Is mid-July too late to sow your own vegetables? Nah. There's plenty of time for some quick-growers that are perfect for salads right up to the first frost, writes JANE POWERS
THINGS ARE NOT going terribly well in my small food patch this year. I’ve grown only a few crops from seed, and it is mainly thanks to the generosity of friends, who donated their spare plantlets, that my plot is not entirely bare. Growing operations are not being helped by the foxes that come in at night and dig for worms in the raised beds. I comfort myself that they also eat slugs and snails, but I still resent having to firm my courgette and celery plants back into the soil each morning. The blackbirds, meanwhile, have finished off the blackcurrants, and are sitting around waiting for the redcurrants to ripen. Although I hate the look of it, I shall have to fling some netting over the plants if I want to harvest any food for myself.
But the year is nowhere near finished, so I’m about to embark on a sowing blitz. Even now, as we approach the middle of July, there is plenty of time to start off quick-growing crops, as well as a few hardy souls that will stay in the ground all winter. Last year, that season came earlier than ever, with snow on November 27th. But in a “normal” year it is possible to harvest food well into that month in the milder parts of this country.
Salad plants are an obvious and rewarding choice for mid- or late-summer sowing. Lettuce and other leaves will grow to usable size within four to six weeks. Sow some now, and a second batch in about a month’s time, and you’ll guarantee a continually full salad bowl until the frost sets in.
When harvesting lettuce, pick a few leaves from the outside of each plant every week. Although they won’t “heart” up (form a tightly-furled, succulent centre), this method keeps the plants tidy, healthy and good-looking. And if you grow your food crops in an ornamental fashion, it means your design is not spoiled by the gaps you would get when harvesting a whole plant. Other leafy plants
that you can sow now include American land cress, rocket, oriental leaves (such as mibuna, mizuna, mustard and pak choi) and chard. This last, also known as Swiss chard or leaf beet, is available in a range of varieties – with the central rib and the veins being of different colours.
The regular chard has white ribs and green leaves, while ruby and rhubarb chard are red-ribbed and veined. Multicoloured mixtures – with ribs and veins in white, red, pink, yellow and orange – are sold as Rainbow Chard, Bright Lights or Jacob’s Coat. The baby leaves make a cheery looking and earthy-tasting addition to salads, and the older leaves can be used in the same way as spinach. Chard may stand all winter in the garden, and start growing again in spring, providing a fresh flush of greens.
I sow all my leafy vegetables (and, indeed, most of my seeds) in modules, rather than straight into the ground. The modules – which are a bit like plastic egg cartons – make the seedlings easy to transplant without damaging their root systems. Also, when seeds are started off in containers like this, you can get the baby plants safely past the vulnerable slug-food stage before planting them out in the garden. When their roots start poking out through the drainage holes, it’s time to move them into the soil or into pots.
You can still sow radishes and spring onions for the salad bowl. With the former, sow seed straight into the soil (as most root crops are best sown direct), and with the latter, sow five to 10 seeds per module, and after about three or four weeks plant each bunch of seedlings into the soil. There is no need to separate the tiny plants; they will push out from one another as they grow.
Carrots, beetroot, turnips and kohlrabi may also be sown now, and be harvested in September or October. And if you sow kale and sprouting broccoli immediately and plant out in a few weeks, it will stand all winter and crop in spring.
I sometimes find it hard to muster my energies for another bout of seed-sowing at this point in the season, but I never regret it. The pay-off is that wonderfully self-sufficient (and self-satisfied) feeling of being able to wander out into the garden as the evening draws in and say: “What shall we eat tonight?”
No time to sow your own?
Irish company Quickcrop.ie has a range of ready-to-plant plugs that can be ordered online. Its midsummer range includes: lettuce, oriental leaves, rocket, cabbage, kale, Rainbow chard, perpetual spinach, carrots, beetroot, swedes, spring onions, sprouting broccoli and (for polytunnels or warm gardens) sugar snap peas and dwarf French beans.