Sow for succession
Sow lettuce every 10 or 14 days. And while you are about it, don’t forget to make another sowing of parsley, for the experts tell us we don’t eat nearly enough for our health’s sake. Drills should be ½ in. deep.
Sowing SPRING CABBAGE
Of all early vegetables we look forward with most pleasure, perhaps, to our first cutting of spring cabbage. There is a delicacy, texture and flavour about it that no cabbage can aspire to at any other period of the year.
At the end of the month sow the seeds. Instead of sowing in a drill, try for once sowing broadcast on a small plot. Some people think you get far better plants that way. The seeds are sometimes sown far too thickly in drills and very poor plants result.
Don’t waste that SUMMER WASTE
At this time of year garden “waste” is generally fairly • plentiful and should not be wasted. Pea stems, potato haulms, outside lettuce leaves, the last of the rough leaves from spring cabbage, grass cuttings and the like should be made into compost, which, later on, you will dig back into your soil to maintain its fertility. How to make a compost heap was described in the March Guide.
There is more detailed information on compost in the Dig for Victory supplementary advice leaflet How to Make a Compost Heap
There are some people who seem to think that the compost heap is a new idea, introduced because farmyard manure is hard to come by. It is no novelty, for the gardening books of a century or more ago mentioned it; long before it was called “compost” the value of decayed vegetable refuse was well known and understood, particularly by the professional gardener.
CARROTS
If you would like to experiment with carrots, try sowing the seed broadcast in a broad flat drill 1 in. deep, instead of in the usual narrow drill. Late-sown carrots usually escape the attention of the carrot fly.
I’d suggest that 1 in. is too deep and sowing in ½ in. deep drills covered with fine dry sifted soil or even sand will produce better germination.
Although I’d agree the late-sown carrots are less threatened by the carrot fly, they are still at some risk and covering with a barrier such as horticultural fleece is still sensible.
- Keep Working, Control Caterpillars
- Cabbage Root Fly, Watering Advice
- Planting out Leeks & Feeding Onions
- Runner Beans, Harvesting Shallots, Spinach Beet & Turnips
- Cabbage, Compost, Carrots & Successional Sowing
- Green Crops for Winter, Brassicas
- Seed Saving – What You Can Save
- What & How of Seed Saving
