GARDEN IDEAS
Designer Sprouts
... and a slug's night out!
For when the garden doesn’t grow according to plan.
No two plants are the same and if your tomato plants are stragglier than the ones in the picture on your seed packet, then so be it. If they are healthy what difference does it make how the plants look?
Some years ago I decided to grow sprouts, especially for Christmas dinner, but in France the winters don’t always get cold enough for them to develop into the hard sprouts we know and love (?!) This particular year, the plants were great but the sprouts had all grown like very small dark green lettuces. They weren’t sprout-shaped but they looked cute!
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When the children saw them on their plates, they were suspicious and, as it’s obligatory to hate sprouts when you’re a kid, I told them it was spinach. It worked. I kept this up for weeks until one bright spark stared at their dinner one night and demanded to know where exactly in the garden I was growing spinach…. Oh well, at least none of the sprouts, that weren’t quite sprouts, got wasted!
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If your garlic or onions don’t swell and do what they should do, you can still use the leaves. Chop finely and add to any dish you would normally add onions or garlic to.
The UK growing season can be very short and outdoor grown tomatoes don’t always ripen. Rather than being left with so many green tomatoes that you feel obliged to make chutney, nip the top off the plant after it has produced three or four trusses. The plant will put it’s energy into the development of fewer tomatoes but they are more likely to ripen.
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In a short season, it's easier to get a good crop of tomatoes if you go for the smaller varieties. These are delicious..
Tomato 'Suncherry Premium' F1 Hybrid
RHS Award of Garden Merit
One of the sweetest tasting, red-skinned cherry tomatoes available
Enjoy!
Enjoy what grows and even if the fruits or vegetables don’t crop well, they will produce plants that are good to look at. Adverse weather conditions, poor seed quality, bugs and viruses are all possible disaster themes for a vegetable garden, but there are lots of ways to protect your plants.
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Experiment with old fashioned slug and snail deterrents. A bowl of beer sunk into the ground close to your young plants will attract the slugs that would otherwise devour a whole line of lettuces in one sitting. Slugs are natural born drunks and will happily drown in the beer, rather than eat your plants!
Try dotting tomato plants around the garden rather than growing them all in a line, then if a virus attacks, it won’t spread to your other plants as quickly, if at all.
Plant strong smelling herbs among your vegetable crops. The strong scent deters bugs and the herbs can be picked when you collect your veg.
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Make or buy a cloche or clear plastic tunnel that can be placed over your small plants at night in the early part of the year to protect them from the cold especially frost damage. One cold night can wipe out your entire crop as quickly as a sober slug can.
Give your crops the best possible start by positioning them well. Check on the seed packets for manufacturer’s growing recommendations before you start.
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Keep an eye on your garden so that you can catch any potential disasters before they happen. A little TLC goes a long way to producing the best possible food for your family.
