Sowing the Seeds

PUMPKINS AND COURGETTES

The cucumber family have given us pumpkins, courgettes, marrows, melons, gourds and squashes as well as cucumbers. Pumpkins are the perfect plant to let your kids loose on to stimulate an interest in gardening from a young age. They are very easy to grow and kids just love to see them grow huge as they give them a fortnightly feed, or weekly if you want a whopper. They really do respond to feeding and watering and soil rich in humus.

Then at harvesting just before Halloween the kids will get the lantern and the adults will get the flesh for soups and seeds for roasting or next years crop.

Pumpkins can be stored in a cool place and keep for many months. We are using our last one in mid May and it is still perfect. However courgettes are the summer favourite as they don’t store fresh, though you can store them once you have cooked up some soup. They are both very healthy vegetables high in vitamin A, C and E and full of minerals, fibre and pumpkins high in beta-carotene. Courgettes combined with spinach make a lovely light summer soup for healthy slimmers and pumpkins with added sweet potato, carrots, onion, garlic and nutmeg makes a warmer winter soup. Pick all courgettes when about six inches long and use within three days. If some grow faster than you can pick and use, they can still be used for summer soup. Use the smaller ones for stir frying, grills, baked, barbecued and combined with aubergine and tomatoes for ratatouille. This is always relevant in late summer when both courgettes and home grown tomatoes are at glut levels.

 

Growing

I sow my seed the last week in April in single cells in a tray on a sunny windowsill, then pot up into individual pots just when the first true leaf is forming. Grow on for a couple of weeks then harden off by mid May for planting out at the end of the month.

They both enjoy similar growing conditions. I grow them on land heavily manured or composted in winter, then in May when all risk of frost has gone I add extra compost to each planting area to increase the water retaining properties and create soil with a high humus content. Add a good dressing of growmore fertiliser then plant out about three feet apart.

Keep them weeded, watered and fed during the growing season.

Pumpkin shoots can grow fast and extend rapidly all over the place so prune them once they have produced two to three fruit per plant. You can get more pumpkins per plant if the land adjacent has been cleared from early potatoes, onions or broad beans and you let the long shoots take over the space, but you will need to keep them fed and watered. However if you are after that huge pumpkin that everyone loves to achieve then only allow one or two fruit per plant and really give it some serious feeding. Stop feeding in late summer to help ripen up the fruit and put some straw or bark chips under the fruit to keep them clean. After cutting at harvest time, wash any soil off the pumpkins before storing them indoors in a cool airy room.

If you have found a good reliable variety you can keep the seed for the next year, but store it well out of the reach of mice which just love a wee nibble over winter.

Squashes and marrows are grown very similar to pumpkins and come in a range of shapes and colours and it is always interesting to try something different each year.

Plant of the week

Red geraniums are a show winner when it comes to impact of colour in the garden in summer. I grow mine from cuttings overwintered on a window sill every year, and potted up as they grow. They will flower all winter (if you let them), then by early May they are ready for tubs, hanging baskets and flower beds. If you grow them strongly it is possible to produce ten plants from one cutting taken in September, then two months later it will have rooted and grown so remove the tip and use it as the next cutting. Repeat this process till April, but do not allow them to flower to keep their vigour for growing.

Painting of the Month

Sunset on the River Yare is one of my favourite oil paintings. The idea came from a holiday on the Broads a few years ago when we took an evening boat trip up the River Yare from Great Yarmouth. Other boats and the windmill were illuminated by the low sun as it was setting. I knew it would make an excellent painting.

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THE GREENHOUSE IS OVERFLOWING

THE GREENHOUSE IS OVERFLOWING

Normally at this time of year I am emptying the greenhouse as plants get hardened of for planting outdoors, but we seem to be in a cold spell of weather with the threat of frost so always be ready to shift any vulnerable plants back to the greenhouse if frost is forecast. However it is a bit difficult as there is hardly any spare space.

Young plants grown from seed, (winter cabbage, kale, cape gooseberries, sweet corn, courgettes and pumpkins) and cuttings (bizzie lizzies, fuchsias and grape vines) still need a bit of protection while we wait on the return of warmer weather. However I keep the greenhouse windows fully open during the day and shift plants outdoors if it is warm enough.

They are all at different stages, but as seedlings get pricked out they need more space, especially the pumpkins and courgettes. All the geraniums are now hardened off, but tuberous begonias are putting on a lot of growth and I really need to get them outdoors to harden off.

I also started some annuals including Livingston daisies, Star of the Veldt, Shirley poppies and Nemesia in cellular trays to get them started. Nemesia is a bit prone to damping off if it gets too cool overnight, and as my tomatoes are trying to get established in their growbags I have resorted to turning on my greenhouse fan heater at a low setting to keep the air above freezing over night.

The nemesias will get a soil drench of Cheshunt compound, a copper preparation which helps to prevent damping off.

An early sowing of salads in the greenhouse, (lettuce, radish, spring onion and beetroot) are now hardened off and planted outdoors in a sheltered spot to bring them on fast. Some of the radishes were big enough to use before they got planted out.

Most of my young plants have now been potted up except for the sweet corn (give them another week) and my grape vine cuttings which need another fortnight.

Grapevines

These have all got plenty of young shoots growing from the central rods. I will leave these till I see fruit bunches appearing. Any shoots having no fruit will be stopped at two leaves and those with fruit stopped at two leaves past the fruit bunch. Thereafter all growth will be tipped at one leaf throughout the growing season. This task continues on a weekly basis as grape vines under glass can be very vigorous and need firm control. They have to share the space with my tomatoes which also like maximum sunlight. If there is any overcrowding of shoots I will remove any surplus non fruiting shoots and a few leaves. I do not apply any glass shading as both crops need maximum sunlight and in Scotland we do not suffer too many prolonged heatwaves.

At the moment Black Hamburg is showing quite a decent crop of fruiting bunches. It is a very reliable variety with large sweet grapes. Pity it always has pips. Flame is my red seedless grape and Perlette my white seedless variety, both of which are a bit slow to show the first tiny grape bunches.

Flame is the very popular red seedless grape found in most supermarkets and Perlette may be less popular but has a lovely muscat flavour. Both are quite good under glass for us northern gardeners.

Tomatoes

Although planted a few weeks ago, following our early summer spell of weather, growth has been poor. April was a washout with more rain than we need and a lot cooler than normal so my tomatoes were not too happy. Maybe May will see a return to better temperatures.

Gardeners Delight looks a lot stronger than Alicante and Sweet Million though all have now got a flower on the first trusses so feeding can begin. I start at once a week then increase to every second watering, but if the weather is warm and growth is good you can increase to every watering. Tomato fertiliser is high in potassium which assists fruit development, but if growth begins to suffer after the third truss use a high nitrogen fertiliser to give the growth a boost.

Plant of the week

Rhododendron Horizon Monarch is now at its best. The flower buds start off vivid red fading to cerise pink as they open, then turn to a pale peach with golden centres when fully open. Rhododendrons enjoy dappled shade in well drained but moist soil. Woodland fringe suits them best where there is ample leafmold in the soil surface. Do not feed them but give them a mulch of compost or leafmold every year in the dormant season. There are very many other great rhododendrons of all sizes and colours so you will always find a few beauties to suit all tastes.

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Root Crops

SOW ROOT CROPS NOW

Now is a perfect time to start sowing the root crops in the vegetable patch. The soil is warming up just fine, it is moist and well weathered having been dug over early last winter. Root crops enjoy land that was well manured for a previous crop, such as beans or onions so it has plenty of humus but no fresh manure or compost, otherwise roots tend to split or fork.

Potatoes, however, may be a root crop but their needs are very different as they do require well manured land, being heavy feeders and scab is always a problem if the soil is poor.

Root crops tend to follow the heavy feeders in the rotation but remember turnips and swedes are brassicas and can suffer club root so they must not follow the cabbage or sprouts.

I tend to keep all my root crops together and run a four year rotation to try and avoid clubroot and carrot fly. Root crops include carrots, turnips and swedes, parsnips, beetroot, radish and if you fancy something different sow some salsify and scorzonera.

Most of these can be sown now and carrots and beetroot can also be sown as catch crops in late summer using spare land that has just had a crop harvested such as cabbage, early potatoes, salads, French and broad beans. However you will need to use a quick maturing variety.

Carrots

My best ever carrots were an early sowing of Early Nantes on the side of my celery trench hoping to catch a quick crop before I started to earth up the celery. I beat the carrot fly and got such a heavy crop that most of them had to go into the freezer. This helped to sweeten them up significantly.

Autumn King was always a reliable heavy cropper, but carrot fly is such a problem as the amateur gardener has no chemical cure available. We have to resort to barriers (fleece) or resistant varieties. I have not found these to be very resistant and they lack the flavour of our standard varieties.

Turnip, swedes and radish

Golden Ball and Purple Top Milan will give us some early turnips and good Swedes are plentiful and take us right through the winter. I grow my radish adjacent as they can all be prone to clubroot so I limit its spread.

Parsnip

Roasted parsnips will add class to numerous meals, so I aim to grow enough to last from about November, (or earlier if we get a frost to sweeten them up) to the following spring.

I prepare a deep seedbed in late April or early May then mark my row, but before sowing I go along the row pushing a spade down to create a deep slit. This is filled with friable soil or old compost. Mark the row again and sow four to five seeds every eight inches apart. After germination thin these to one seedling. They are very slow to germinate so I sow radish in between plant stations.

Salsify and scorzonera

If you enjoy healthy food try these as they are packed with nutrients and minerals. I found them to have a similar flavour to sweet corn, though it is said they taste like oysters. Grow them like parsnips but spaced closer. The scorzonera root is black and both must be lifted carefully to stop the long deep roots from breaking. There are now numerous recipes for them as they are becoming the latest healthy plant to try out.

Beetroot

Another fantastic health food that can go in salads, served in a sweet and sour dressing and they also make a delicious soup. Even the leaves can be eaten in salads or stir fried, and nothing will beat your own beetroot chutney or pickled baby beet from early thinning.

They fit in very well as a baby beet catch crop in between other crops. Grow an early batch in cellular trays in the glasshouse then transplant outside in early May. They will interplant along the rows of sweetcorn and get harvested before the corn plant needs the space.

Plant of the week

Impatiens, (Bizzie Lizzie) has always been a very popular summer bedding plant for tubs and hanging baskets. Although a perennial it is treated as an annual and usually propagated from seed. However once you get a range of really good colours you can take cuttings and keep plants all year round. They also make good house plants for a sunny windowsill. Probably the cheapest method is to buy small plug plants in spring and grow them on. Plug plants are a perfect size for hanging baskets where you can pop them through the side of the basket as well as the top and once fully grown will smother the whole basket in flowers.

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GOOD PLANTING WEATHER

GOOD PLANTING WEATHER

Scotland, unlike much of England, does not seem to be troubled much with drought and the warm early spell in March has set up the garden for a promising year. Although frequent showers can be a nuisance when you want to crack on with the planting and sowing it is giving us perfect soil conditions for these tasks. However don’t rush onto the ground if it is still wet and even when ground conditions are perfect hold back planting if the air temperature is still cold.

Hardening off plants is now in full flow. Established geraniums have been out since mid April and cabbages and Brussels sprouts both grown in trays are also hardening off for planting at the end of April. However be careful with Busy Lizzies as they are easily affected by a sudden drop in temperature and petunias, marigolds and fuchsias are not much better.

Several fuchsias bought in March as plugs are destined for hanging baskets and after potting up they made excellent growth. The tops were pinched out to make them branch and these were used as cuttings which rooted very quickly and now need potting up.

More potting up

Tuberous begonias started off in the house then transferred to the cold greenhouse have sprouted really well and are now being potted and boxed up to give them more room. My tubers must be over fifteen years old and frequently get split up to increase stock. Some tubers have up to eight shoots on them so will benefit from splitting. Use a sharp knife and make sure each piece has plenty of tuber on it. If you have any sulphur rub it onto the cut surface to seal it and prevent disease. If you don’t have any, don’t worry, I don’t have any and have never lost any yet. Begonias are tough.

Himalayan blue poppies overwintered outdoors in cellular trays are now growing quite strongly so they are now potted up in separate pots. They are very hardy and only need dappled sunlight but keep them moist at all times.

Planting

Tomato plants have been hardened off and after a few days getting climatised in the cold greenhouse have been planted into their growbags. I am growing Alicante, my favourite large tomato and Gardeners Delight, also a favourite with Sweet Million my best cherry tomato. I have never found a sweeter cherry tomato so although the seed is expensive and the packet only has about fifteen seeds in it, I still get enough for two years plants as I only need to fill one growbag with three plants.

Some hanging baskets with geraniums, lobelia and petunias can now be planted up and left to establish in a sunny sheltered spot sat on top of a large flower pot to keep it from falling over. They will not be hung up till I am happy all the plants are growing strongly and have started to flower.

Other baskets with fuchsias and Busy Lizzies will have to wait a bit longer till there is room in my greenhouse, or summer returns to remove all threat of a late cold snap.

Fruit trees now in full flower

Peaches and dwarf cherries put on a great show of blossom, but time will tell how successful pollination has been. Plums and pears had hardly any flowers, though most of my pear tree has been grafted so I will have to wait till next year for these shoots to ripen up for fruiting. Apple trees have all got plenty blossom except Fiesta which has a tendency for biennial cropping, so this must be its off year as I got a good crop last year. Saskatoon bushes are covered in flowers yet again.

Pests

Greenfly on my roses are now breeding at full vigour so the sprayer will have to come out and gooseberry sawfly larvae have appeared again and will chomp through the bushes unless you discourage them with a wee bit of chemical.

Early carrots have been covered with fleece to keep out the carrot fly.

Plant of the week

Iceland Poppies has always been my favourite poppy as it is very early and mixes with all the other spring bedding flowers and tulips and will also fit into the front of the herbaceous border. Seed can be selectively harvested from your favourite flowers in early summer then sown a few weeks later in cellular trays. They germinate easily and grow rapidly so transplant them into bigger trays which will be ready for planting in October to where they are to flower the following spring and summer.

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