THE MARKET GARDENER

LET THERE BE LIGHT

Every day we take our pick of carrots, spinach, lettuce, beetroot, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, cabbages and more. On many evenings, the vegetables freeze but thaw out quickly in the morning sun, and so the kitchen garden acts as our very own extended larder at this time of year.

The great advantage of this month is that the light levels and daylight hours start to increase faster. In January we gained an average of 50 minutes more daylight than in December and it will be close to one hour and 30 minutes more in February.

Gardeners are ever the optimists, and we can sometimes be tempted to jump the gun and sow all the seeds we can get our hands on at this time of year. I am no exception, and of course, this month I will be sowing in earnest. Yet I do suggest some caution, and instead, choose the types of vegetables you sow very carefully.

No sucH THING as ‘Too cooL’

In France, especially here in the south, the weather can be very hot in the spring, but also very wet. In addition to this, there’s also the cold weather to deal with, and the last frost dates range from midApril to the end of May. Initially I found the start of the growing season so much more challenging in this climate, than I ever did in England. There are such large temperature fluctuations from day to day and from the day to evening. However, I learned to mitigate this challenge by continuing to sow seeds of vegetables that are traditionally cool weather crops in February, yet only those that have a short time until harvest. Vegetables on my list that meet these criteria are ones such as radish, kohl rabi, rocket, spinach, carrots, beetroot, peas, lettuce, turnips, broccoli, onions and more. All these will be ready to harvest from 30 days to four months, they can tolerate the cold temperatures, and will do ok in any unpredictable short lived high temperatures throughout spring too.

HEaT LovING pLaNTs

If you can grow under cover, with a guarantee of no frost reaching your seedlings, you can also start to sow the following: tomatoes, basil, marigolds, and nasturtiums (to help deter pests and bring colour to your vegetable garden). However, I must add, that although they can be

sown now, it really isn’t worth sowing cucumbers or courgettes just yet, or at least until the end of the month. They are so fast to grow, and so frost tender that it really is better to show caution and wait.

TImE foR aLLIums

I have already mentioned onions and now really is the time to be thinking about all your vegetable alliums, especially shallots, onions, spring onions and leeks. Leeks need an especially long growing season and it’s for this reason that I don’t waste bed space with them to start with. I sow leeks in deep containers such as empty paint buckets for instance. Leeks have long roots and to give them a good start they will do well like this, in a nursery situation. After about ten weeks, I will then transplant them into their final growing position, as multi-sown clumps – sowing three or four together in one planting hole. Onions are like leeks, yet are quicker to grow and can be sowed initially in seed modules. Why not try multi-sowing? Sow two to four onions per module, then plant out in a clump just a few weeks after sowing. Onions like to grow together, and growing this way increases the yield for the space used. I’ll also be continuing to plant garlic this month as my final planting.

TRackING youR GaRdENING yEaR

In today’s world, data is everything and to be a successful gardener, having a plan and recording the results of your plan will help you grow and prosper each year. There are dozens of effective ways to do this; from notepads to calendars and white boards to spread sheets. Yet if you’re like us, gardening isn’t the only big project you have going on in your life, so being as efficient as possible is the key to our vegetable garden being a manageable haven, rather than a chaotic mess.

For many gardeners, this is the essential gardening step that is being skipped. In the heat of the gardening moment, you will think you will remember what you have done in just a few weeks, but just like when a plant label goes astray, not having a record of what you have done can leave you lost. If you haven’t kept a record before, just keep it simple to start with. Perhaps use a page-aday diary as a notebook, and then jot down tasks you have done and seeds you have sown. If you do get the time later, you can transfer this onto a spread sheet. The advantage comes later, when you can search through your data and sort into different parameters such as sowing dates and even browse for terms such as ‘tomato’. At the end of the season, doing a search such as this will then bring up all your tomato entries for that year, and for each crop, you can assess from your notes what worked well, what didn’t, and plan to improve or even repeat this for the following season.

GaRdENING pLaNNING apps

There are gardening apps out there which will keep everything all in one place for you. I particularly like Vegetable Planner from Vegetable Gardening Online, and Online Kitchen Garden Planner from Gardeners.com. Here at the chateau, we are working towards becoming small commercial growers, so the app we mainly use is called Tend and is specifically for market gardeners. February is not a garden month to dawdle. Being organised and productive now will set you up for the rest of the growing season, all the time trying to keep one step ahead! Until we speak again, I wish you great growing success this month.

Leanne

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