PREP FOR THE PRE-APOCALYPSE NO. 4
Now you know a little more about vegetable families and how to rotate crops, it’s time to put this knowledge to some use and grow yourself an actual meal. You won’t need an allotment with acres of beds to do it in either.
Because the good news about this prep is that the only space you need is one square metre of soil. And that could be a section of open ground in a back garden, or just a series of pots.
It may not sound like much, but one square metre is enough space to provide all the vegetables you need for a healthy, nutrient-rich stir-fry of carrots, mangetout, courgettes, spring onions and cabbage.
Even better, using your new skill of rotation you can grow the same vegetables on your plot year after year, without pests and diseases building up, or particular micronutrients getting exhausted.
Here’s how.
1 SOURCE YOUR PLANTS
You could buy young plug plants from garden centres or catalogues, then plant them straight into your plot, but we’d suggest you sow everything yourself. Yes, it takes a little more effort, but you’ll be building crucial apocalypse-surviving experience.
This is what you’ll need:
■ One packet courgette seed – preferably a compact bush-type variety, as then you don’t have to train it up something vertical
■ One packet spring onion seed
■ One packet carrot seed – choose a summer-cropping variety
■ One packet mangetout pea seed
■ One packet white or green ballhead-type cabbage seed – check the packet to make sure it’s a summer-cropping variety
■ One small bag seed compost
■ Two 5 cm module trays and three 9 cm pots or six small yoghurt pots with drainage holes and fifteen cardboard loo-roll tubes
■ One twenty-five-litre bag of composted farmyard manure or a packet of all-purpose granular fertilizer
■ One square metre of weed-free soil, either in open ground, a raised bed or containers (at least three of these should be 40 cm deep or more)
2 PREPARE THE GROUND
Before you start sowing, divide your growing area into quarters, so that you have four spaces each with a soil area of roughly a quarter of a square metre. Each of these quarters will hold plants from a different rotation group:
■ Courgettes (from the go-anywhere neutral group)
■ Carrots and spring onions (from the roots and alliums group)
■ Mangetout (from the legumes group)
■ Cabbage (from the brassicas group)
Spread a 2.5 cm layer of the well-rotted manure over the soil everywhere except the roots and alliums patch, as onions don’t yield as well when there’s loads of nitrogen available. Or, if you’re not using manure, apply granular fertilizer at planting-out time.
3 SOW YOUR CABBAGE
You’re aiming to end up with two cabbages, so to allow for pests, diseases and other disasters, sow at least six cabbage seeds, ideally in early February. Fill three of the modules in your trays, or three yoghurt pots, with moist seed compost. Sow two seeds to a module or pot, 2 cm deep. Cover with a plastic bag, and keep at or above 7–10° C until germination. Within fourteen days you should see seedlings: gently tug out the weaker seedling in each module or pot (this is known as ‘thinning out’) and put the survivors somewhere cool and bright while they develop. Start to harden the young plants off once they’re 15 cm high.
4 START THE SPRING ONIONS
Early in March, take the other module tray, or three more yoghurt pots, and sow the spring onion seed. You’re aiming to end up with twenty plants, so sow ten seeds to a module or pot, 1 cm deep. Cover with a plastic bag and keep at 10–20° C until germination – up to twenty-one days – then grow somewhere cool and bright for a couple of weeks before hardening off.
Towards the end of the month, as the soil begins to warm up, plant out two cabbage plants, 40 cm apart, in the brassica section of your patch. Water in thoroughly, protect with brassica collars and insect mesh and begin slug patrol.
5 PLANT THEM OUT, START THE CARROTS
By early April the soil should be warming and drying out nicely after winter. Now’s the moment to rake the roots-and-alliums area back and forth until you’ve made a fine tilth. Then plant out two of your modules of onions, without separating the individual plants, so that the clumps are roughly 25 cm apart. Water in gently. Keep killing those slugs.
In the middle of the month (as long as the weather isn’t either very cold or very wet) sow the carrot seed directly into the roots-and-alliums area: draw out a shallow trench 1.5 cm deep, 15 cm away from the onions and, if the soil is dry, water it gently with a fine rose. Sow a seed every centimetre or so, then rake soil back over down the row. Keep moist but not wet until germination (seven to twenty-one days). A month after sowing, thin to one plant every 5–10 cm, depending on the size of the variety you’re using, and protect with insect mesh.
6 SOW THE MANGETOUT
In early May, fill three 9 cm pots or fifteen loo-roll tubes with seed compost (stand the tubes on a tray and tie them with string to stop them falling over). You want to end up with ten mangetout, so sow either five seeds to a pot or one to a tube, 5 cm deep. Germinate them at 10–24° C, taking anti-mouse precautions if necessary, and grow on somewhere cool and bright until shoots are about 7.5 cm high.
In late May, plant the mangetout in Legume Corner. Build a tripod of sticks or bamboo canes for them to climb up, and site one plant at the base of each stick, watering in well. Surround plants with twigs to stop pigeons pecking off the tops; remain on slug alert.
7 START THE COURGETTES
As soon as the mangetout are planted, sow your courgettes. You’ll only need one plant, so fill two 9 cm pots with moist seed compost and sow one seed per pot, 2 cm deep, standing the seed on its thin edge so it doesn’t rot. Cover them with plastic bags and keep at a steady 21° C or more until germination, in around a week’s time. Grow on somewhere warm and bright – under a cloche outside would be ideal – until their third jagged leaves appear. Then harden off.
8 PLANT THE COURGETTE
In late June, it’ll be time to plant out the courgette: just one, bang in the middle of your neutral area. Water it in well. If it succumbs to slug attack, use your second courgette as a replacement.
By July, slugs will have learnt to fear your name, and all your crops will be in full harvest mode. Slosh some oil in the wok, give yourself a pat on the back and get cooking.
9 WHAT ABOUT NEXT YEAR?
The following spring, proceed exactly as before. But this time, rotate how you sow each of your quarters one step through the ‘neutral – roots and alliums – legumes – brassicas’ cycle. In other words, last year’s courgette corner becomes this year’s carrots-and-onions spot; last year’s carrots-and-onions becomes this year’s mangetout, etc., etc. As long as you add some manure every year, you can keep this up almost indefinitely. Or at least until the apocalypse gets started. 