HIGH-VALUE VEG

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You won’t get fresher asparagus spears or tastier chillis than the ones you grow yourself, says Adam Appleyard

hether you have lots of space or barely any, the way to get maximum value from your garden is to grow veg that’s expensive to buy in the shops or that you can’t easily get hold of.

So let’s consider two tempting options. On the one hand, a plant that needs a fair few square metres of ground to flourish. On the other, a tasty crop that’s compact enough to grow on a windowsill or a greenhouse shelf.

Space invader ASPARAGUS

Make no mistake, to create an asparagus bed you’ll need to set aside a decent amount of space for the foreseeable future. On the plus side, once established it will be virtually maintenance-free and you’ll be rewarded with the tastiest asparagus spears imaginable for at least twenty years to come. With asparagus freshness is crucial, and nothing beats popping it in the pan mere seconds after harvesting.

Although you won’t want to plant up your asparagus bed until early spring, winter is the perfect time to start preparing it. It will be a permanent fixture, so choose your spot carefully. Asparagus prefers a sunny spot in fertile, welldrained soil. If your soil is heavy or waterlogged then a raised bed is the best option.

Asparagus is traditionally planted in double rows around 45cm apart, with the plants in each row spaced at a similar distance. If I was planning to plant ten crowns of asparagus I would probably allow for a bed approximately 1.5 metres wide and 3 metres long.

Dig the area over thoroughly and remove all the weeds, because asparagus hates competition. Once you’ve done that, fork in as much garden compost or well-rotted manure as you can muster and cover the area with black plastic sheeting, weed control fabric or a dark tarpaulin. This will stop further any weed seeds germinating and help warm the soil ready for planting.

It’s possible to grow asparagus from seed but you’ll get a head start by planting asparagus crowns, which are year-old dormant roots, in March. ‘Backlim’ and ‘Guelph Millennium’ are good choices. Dig trenches 20–25cm deep where you want your rows to be, then form a small ridge along the bottom of each trench so that you can lay out your crowns with the roots splayed to either side. Backfill the trench and water in with a general purpose fertiliser.

Shoots will soon appear, but don’t be tempted to eat them! They will develop into tall feathery fronds, and if your plot is in a windy spot you might need to support these with canes and twine. Cut them down to soil level and mulch the crowns when they turn yellow in autumn.

Opinions differ as to whether you should harvest any spears in year two. If growth is strong you can risk harvesting a few in mid-April, otherwise leave your plants to consolidate. In year three, and in subsequent years, you can harvest your crop for six weeks or so from mid-April onwards, but stop harvesting in June and allow the plants the rest of the summer to replenish their resources.

From now on it’s plain sailing. Just keep your asparagus bed weed-free, fertilise in summer, lop and mulch in autumn, and enjoy the luxury of fresh asparagus spears every spring!

Windowsill wonders SPECIALITY CHILLIS

Chillis are easy enough to buy, but what you’ll be getting is a fairly middle-of-theroad product. There are literally thousands of weird and wonderful varieties of chilli out there. They come in all sorts of colours, shapes, sizes and flavours, ranging from mild and fruity to intolerably hot. The only way to get hold of most of them is to grow them yourself, but fortunately this is remarkably straightforward.

First you’ll need to spend an hour or two choosing your seeds by poring over the informative catalogues of specialist online suppliers such as southdevonchillifarm. co.uk or nickys-nursery.co.uk. You’ll find all sorts of intriguingly named cultivars (‘Skunk Red’, ‘Satan’s Kiss’ and ‘Blue Christmas’ to name but three). My advice is to choose cultivars that form relatively compact plants – you’ll need to grow them in pots – and that are flagged up as easy to grow.

Chillis need a long growing season, and February isn’t too early to start sowing seed if you’ve got a heated propagator or a reliably warm, sunny spot in the house. Pop a few seeds 5mm deep into pots of multipurpose compost and ensure they stay at a temperature of 21°C or higher until they germinate.

Once germinated, keep your seedlings in a sunny spot somewhere temperatures won’t fall below 15ºC. Water regularly, and prick them out when they have two well-formed leaves. Continue to pot them along into increasingly large pots as they grow.

Pinch out the tips of the shoots once the plants are 25–30cm high to encourage them to become bushy. Water little and often, and feed weekly with tomato feed when the flowers form.

By this stage you’ll probably have moved your chillis to a greenhouse or cold frame, always bearing in mind they won’t thank you if temperatures dip below 10ºC. Once summer has well and truly arrived you can give them an outdoor holiday in a sunny sheltered spot; a cosy corner of a patio would be ideal. Mist them regularly because they love humid conditions. You’ll be able to harvest your chillis from late summer onwards. They will be at their mildest if you pick them when they’re green. Leave them on the plant to colour up, though, if you want to experience the fiercest flavours.

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