Sow veggie crops fast
The rain rallied into July and the sun remained reluctant, yet the time for sowing overwintering crops is already upon us.
As you harvest vegetables such as radish, lettuce, rocket, scallions, salad leaves, white turnips or kohlrabi, continue with successional sowings of these quick maturing crops. If you don’t re-sow in time, you will find that supplies could soon run out.
Sowing small batches every couple of weeks throughout the summer should keep you in constant supplies. You could also try sowing late-maincrop peas that will mature fast and conditions permitting, they will provide tasty pods until the first frost.
If pods fail to produce, enjoy the delicacies of pea shoots and tendrils in your salads.
Once July and August hit, we get so carried away with weeding, harvesting and holidaying, we forget that now is the time to make autumn sowings for early crops next year. If you have a polytunnel, glasshouse, an exceptionally sheltered garden or a sizeable cloche, there is a multitude of possibilities for growing crops over winter.
Start sowing crops such as winter salads, oriental greens, chard, salad rocket, spinach, lambs lettuce or winter purslane now. Make sure to check seed packets to confirm that your crop of choice is winter hardy. If you do not have a polytunnel, you could try sowing some hardier greens such as spring cabbage, perpetual spinach or hungry gap kale, which will slowly grow outside over winter and provide you with tasty pickings next April or May.
Traditionally, cabbage has been a favoured vegetable in Ireland and perhaps this is due to the fact that with good planning and the proper choice of varieties, it is possible to grow cabbage all year round. Does spring cabbage, summer cabbage and winter cabbage sound familiar? All the groups of cabbages are grown in exactly the same way, just the sowing times vary.
Spring cabbages are usually sown in July and August to be planted out in September and October. These hardy greens will slowly mature over winter and will be ready for harvest from late February through to the beginning of June. The varieties of spring cabbage traditionally used include: ‘April’ and ‘Flower of Spring’. Plants will do best if grown in a seedbed or module tray and then transplanted into a sheltered spot in well-drained soil. If you are following a rotation and planting them into a bed that previously contained peas or spuds, there should be fertility still left in the ground. In windy areas, earth up around the stem and compress the soil with your foot to ensure the plants are stable. In an exceptionally harsh winter, plants may succumb to severe frost, so ensure to have garden fleece to the ready.
Back in the day, before vegetables were flown around the world and when people ate only local food in season, spring cabbage held a special place. It’s lush tender greens and small pointed heads were very welcome after a long winter of root vegetables and especially at a time when all other garden greens were scarce. It is hard to beat the earthy fresh flavour of cabbage cut from the garden in late March or April.
If blight is Ireland’s most prevalent plant disease, surely caterpillars must be the most widely recognised garden pest. If you have lots of holes in your cabbage, broccoli, or cauliflower leaves and regularly see lovely white butterflies hovering around, it’s likely the cabbage white butterfly is rearing her family on your precious crops. This is one butterfly that vegetable gardeners endeavour not to attract.
There are two species of cabbage white butterfly in Ireland: the Large White and the Small White. July and August is the main time when they take flight in search of your Brassicas, which provide the perfect abode for their army of ravenous offspring.
The female Large White lays her eggs in clusters on the underside of Brassica leaves, where they then hatch into the familiar, brightly coloured black and yellow caterpillars. These fearless pests contain a substance that is unpleasant to birds which courageously inspires them to blatantly crawl all over your plants and happily devour them. These caterpillars and their excrement are easily spotted but if not, you will certainly notice the holes they make in the leaves. If left unchecked, they will munch your Brassica leaves right down to the stem.
The female Small White lays its eggs singly and is less fussy about the plants she lands on. These eggs hatch into a very well camouflaged bright green caterpillar with a thin yellow stripe. They lack the same substance to stave off birds, hence they seek cover inside your plant, making them harder to spot. If undetected, they will destroy your cabbage from the inside out.
A barrier method of control is simply something that comes between a bug and it’s dinner or it’s nursery as the case may be!. If this is put in place in time you may not need to employ any other forms of control.
¦ A net barrier laid over hoops and anchored in the soil should prevent the cabbage white from landing on your crops and laying her eggs. Nets should be erected so as to allow plants grow to their full height and potential. Nets can vary from the ultra-fine enviromesh, horticultural nets to recycled net curtains or mosquito nets. Ensure nets are properly erected especially the recycled ones.
¦ Early detection is the key to control. Inspect plants regularly and ideally look for the eggs and squash them before they even hatch.
¦ Organic gardeners sometimes use biological controls to deal with pests. This involves the introduction of a natural enemy, specific to a particular pest but harmless to beneficial insects, other wildlife and human beings. BT or Bacillus thuringiensis is a biological spray of bacterial spores that specifically attacks many caterpillar species. It is very effective and a commonplace product in most garden centres but will come at a price. In the case of caterpillars, prevention is certainly easier and cheaper than cure.
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