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- Gardeners’ Corner
- Calendar
- January
- The Vegetable and Fruit Garden
The Vegetable and Fruit Garden
Purchase your seeds as quickly as possible and store in a dry cool environment. A Garland windowsill propagator is ideal for seed-raising, the individual small seed trays with their clear plastic lids are invaluable as they allow you to move or ventilate seedlings according to their needs. It is perfect sitting on that sunny windowsill yet is equally at home in the conservatory or greenhouse taking up very little room and allows an early start to the season without heating a whole greenhouse.
Seed potatoes
Don’t forget seed potatoes, choosing cultivars carefully for cropping season. Unpack immediately and set up the tubers on end in boxes or egg trays (without compost) in a frost-free place with a temperature of around 5-7°C (41-45°F). Some light is necessary, but restrict the humidity and keep the air circulating. This should produce sturdy sprouts that will provide a longer growing season and a heavier yield.
Old egg boxes or seed trays can be used to arrange the potatoes on end. It is recommended to arrange them with broader end with most eyes uppermost. For a heavy crop of baking potatoes, leaving only four to six eyes is desirable, whereas an early crop (where many small potatoes are desirable) it is best to leave six or eight eyes. If you need to store your potatoes before chitting them, remember to keep them cool and in good light and at no time must they be exposed to frost. Watch out for greenfly on tubers, spray with an insecticide at first signs. Planting in the garden begins in mid to late March depending on conditions, with the early varieties going in first and when the shoots are around 5cm (2”) long.
Why not grow an early crop of early potatoes in a container in a frost-free greenhouse? Use first early varieties and a good quality multi-purpose compost. If using a 25cm (10”) pot, add 7.5cm (3”) layer of compost and then place one tuber upright and cover with 5cm (2”) of soil: keep topping up as shoots emerge. If using a potato planter or larger pots, adjust quantities accordingly. Grown this way you could be eating home grown potatoes in May or early June
Onions and Shallots
January also sees the first deliveries of our onions and shallots and these may be purchased and stored in a cool dry environment which must be frost-free. Generally it is accepted that your shallots should go in to the ground during late February some six weeks or so before onion sets.
Peas and Beans
Prepare pea trenches, digging out top 60cm (24”) to allow the forking over of the base before incorporating 7.5cm (3”) layer of manure, finally replace the topsoil firmly adding 60 grams sq m (2 oz sq yd) of bone meal and 30 grams sq m (1oz sq yd) of sulphate of potash. (Note peas and beans require little nitrogen as they produce their own) Start preparing ground for runner beans by thoroughly double digging area and adding compost or manure. Sow broad beans in sheltered areas and on well-drained soils.
Preparing for Early Crops
Cover areas with polythene sheeting to warm the soil ready for early sowings. The use of raised beds and covers makes for an early start especially on sandy soils. Cloches or plastic covers should be placed over any early varieties of strawberries and any autumn sowings of peas and beans. Outdoor rhubarb and sea kale can be forced by covering crowns with a terracotta forcer, large lightproof box or dustbin. Divide old crowded crowns of rhubarb, lifting carefully and discarding the oldest central crown, replant the others 1m (40”) apart in well-dug ground enriched with organic matter.
Sow exhibition onions and leeks under protection for transplanting later, if not already done. Make first sowings of cauliflower, cabbage and lettuce if you have heated glasshouse, for harvest late May to early July.
Fruit
Feed soft fruit bushes with sulphate of potash at the rate of 30 gram sq m (1oz. to the square yard) annually, and 60 gram sq m (2 oz to the square yard) of superphosphate every 2-3 years. Alternatively use a compound fertilizer such as Vitax Q4. Those gardening on lighter sandy soils can increase the rate by up to 50%. Spray dormant fruit trees with Vitax Winter Wash on still days. Check tree ties and supports of trained trees. Examine apple and pear trees for canker wounds, cut out and paint over with Medo. Check and renew grease bands on trees to prevent the adult females of several moth species crawling up the trunks to lay their eggs.
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