Chapter 5

THE MODULES: VEGETABLES

WHY IT’S GOOD TO GROW VEGETABLES

You are probably reading this because you already know you want to grow some vegetables. In brief, then, the benefits of home-grown vegetables are threefold. First, they taste better. Many salad veg are grown in hydroponic systems (where their roots just dangle in a flow of water and nutrients) rather than soil. This can result in watery, tasteless food. Home-grown vegetables can be picked at peak ripeness, again unlike shop-bought food, and eaten straight away, before the sugars transform to starch. This also applies to the second benefit: they are more nutritious. Common sense is all that is needed to see that a vegetable harvested ripe and eaten soon after is going to have more nutritional value than one harvested unripe and stored for days or even months before it is consumed. Third, the opportunity for variety is much greater. Even when restricted by the seasons, unlike supermarkets who can ship in tomatoes in December and sprouts in July, the different vegetables, and varieties within those vegetables, that you can grow outstrips any greengrocer. Purple carrots and potatoes, white ‘green’ beans, tomatoes with tiger-stripes, the hottest or mildest chillies and more are all within reach of your plot.

CHOOSING WHAT VEGETABLES TO GROW

With all that variety in mind, how do you choose which varieties to grow? In some modules recommended varieties are specified, but in general it is up to you. You could choose types not readily available in the shops, such as the giant bulbs of elephant garlic rather than the usual type, or purple-podded French beans rather than the normal green. You may want to grow heirloom or heritage varieties (see Further Reading for sources of these seeds), or the modern F1 types, which have been bred for specific traits such as pest and disease resistance.

Seeds marked with the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit (AGM) have been tested for good all-round garden performance in extensive trials, and are a good bet if you are not sure which to choose. Otherwise, consider what qualities you value most: taste, size, pest/disease resistance, time to harvest or colour. Most seed companies pick out one of these to highlight for each of their varieties. Remember, whichever varieties you choose, to make a note of the name on the label and in a notebook. That way you can get more of the same next year if it was good, or avoid it if it didn’t turn out as you’d hoped.

CULTIVATION

Soil preparation

There is no need for any preparation above that detailed in Chapter 4.

Planting times and pot sizes

Buying vegetables as young plants

With the increasing popularity of ‘growing your own’, it is now possible to buy young plants of many vegetables from garden centres. The traditional sources of small vegetable plants are also still valid – car-boot fairs, markets and plant stalls – but with these you may not know the variety of what you are buying (always a blow when it turns out to be the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten) or that they are disease-free. Young plants from garden centres have more of a guarantee on both these things, but a less personable transaction.

Not all vegetables are available as young plants, and they are more expensive plant-for-plant than a packet of seeds, but if you only need two courgette plants, you may consider it worthwhile buying them as plants rather than a packet of 20 seeds that you then have to sow and grow on. There is also less variety and choice in young plants than there is in seeds.

However, young plants put straight into the garden have a more instant aesthetic effect, and, as they have already passed the seedling stage of highest vulnerability to slugs and snails, are more likely to survive. If you are late putting in your beds or sowing seeds, they can also provide an instant catch-up, or replace lost seedlings.

When buying young vegetable plants, check them carefully. See that they are not too overcrowded and root-bound in their tray (most plants come in module trays) or pot. Check for signs of pest and disease: are the leaves discoloured, full of holes or covered in aphids? Have the salad leaves already bolted? Be aware, though, that biggest is not always best – shorter, bushy plants are a better purchase than tall, leggy ones as they are more robust and will provide more to harvest.

Finally, don’t fall for the garden centres’ marketing ploys. They will often stock young vegetable plants from very early in the season – too early in fact for you to plant them out. The plants are raised in heated greenhouses with supplementary lighting to get them to grow, but if you plant them out in your beds straightaway in March they are likely to suffer from the cold, short days and may even die. Refer to the details with each module plan in this book for the correct times for planting.

Pot sizes

Most young vegetable plants are supplied in module trays or small (9cm) pots. If you can afford it, buy plants in the larger modules or pots as they will be less susceptible to drying out once planted before they establish. Alternatively, grow from seed (see below).

The perennial vegetables will be supplied in 1 or 2 litre pots. Again, the bigger the plant you buy, the faster it will get to its proper size in your garden. Asparagus is sometimes supplied as bare crowns (i.e. just in a bag, not planted in a pot). This is fine so long as they are planted as soon as you get them and you make sure they are well watered until they establish.

Sowing vegetable seeds – using the seed packet for information

See Chapter 4 on how to sow seeds successfully. General sowing times are specified in the detail for each module plan, but use the seed packet for guidance on that particular variety. The packet should show when to sow the seeds, how long they are likely to take to germinate, and the time between sowing the seed and harvesting your first crops. This can vary widely between varieties, and some seed companies now sell specifically fast-growing varieties.

Successional sowing

It is possible to have too much of a good thing sometimes, and unless you have plenty of freezer space or a love of making chutney you will want to avoid having gluts of vegetables. However, experienced gardeners still get it wrong, and the weather can wreak havoc on your planning – so much so that there are whole books dedicated to what to do with all those courgettes (see Further Reading)!

The trick to avoiding gluts is to sow successionally. By sowing several short rows of, for example, beetroot, with two weeks between each sowing, they will mature and be ready to harvest over a longer period, and less will be wasted. Module details specify where this is a good idea. Write the date you sowed the row on its label, and put a note in your diary when you need to sow the next row.

Alternatively, only sow the next row when the previous one has reached a certain stage, usually small seedlings with their first true leaves. This is more useful when bad weather slows germination.

Make your last sowing in August – falling light levels and temperatures mean you are unlikely to get a decent crop from seeds sown later than this unless you can protect them. Sow the last row of slower-growing crops such as beetroot at the begining of August, but faster crops like salad leaves should still provide you with a harvest from a final row sown at the end of the month.

Spacings and thinning seedlings

If you are planting out young plants, simply follow the spacings on the module plan for the distance between each plant. When sowing seed direct, follow the module detail for whether it is best to sow in stations or in a drill. Either way, you will have sown more than one seed, and that results in thinning.

To thin station-sown seedlings, choose the best seedling to be left in. Remember, tallest is not necessarily best – choose a robust-looking, healthy seedling. Press down the soil very lightly around the seedlings as you pull out the others to ensure the roots of the one you want to keep aren’t pulled out too.

Drill-sown seeds offer an opportunity to use baby vegetables. Beetroot, salads and carrots are all good sown in a drill, but not thinned until they have grown into substantial baby plants. The plants you pull out can then be eaten rather than wasted, and those you leave in will still go on to grow to their proper size.

HARVESTING VEGETABLES

Harvesting the thinnings (as above) is generally the earliest you can reap what you’ve sown. Again, the seed packet indicates how long it takes from sowing to harvesting.

For the above-ground vegetables, it is fairly obvious when these are ready to harvest. It’s best to pick vegetables while they are still small – this applies particularly to courgettes and beans – to encourage more to be formed. In the case of courgettes, if you leave them on the plant it is astounding how fast they turn into marrows.

Other vegetables need to be left to mature and ripen on the plant as they only produce one lot of fruit, such as pumpkins/squashes, and sweetcorn. However, it is possible to pick some mature fruit that is not ripe and ripen it inside if it is the end of the season and the harvest is likely to be ruined by frosts. Put green tomatoes in a dark place, such as a drawer lined with newspaper, and they will soon turn red. Chillies and peppers can be picked and eaten green, orange or red – if they feel firm when given a gentle squeeze they are mature, but not ripe (and therefore sweetest) until they are red.

With crops growing under the soil, the only way to really know if they are ready is to dig them up. Use the seed packet to give you a rough idea, then try with one plant. The topgrowth can also be an indicator: potatoes are generally ready once they start flowering, while the foliage of onions starts to wither and brown.

When you are picking vegetables, take care not to pull up or damage the plant – cut off your veg if necessary. Dig up root crops with a garden fork, digging as deep as possible under the plants before levering them up carefully, gently pulling on the topgrowth at the same time. Be sure to get all of them out as well: they are perennials and can regenerate from bits of carrot or potato left in the ground, which may be unwelcome in the bed next year. Salad crops usually come up with only a hand fork, but if you are digging out plants in a drill, make sure the neighbouring plants’ roots are not left exposed.