Winter veg

Time to plant out your winter veg.

Kale......cabbage.......chard......spinage

Kale

TLC your tomatoes

 Time to clean up your strawberries patch

Keep weeding and watch for bugs

Kale should be in your garden all the year round  Kale is very easy to grow for for harvest for all the year round, even in the winter. 

Sow winter kale in August. I sow them in pots and then put them in my polly tunnel after my tomatoes come out.

Sow from March onwards, for you summer crop. 

As the seeds are small, I always sow into a seed tray first, then prick out into cell trays or pots ready for planting out.

This will give you an assurance of a good strong plant. 

Plant them  deep into fertile soil and firming in well will give the plants a good anchor. This will helps them from rocking in the wind.

Once mature, kale is one of the hardiest of all the veg. It will tolerate temperatures down to -10º.

One of the main things that I like about Kale is that it is rarely trouble by slugs or caterpillars.

However, like all plants, during the early stages of its life Kale will need some protection with horticultural fleece to get it off to a good start.

Kale grows well in the under cover over winter as well, this will give  a much more tender and sweet crop than that grown outside. 

The kale grown outside in the winter, albeit slowly through the depths, but as soon as the soil starts to warm in spring it will start growing on, filling the hungry gap with delicious, nutrient packed leaves. 

I would suggest a cut-and-come-again picking technique as this will prolong the production of each plant. I just remove the lowest leaves allowing the new growth to grow on.

Try Westland Winter for a solid winter crop. Red Russian for the greenhouse and summer cropping and Dazzling Blue for its colourful beauty.

Kale is versatile in the kitchen - I make smoothers  adding spices like ginger or mint to give it taste. 

JANUARY 9, 2019

Cucumbers in pots

Cucumbers in pots

Cucumbers growing in pots speedily fill the soil with roots, and when this happens, the plants stop being prolific. Now is the time to give them a new lease of life by giving them a top dressing . Thin out the leaves a bit and cut off dead ones.

Grape Vines and Peach prefer a one a week soak rather than a daily dip watering. They like to dry out from time to time.

Keep hoeing and loosing the soil.

Tomatoes in pots

Tomatoes in pots

Twenty-seventh Week: July

If your tomatoes plants are grown in a glasshouse in pots, frequent watering has the effect of exposing the topmost roots. The best way of covering them again is now to give them a top dressing of loamy soil and manure.. Make sure that the top soil is moist when this is done.

Your early potatoes should now be ready for harvesting. If you want to save seeds for next year; then pick out the best from the heaviest yielding plant.

The growth of runner beans, peas and newly planted fruit trees will be immensely encouraged if the rooting surface is lightly covered with strawy litter now. Doing so will break the rays of the sun and stop the soil drying out.