 | | | | Your organic allotment - June 2009 | | | | A lot of people are growing vegetables for the first time this year, and I’ve met more than a few who have dug the ground and then read in a book that it is already too late to sow vegetables.
Don’t believe a word of it. It is never too late to sow something good to eat, and even if it is too late to sow there are lots of vegetable plants ready to plant available in the garden centres – at Sonairte we always plant twice as many as we need and sell the spares. But if you are buying plants do ask what it would cost you to buy the end product locally grown. Don’t pay more for a bunch of scallions as seedlings than those fully grown scallions would cost in the shops.
So what can you sow now at the beginning of June? What will give you the best returns in terms of quantity and flavour and be really easy?
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| | | How about some french beans? They will grow in any soil that isn’t completely waterlogged and if you sow them in early June, you will be picking them in August. Dwarf ones will give you a crop fastest, but the climbing type, such as Blue Lake or Cobra, will give you the most beans. And there is still time to sow runner beans as well.
Plant runner beans around a pyramid of sticks or canes at least six feet high somewhere where you enjoy their flowers as well as the beans – remember they were grown in Europe for their flowers for several generations before anyone realised they were good to eat. |
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| | | | There is still time to sow courgettes, pumpkins and squashes as well. I like to put a jam jar over each one until the plant is well established to stop the slugs getting them as soon as they germinate.
Do the same with sweet corn as well – Golden Bantam is a good variety for June sowing. You will get a crop earlier with all of these if you buy plants and start them like that.
I would only grow tomatoes in Ireland this summer in a greenhouse or polytunnel unless it looks as though the rain will ease back – tomatoes get the same late blight disease that destroys potatoes and it is already making itself known this summer.
I know of two backgardens in this area where the potatoes have been infected. But you can grow tomatoes successfully in pots on a south facing patio – that should be warm and dry enough to keep the disease at bay. You can grow aubergines and peppers there as well. |
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| | | June is actually a very good time to sow carrots. The first wave of carrot root fly has passed by and the second hasn’t arrived yet so a quick growing variety like Early Nantes should do well. Make sure the soil isn’t too lumpy for carrots or you will get bent and forked roots, and don’t dig in manure for them or the same thing will happen.
In fact don’t dig in manure at all – for crops that really like it such as cabbages and potatoes it is better to put it on the surface after planting and let the worms incorporate it. That way you will have healthier and better drained soil and therefore healthier plants |
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| | | | In fact don’t dig in manure at all – for crops that really like it such as cabbages and potatoes it is better to put it on the surface after planting and let the worms incorporate it. That way you will have healthier and better drained soil and therefore healthier plants.
As a second line of defence against the carrot root fly you can sow a row of scallions next to them (its too late to sow main crop onions) and the oniony smell will confust the carrot fly. Your third line of defence is to cover them with fleece – not even carrot root fly can get through that.
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| Other good crops to sow direct in June are beetroot, white turnips and swedes, mange tout and sugar snap peas, and spinach. Lettuce is better sown on the window sill and transplanted into the ground when it is big enough to stand up to slugs. A simple rule with lettuce is to sow a small pinch whenever the batch you sowed is nicely up above the ground.
And then there is the slug question. How do you keep your crops uneaten? I use a combination of methods. I trap them in damp places – a wooden plank laid on damp soil in the evening will yield quite a few the next morning. |
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| | | | The traditional beer trap works well but is expensive on beer. You can go hunting in the evening just after dusk when they will be marching around in their hundreds; collect them and dispose by your favourite method. Also in the armoury nowadays is a nematode that parasitises and kills them – it is marketed under the name of nemaslug and you can order it from several garden shops. Mr Middleton’s in Mary Street, Dublin sells it mail order. And there are now slug pellets which are far safer to use than the metaldehyde based ones. Look for the name ferramol on the ingredients list. Woodies and other garden centres are now stocking them and if they aren’t in you local garden centre then ask them to get them in.
And finally, don’t leave any bare ground. When rain falls on bare ground it forms a skin that stops it soaking in properly, but what does soak in leaches out the nutrients from the soil. So if you aren’t going to plant anything else, plant a green manure such as summer vetch, or sow pretty annual flowers to cut for the house and keep the bees, butterflies, lacewings and hoverflies happy.
Article kindly submitted by Kathy Marsh and the garden team at Sonairte, Co Meath
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