Use Locally - Issue 83 March 2020
growing. You can grow cucumbers from seed, but the seeds are generally extremely pricey and not the easiest to germinate, so speed things up with a couple of chunky plants instead. For growing in the garden choose ‘ridge’ cucumbers, as these perform better outside.
Easy Veg Growing
Continued on page 22
This is a perfect time to get to grips with some ‘Grow Your Own’ and make growing your own vegetables easier than you might think! Start by deciding on what you’d like to eat, picked fresh from your garden over the coming year. Think salads, herbs and classic main meal vegetables because there is still time to grow just about anything you please. Some vegetables are best grown from seed – the classics are carrots; with those long, ¿HVK\ URRWV WKH\ VLPSO\ KDWH being transplanted, so grab a packet of seed and as soon as the soil is not too wet sow a row or two. You can always choose interestingly coloured varieties such as ‘Purple Haze’ or ‘Purple Dragon’ if you want to ring the changes or persuade a less-than-eager family member to give carrots another chance. Salad leaves cost a fortune when sold in packets and are 20
often none too fresh, so sow a few rows or pots of these too and within a few weeks they’ll be growing strongly enough IRU \RX WR KDUYHVW \RXU ¾UVW delicious meal. If you make small sowings every two weeks or so you can ensure a pretty well continuous supply of salad throughout the summer and well into autumn. If you’ve got a warm, sunny spot in your garden, or, better still, a greenhouse or frame, WKHQ LWµV GH¾QLWHO\ ZRUWK JHWWLQJ some tomatoes. These too can be raised from seed but if you’re only after a few plants, and especially if you’d like to have a few different varieties, then it’s often better value (and a lot easier) to buy yourself some small gardenready plants. Make sure you get the right sort for the accommodation you’ve got to offer – catalogues or labels should clearly state if they’re for ‘greenhouse’ or ‘outdoor’
If time is short then vegetable plants are a great choice for most crops. You can send off for them now and then you’ve no need to do time-consuming potting on and pricking out. Get them in quantities to suit the size of your plot, and if they come in quantities too large for the space you have available, then share a pack or two with friends and save some cash too! Check what size of plant you’re buying if you choose mail order and go for gardenready sizes if possible – that way you’ll be able to plant them out straight away, or at most grow them on in pots for a couple of weeks. If you send off for vegetable plants make sure you unwrap them the moment they arrive; left in the packaging they’ll soon deteriorate. If you can’t plant them straight away, do so as soon as possible, but water the compost if necessary and pot each root ball into some compost after removing the packaging. At this time of year there is often a lot of rain and wet weather so the soil is really wet. Try covering the soil
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