I thought I’d post an update on the veg plot. Firstly, a failure – we sowed two rows of parsnips in March and gave up on them today. Sifting out the weeds we found precisely one parsnip seedling. We’ve decided to give up on them this year and grow spinach instead.

The rest of the plot is thriving. Our green manure experiment has confirmed mustard or Phacelia as the winners for a quick catch crop during early spring to hold the ground before the tender veg go in. Although rocket and mixed salad greens grew just as quickly so there’s a choice to be made between an edible crop and a soil improving crop. I guess it depends how much salad you want to eat early on.

We’ve had a few raised eyebrows about our potato growing technique. You see, we’ve planted the tubers in the troughs, which looks a little unusual. There are two reasons for this – we figured the growing plants would get more water in the troughs as the rain would run in. And the mounds either side will be used to progressively earth up the potatoes as they grow, so by the time they are ready to harvest the plants will be on mounds, looking quite normal. I’ll report back when we dig them up. Peter isn’t impressed – he said we’ll need a JCB to get them out…


I wrote an article for Grow Your Own magazine on veg growing in the north for the June issue which is out today. I do think the north gets a poor deal in terms of gardening coverage, especially on TV. But apart from some adaptations to avoid early frosts, we’ve got great veg growing conditions here – more rainfall and longer summer evenings. The Grow Your Own discussion forum gives it an almost unanimous thumbs up, which is encouraging. Click for link to GYO forum thread

May 2, 2009