Last week I wrote about jobs to do in the garden, now its time to address the veg patch. A couple of weeks ago here at Garden Cornwall HQ, Mr T and I dug up the front lawn and we now have a bare patch of soil that will become the mighty veg patch! However you don’t have a patch of ground to grow vegetables. Any kind of container, as long as it has drainage holes can be used for growing.
Right so what should you be getting up to this month?
- Mr T flex’s his muscles
Finish preparing beds – If you’ve been thinking about making a veg patch for awhile then get on it! Dig out a bed ready for the beginning of the growing season. If you haven’t already done it then apply farm yard manure or compost to the beds, I’m going to get some well rotted horse manure from a local farmer and I also going to add whats at the bottom of my compost heap. Personally I’m a big fan or the no dig approach (See Charles Dowdings fantastic book Organic Gardening, The Natural No-Dig Way). Just spread it on top of the beds and let the worms do the hardwork for you. No only does this save your back but is much better for the soil in the long run.
Sowing indoors – Plan ahead and start sowing indoors so they can be ready to plant out in the spring. If you haven’t got a propagator then pots or old plastic food trays in a sunny windowsill will do. So things like peas, lettuce, radishes, spinach, salad onions and broad beans.
Use your imagination for growing veg in containers
Preparing containers – Veg grown in containers, unlike veg grown in the ground, only has a small area to draw its nutrients from so it’s imperative that you add manure or compost to your containers to give the veg the good stuff in needs to grow. Clear out any old or dead plants and weeds from the pots and mix in plenty of compost or manure.
Sowing seeds
Sowing seeds – Right so we’ve prepared our beds and containers nicely now all we need to do is get sowing! Its best to wait until the end of the month to do this, this will allow the soil to warm up and hopefully by then the worst of the cold weather will be over. This month we can start to sow things like lettuce, radish, salad onions, peas, broad beans, beetroot, summer cabbage and spinach. To do this rake the soil over nicely, have a look at the packet for planting distances, make shallow drills using a cane or your hand fork as the given distances and water the drills. The reason for watering before sowing the seeds is so that the seeds don’t get washed way. When that’s done sow the seeds as thinly as possible and then gently firm the soil back over the drills using your hand, and there we go, jobs a good ‘un.
Great for keeping away the vampires
Garlic – February is the last chance to plant garlic. Don’t separate the cloves from the bulbs until just before planting. Discard any damaged, diseased or tiny cloves as big cloves produce big bulbs! Push the cloves into the soil to a depth of 2.5cm (about half a finger) and water in. I’m going for Elephant Garlic this year, can’t wait for some monster cloves. As well as garlic now is also time to get your shallot sets in.
Eve's Leaves 