Gardening
Easy Veg Growing By Pippa Greenwood
Growing your own vegetables is easier than you might think, and this is the perfect time to start. Salads, herbs and classic main meal vegetables can all be planted to be picked fresh from your garden in the coming year. Some vegetables are best grown from seed – the classics are carrots, so plant a row or two as soon as the soil is not too wet. Consider coloured varieties such as ‘Purple Haze’ or ‘Purple Dragon’ to ring the changes. Sow some salad leaves and within a few weeks they’ll be growing strongly enough to harvest. Small sowings made every two weeks or so will give supply of salad throughout the summer and well into autumn. Grow tomatoes in a warm, sunny spot in your garden, or better still in a greenhouse or frame. It’s often better value (and a lot easier) to buy some small garden-ready plants. Greenhouse and outdoor varieties are available so check catalogues or labels to make sure you choose correctly. Cucumbers are best grown from plants, and in the garden ‘ridge’ cucumbers are best as they perform better outside. If time is short then vegetable plants are a great choice for most crops. Send off for them now and avoid time-consuming potting on and pricking out. Why not share with friends and save cash if the packs come in quantities too large for the available space? Choose garden-ready mail order plants so you can plant them out straight away, or only have to grow them on in pots for a couple of weeks. Unwrap as soon as they arrive and if you can’t
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plant them immediately, water the compost if necessary and pot each root ball into some compost. At this time of year the soil is often really wet, so try covering it with a polythene sheet or a polythene covered pull-out tunnel for a couple of weeks before your plants are due to arrive or you are due to plant out vegetables sown from seed, removing it just before planting out. This keeps off excessive rain and allows the soil to warm up a little beforehand. Small plants may still be tender, so make sure frosts are past before planting out and give them a chance to gradually acclimatise to their new surroundings by covering them with cloches or fleece for a few days. I’ve also got a great solution: ‘Grow Your Own with Pippa Greenwood’, perfect if you need a bit of help and advice. Visit my website www. pippagreenwood.com for great quality, UK-grown garden-ready vegetable plants. Once delivered you’ll get weekly emails explaining how best to prepare the ground, plant out and look after your growing vegetables. To save you time, the emails are only for the plants you’ve bought and include timely reminders, hints and tips to make it easier to get a tasty crop. At Pippa’s website (www.pippagreenwood.com) you’ll find stylish cloches, practical and pretty plant supports, the fantastic SpeedHoe, gardening tools, Grower Frames, signed books and the ‘Grow Your Own with Pippa’ system. Or book Pippa for a talk at your gardening club.
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