by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Officially Spring begins at the Equinox which is later this month but, to all intents and purposes, it has started, at least in our latitudes. Even if it snows now you know that, theoretically, it's not going to last long and the warmth of the sun will soon send it packing. Frost and snow is still possible, though, and we very well know that from the past.
If you are anything like me you too will be itching to get some seeds sown and get on with the task of growing your own veg, but where are you going to start?
Well, the first thing to remember is all seeds have a minimum sprouting temperature and they won't start until the soil reaches the right temperature. Onions, for example, have a low temperature to start growing, carrots are low to medium and peppers require a rather high soil temperature. So to cheat them all into growing now you will have to trick them by warming the soil artificially.
Your peppers will need to be sown into containers which are kept in an airing cupboard or near some other continuous heat source until they have sprouted and then kept in direct sunlight on a south facing window ledge near a hot radiator. Carrots can go into soil covered with cloches as can and do the onions, which can withstand cooler temperatures. Do not, however, sow directly into to freezing wet soil. Warm the soil up under glass (it does not have to be real glass) such as using a Longrow Cloche (product placement), for instance.
Beans too need slightly warm soil so do not start planting them into the ground as yet. But, using growtubes (product placement), either bought or homemade by using the cardboard tubes from toilet paper rolls, in which to start the plants on your windowsill.
What if you haven't got much garden and want to grow some veg? No problemo, as they say. Grow in containers, and many things can be used as containers for growing vegetables (and flowers), from tubs to bath tubs, from builders bags to shopping carts, and about everything in between.
You can, obviously, buy containers specially designed and made for the purpose and the Lakeland Garden Catalog 2011 (product placement) is a place to start for inspiration. Alternatively get your DIY inspiration by trailing the Internet. Quite a few ideas can be found there as to what to use as “containers” and how to build your own planters.
I have, for my own vegetable garden, a strange assortment of planters, for, aside from some old raised beds that are coming to the end of their lives. Those include some old bath tubs found fly tipped in a park, one tonne builders bags liberated from going to the landfill, several shopping carts that also were abandoned in the countryside and a great number of “tree” pots which nurseries use to deliver trees. You can do a great deal with those and I have found that using shopping carts for growing carrots, for instance, seem to reduce the infestation of carrot root fly. Cabbages also seem to be benefiting from been grown at height, so to speak, in shopping carts. Probably they are also a bit more out of the way of the Cabbage White and other such pests.
So, there is is. Some food for thought as to things to do in the months of March and I better be off so that I can actually do some of the work myself.
I spent some time in the garden the other day – it finally was dry enough not to require a rubber dinghy to get to the beds – doing a little digging. This was also a way of testing the samples of the Radius® Pro-Lite spade and fork that I reviewed.
© 2011
