew. As they seem to form their tubers along subsequent stems - this worked well. 

 

 

 

One thing I haven't seen mentioned in any magazine articles or books though, is the fact that being a member of the sorrel family, they are actually quite high in oxalic acid - which accounts for the sharp lemony flavour of both the tubers and the pretty clover shaped leaves pictured here, which can also be used sparingly in salads.  So rather than eating them daily, it's best to have them as an occasional treat, or you might end up with kidney stones if you're susceptible! There is some research currently being done into low oxalic acid varieties - but at the moment I definitely wouldn't think of them as a suitable everyday alternative to potatoes! We don't need to eat potatoes everyday either. There are plenty of lower carbohydrate alternatives that are equally as delicious - Jerusalem artichokes for one - which are incredibly healthy for your gut - being full of prebiotic Inulin which feeds your gut microbes and encourages them to multiply.

 

 

Another job to do now is to organise your seed-sowing equipment. 

 

Doing this while you have plenty of time is really useful and will pay off in terms of both time and money saved later.  As you're filling your recycling bin - have a look to see what could possibly be used as seed trays, pots, seed labels etc. - you'll be amazed at how much money you can save. There are very few things normally regarded as 'waste' that can't be made use of for another job. It's far better than continually buying everything new which uses carbon intensive and increasingly scarce resources. I always have huge bags full of various plastic containers like yogurt or cream cartons - particularly those large 500g sized yogurt pots which are great for sowing peas and beans in. They save a lot of money as you don't have to buy expensive pots from garden or DIY shops. If you're careful and keep them in the dark when not in use so they don't degrade in the light - you can use them for years. I've still got some from a brand of yogurt my late mother used to like - and she passed away 17 years ago!  If you need module trays, you can buy large amounts  of different sizes in farm or horticultural growers supply shops in most areas. They will often split them and tape together lots of a dozen or so too, as they know that home gardeners are a growing market. The most useful size I think is the small tray of 12 x 1in/2-3cm modules. I sow most leafy things direct into these and they stay in those until planting-out time. I bought a huge box of 200 years ago, as that's the only way I could buy them at the time! They've actually made great presents for gardening friends - perhaps along with some precious, home-saved seed of a rare variety of something. Loo rolls of course make great long modules for things like sweet peas and even carrots or parsnips. I start off my early ones in these every year, as the soil is never warm enough for their germination at the end of January or early February, and you can plant out nice neat rows when the time comes - which is very satisfying..

 

 

Recycling saves money, and avoids plastic waste. 

 

And that means more money to spend on seeds! I have to make a confession here! - I AM that odd person who sidles up to strangers in garden centres and DIY shops just as they're looking at things like expensive biodegradable peat pots - suggesting that they don't waste their money on something that will only be of use once and encourages the destruction of our priceless, carbon-capturing bogs!  I have to say the reaction is always good - I've never been told to mind my own business, but there will no doubt be a first time one of these days!!  After all - who is averse to saving a bit of money - particularly at this time of year?  I've actually made one or two really good friends that way too - gardeners are usually very friendly folk and naturally have a lot in common to chat about.

 

 

A useful thing that you can buy from The Organic Gardening Catalogue UK (Garden Organic) and use for years is a small wooden paper 'pot former' in two sizes. These enable you to make your own biodegradable pots from old newspapers. It's quite fiddly and time consuming though - a bit like the gardener's equivalent of Origami - fun but not strictly necessary if like me - you've already got lots of recycled containers. Kids enjoy doing it though - and it's a good way to get them into gardening - which is never a bad thing!  I also recycle any plastic containers which could be useful for growing things - they can last for years if you store them away from light when not in use.  I'm still actually using recycled yogurt pots of a brand that my late Mother used to buy regularly, who passed away almost 17 years ago now. I have also been recycling many other plastic pots for over 30 years. The trick to getting them to last a long time is to keep them clean and out of the light when not in use. If occasionally one splits then it doesn't get thrown out - it's used as a sleeve inside another split one - making one strong, usable pot and avoiding more plastic waste. I still have some of the standard 2 and 3 litre pots which I got from a garden designer friend over 30 years ago!  I raise my early potatoes in them every year as well as many other things, they're such a useful size.

 

 

A home made cold frame is useful if you don't have a greenhouse or polytunnel

 

 

Speaking of recycling reminded me of this. If you're gardening on a budget or don't have a cold frame - you can easily make one using 2"x 4" rough timber and clear polythene sheeting obtainable pretty cheaply from builders merchants or DIY shops, or even from skips if you're like me!  Mattress covers which you can often pick up from furniture or bed shops also make great covers for cold frames or raised beds, and I never throw away any large pieces of polythene or bubble-wrap, as even relatively small pieces can be so useful!  A home-made cold-frame can be made a lot higher than those normally available and being higher allows you to grow taller summer crops which need protection too - like bush tomatoes and peppers etc. If you make a box shape from timber laths, leave one end and either the top or bottom of the box open, covering the rest with polythene - you can make a really useful cold frame in any size you like!   It's really useful if you have a path against a wall as I did when I made my first one, which gives you an extra bit of reflected heat. Then depending on whatever you're growing - you can turn it any way you like, or raise it up on blocks or bricks, pull it away from the wall for air circulation it even becomes a mini greenhouse if it's raised up high enough!  I grew my best aubergines ever in my old grow frame!

 

 

 

People often even wastefully throw away perfectly good windows and patio doors - ideal for sitting on bricks to make extra growing space!  A friend of mine has made a whole greenhouse using old shower doors from people re-vamping apartments in Dublin.  As she has a back problem like me - she's also made some raised beds from old bathtubs from the same source. It does help that she has a son who works in the building trade though - and not everyone has that advantage!  It's amazing the perfectly good stuff you see being chucked out when people are doing up their houses - my car is trained to automatically slow up on sighting a skip!  If you ask nicely and don't cause a mess - most people are often only too happy to give stuff away as it makes more room in the skip!  And a nice pot plant or a few veg later in the year doesn't go amiss either!

 

 

I made my very first large 'grow frame' as I called it - 45 years ago now, by recycling some timber laths I'd found dumped on a skip. It lasted for 5 years until we moved and my 'other half' flatly refused to bring it with us, as I had accumulated so much other 'plant stuff'!!  (I suppose it was falling apart a bit - it was made from recycled timber after all - and believe me I'm no carpenter!) And I suppose after moving about three lorry loads of plants - as opposed to only one of furniture - it was probably just about understandable, although I really hate waste!! That scruffy old cold frame made from 'skip-found' bits and pieces allowed me to grow my very first tomatoes, peppers and aubergines (the best ever) against a south-facing wall in my first garden - and I learnt such a lot from growing in it!  Sadly I don't have any photos from those days - I was far too busy raising very lively toddlers to think about such things in the pre-digital age - but I hope the diagram gives you an idea of how it was made! Even with polytunnels now - I still find a cold frame or two a very useful 'halfway-house', for hardening-off plants before they are planted out in the open garden.

  

 

Firm in and stake Brassica plants

 

 

Another thing to check after all the wind we've had is brassica crops. Firm in - and stake if necessary - any which may have suffered from wind rock in the wet soil - and also keep them well protected from birds with some netting suspended above plants. The pheasants and pigeons here are getting very hungry and were using the netting like a trampoline before Christmas in order to weigh it down and peck at the Brussels sprouts through the top. I think it's definitely time for a few roast pheasant dinners! The remaining Brussels sprouts would complement them nicely and I'd really enjoy them - given the damage they do if given half a chance!

 

 

Keep veg beds covered if they don't currently have a crop in them

 

For over four decades now I've practised what I call minimum cultivation gardening, in raised beds.  I don't call it 'no-dig' - because actually no type of gardening is truly that - you still have to plant things and dig potatoes or other root crops!  Anyway of necessity, now that my back is deteriorating even more - I do as little work possible to get maximum returns - while at the same time protecting the soil's structure and it's whole ecosystem as far as possible.  My useful co-workers are worms - and they do most of the work, and make it easy!  Cultivating soil in this way encourages a healthy, nutrient-rich and vitally alive soil which is the basis of all good organic growing and healthy eating.  

 

 

I just want to remind you once again that if you leave freshly dug ground uncovered and open to the elements, as some people do, our increasingly high winter rainfall will wash out and waste valuable nutrients, causing pollution of ground water, carbon loss and loss of soil biodiversity.  It's best to protect the soil and keep it covered either with a growing crop, a weather proof mulch that can't leach nutrients in heavy rain, like wood chips, or a waterproof cover. This is essential at all times in winter when the weather's very wet!  It's important to keep compost heaps covered too - for the same reason. The climate is changing, becoming much more unpredictable and definitely far wetter at certain times. We need to recognise this, be flexible and move with the times - not stick to outdated and old-fashioned modes of thinking from the last century! 

 

Double digging - as recommended in all the old gardening books is also definitely out!  I never did it anyway because I've always grown in raised or deep beds, created originally by just piling soil from paths onto beds, and then over the years adding more mulches which protect the soil and add more carbon-fixing humus -  No-dig in other words!  The latest soil science shows that digging breaks up important fungal threads, disturbs and buries all the vital microbial soil life much too deeply - almost like suffocating or drowning them - so it can take years to recover.  Soil life needs light and air too - and it's vital for growing healthy crops as it makes the nutrients in the soil available to plants. If you need better drainage - then just make raised beds like me - you'll find they're much less work too!  

 

 

As I always say, look after Nature - and Nature will look after you!

 

Thank you so much to all the people who have taken the time to write and thank me for my work - or thanked me on Twitter. I really enjoy sharing my original ideas and 40 years experience of growing and cooking my own organic food with you. It's most satisfying and naturally also very complimentary if others find "inspiration" in my work......But if you do happen to copy any of my material, or repeat it in any way online - I would appreciate it very much if you would please mention that it originally came from me, as it's the result of many years of hard work. Thank you.

Calabrese 'Green Magic' - main head ready for cutting.	'Green Magic' making juicy side shoots after central head cut

Time to plant some 'extra early ' potatoes in pots in mid January

Endives 'Riccia Pancallieri' & 'White Curled' (sown early Sept.)

 

The terrific thing about a tunnel or greenhouse is that it allows you to experiment with many crops that would never do well outside in our climate - and there are also plenty of crops normally grown outdoors here in winter that are so much more productive under cover. Swiss chard and kale are very good examples - and also crops that are never much good outside in average summers here. Melons for example will revel in the tunnel's humid summer warmth and can be really productive. There are far more varieties available now than there were a few years ago. There seem to be a lot more varieties of lettuce suitable for winter growing too - I'm going to trial a few more this year - mostly loose leaf 'picking' varieties as these are the most valuable - giving such a long period of cropping. Although they're as tough as old boots and can recover completely from being frozen to a crisp - endives really enjoy the indoor life too. They're more disease-resistant than most winter lettuce and the slugs don't seem to like them quite as much either - which is useful. I discovered a nice pale leaved one a few years ago called 'White Curled'. It isn't as bitter as the normal types which I normally blanch for a week or so before picking. I pick individual leaves of 'White Curled' all winter long - they're very decorative in a mixed salad - making a nice contrast with their pretty, finely cut leaves of pale lemony-green. I originally got it from Simpson's seeds but as it's what's known as an 'open-pollinated variety - not an 'F1' hybrid - I save my own seed now every couple of years which saves money too. I mark the best plant for later on, then in spring I'll let it flower. The bees absolutely adore it so they pollinate it for me and then it sets seed. That keeps both the bees and me happy - a double whammy! 

 

 Use it or lose it! Making use of every inch of soil is what Nature does!

 

'Inter-cropping' - or growing fast-growing crops to cover the ground between slower maturing crops is something I've always done since I first started gardening in a tiny space 45 years ago. It's the way to make best possible use of every inch of any space. To me it's always seemed common sense that there's no point in leaving ground bare between rows of slower growing things and just hoeing or weeding, if something useful and edible could be growing there!  If there isn't room for something to grow, or it doesn't fit into your rotation - which is very important - then an organic mulch of some kind - either compost or grass clippings - is always a good idea. 

 

Soil should never be left bare. If you observe nature you'll see that it always populates ground with something - often with what us gardeners tend to think of as weeds!  Bare soil is only natural at times in a desert - but even that isn't really bare - it's full of indigenous plant seeds just waiting for some precious rain so that they can spring to life, flower and seed again. Soil should be covered with something all the time, to prevent erosion, loss of carbon, minerals and nutrients. Covering soil with an organic mulch also feeds soil life like worms and protects the microbial life which makes humus. So my gut feeling was right! 

Landcress growing between celery and McGregor's Favourite beet

 

 

A tunnel allows you to extend the seasons at both ends if you plan really well - and I'll be sowing some more salads, Crimson Flowered broad beans and sugar pea 'Delikett' next week.  We'll be eating them at the end of April with our extra-early new potatoes - in what people still call the 'Hungry Gap'. There's never hungry gap here though thanks to polytunnels! In the next couple of weeks I'll also be sowing lettuce, carrots, beetroot, turnips and spinach in modules as well as planting some of those 'extra earlies' in pots. The 2nd early/early maincrops Violetta and Purple Emperor did really well early in the tunnel again last year and so did the New purple potato from Fruit Hill Farm - Blaue Anneliese - so I shall definitely be planting some of those too. All the seeds I sow will be germinated in the house in the warm (room temp.- around 60degF/16degC-ish) - then put out onto the roll-out heated mat on the tunnel staging, which gives a very low bottom warmth - just enough to keep them frost-free and growing. The potatoes will also be started off in the house and then go out into the tunnel when they appear above the compost, as they'll need light then too - but if very cold weather is forecast they'll all be covered with at least a double layer of fleece for extra protection. 

 

 

When it comes to extending the autumn season it obviously works in reverse - things that would normally stop growing in early October outside will go on for weeks or even months longer during a mild winter under cover. A good example is the late crop of self-blanching celery I always sow in May. Planted out between the early sweetcorn - it crops well through most winters - crisp, juicy and delicious. When the sweet corn is finished it's cut down to the base - rather than pulling it up and disturbing the celery - which would make it run up to seed.  Then land cress is planted between the celery. The middle row of celery is cut first - by Christmas - which allows the land cress more light. When it perks up it gives a useful crop from otherwise empty space before the entire bed is cleared.  I sowed some home-saved seed of 'Crimson Flowered' broad bean last night - 3 to a recycled 500ml yogurt pot - and as soon as they're up they'll go out into the tunnel - again covering with fleece if a hard frost is forecast. I don't bother sowing broad beans outside in November any more as I find that those sown now will crop just as soon - and often far better. I've been saving my own seed of this beautiful and tasty variety for over 30 years now, always selecting the tallest, heaviest-cropping plants to save from, as originally it was quite short. Mine reach about 5 feet high now!. I got it originally from the Heritage Seed Library of the HDRA (now Garden Organic). Following on again from those will be brassicas (cabbage) family next autumn/winter - probably late calabrese (Italian broccoli) and kales. They make use of the 'free' atmospheric nitrogen the legumes will have fixed while growing.  An example of Nature's perfectly designed symbiosis at work!

 

  

 

Tomato 'Rosada'

Tomato 'Sungold'

Don't have empty, uncovered ground now either outside or in the tunnel

A thick carpet of green manure mustard 'Caliente' 

 

 

If you have empty ground where you've just cleared a crop, then you can get ahead with lightly raking in some nice well-rotted compost so that you have that ground ready for early plantings. You could possibly even sow some quick growing salad or oriental salad mixes in situ if they fit into your rotation.  Or you could sow now into modules which would be even quicker- a small pinch into each - and plant them out in a few weeks. That would give you some early salads. If you live in a milder part of the country or we have a mild spell you could be eating baby leaves in as little as 6 - 8 weeks!  As the weather warms up they will start to flower and go to seed - March days can be surprisingly warm in a tunnel when the sun is full out - but then you can leave a few to flower for early bees and dig the rest in as a green manure! The worms will love you as they'll just be really waking up then and very hungry!  By the way - if you also leave some of the fast-growing oriental salad mixes to flower - they will attract in grateful early, nectar seeking, beneficial insects like hoverflies and bees.