Episode 249: The Allotment Keeper's Handbook
A trug full of produce from my allotment. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
TRANSCRIPT
Episode 249
Jane Perrone
On The Ledge, established February 2017, still going strong and I'm your host, Jane Perrone!
In this episode, I go off-piste, off-topic and potentially off the rails, as I bring you a sample chapter from my audio book, The Allotment Keeper's Handbook. Thank you so much for joining me. If you're new to the show, this is not a normal On The Ledge episode, if there is such a thing, because we're not really talking about houseplants this week. So if you're just new to the show, maybe go back and have a look at some of the other episodes as a starting point because this episode is taking a different tack. I'm going to give some background now about how the book came about and what I was doing at the time. If you want to just skip to the actual chapter, fast forward to about the nine minutes 30 mark and you should be able to pick it up there.
Still with me? Okay, great! The era BC - Before Children! - before my children were born, I wrote a book about allotments. It came out in 2008 and sold pretty well, but in the intervening years, it has gone out of print, and has been what they call in the trade, remaindered. And so you can pick up a second hand copy of this book, but you can't buy it new. So a couple of months ago, I thought to myself, "Gosh, I could get the rights back to that book from the publisher!" So I did just that! And that made me think that I really should do something with this book and what better than an audiobook!? As somebody who talks for a living now, that just made sense. So, you may have questions. "What on earth is an allotment?" may be at the top of your list, particularly if you're not in the UK. So, in Britain, allotments are basically parcels of land, probably about the size of a tennis court, maybe smaller, that anyone can rent and they're owned either by a local government body, like a local council, or a parish council, or a town council, or sometimes a private landowner, which could be something like the Church of England, or it could be something like a business, or just an individual, and you can rent these plots of land on a yearly basis to grow food on. And lots of countries have a kind of a similar system that comes under different names, often called community gardens. You might have something similar in your country, you may not. But the idea is it's an extra plot of land that you can work and grow food on. And if you want to learn more about allotments well, buy my book, because there is a whole chapter about the history of allotments, but you can also have a look at the website of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners, which in the UK are kind of the society that keeps the flame alive for these all-important spaces.
So the book's about growing food on an allotment, but you don't have to have an allotment to enjoy the book or get something out of it. It is almost all about outdoor growing. It's not an indoor gardening book, but there are, you know, decent-sized chapters on composting, on seeds, on choosing your plot. There's a glossary, so you can find out what those garden jargon words mean, and monthly lists of different jobs to do when you're growing food. So what was I up to in 2008, when this book came out? Well, I was working as a news journalist at The Guardian. I hadn't yet moved into garden writing. I guess I started early on, blogging, because when I started at The Guardian in 2000, I was working on the web side of things and we were into blogs at the time, at a time when really nobody else knew what a blog was. So I decided to start my own allotment blog and because of that, somebody got to hear about that, and asked if I'd be willing to write a book for Guardian books, the publishing arm of the Guardian, about allotments. I hadn't written a book before. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I wrote that book and it came out in 2008. Not that long after, my first child was born. I mean, at the time I had a tiny baby, so it was all a bit of a blur. I don't think I probably did as much advertising of the book as I would have liked to because, as I say, I probably wasn't getting any sleep at that point, but it did quite well and lots of people told me they really enjoyed the book. Sadly, not that long after that book came out, I had to give up my allotment because I moved well away from my original allotment and had to give that up, and we moved to a house with a much bigger garden - our garden is 80 foot, about 80 foot / 70 foot long. So with a small child and a big garden, I no longer had time for an allotment, so that was the end of my allotmenteering, as we call it. But I did still continue to grow food in my new garden, on a different scale because I didn't have space for expansive things like potatoes any more. But all of the principles that I set up and grew by when I had that allotment, I carried on through to my garden food-growing. So things like growing organically, trying to grow with wildlife in mind, and one of my other central tenets, which is grow stuff that you want to eat, don't just grow stuff because you think that that's what you should be growing. And that's parallel, really, to my belief that you need to grow the houseplants that you enjoy, not the houseplants that everyone else is growing.
So, revisiting this book was a really fascinating experience and it was really fun to get to read it all out loud for the recording of the audio book. And almost everything that I wrote then, I still stand by. When you listen to the audiobook, you may notice a few things that have changed since I wrote. For example, in the book I talk about wormeries, but only in a kind of abstract way because I hadn't yet got one. I must have got a wormery quite soon after that, because I've had wormeries for a long time now, well over a decade, and absolutely love them. I also think my attitude to killing stuff in the garden has changed. In the book, I talk about going on slug patrols where you just pick up loads of slugs and put them in a bucket of salt, water and things. Today, I probably wouldn't do that, in fact I haven't done that for many years. I just tend to garden and allow those things to exist and block them away from areas that I want that to keep them out of, if I need to, because it just seems to me like we just don't need to be killing those things. They are really doing good service in many ways in our gardens. The only things I've changed from the original text, are references to a few pesticides that have now been removed from the list of approved pesticides for organic gardening. So I just changed those references because that felt like the right thing to do. And I think I also took out one reference to climate change, which I'm sure, back in 2007 when I was writing the book, seemed okay, but with a 2022 eye on it, it just felt rather flippant. I think it was a comment about growing sweet potatoes and how climate change was going to make it easier to grow these in the UK and I just thought, "No, that comment has not aged well!"
So, I hope you enjoy this chapter. If you do, then you can go and buy a copy of the audiobook. At the moment, it's only available directly from my website. I'll put a link in the show notes. You can buy it direct from my store, and it costs £12.99, but if you're listening to this any time between the day it comes out, December 23rd 2022, and December 29th 2022, you can get 20% off the price with the code 'FESTIVEPLOT'. That's FESTIVEPLOT, all in caps, put that in and you'll get 20% off The Allotment Keeper's Handbook. In the next few weeks, it should be also available via the various platforms for audiobooks, including Audible, and I'll let you know when that happens. So if you have an Audible subscription, you may be able to listen to it for free as part of your subscription. And if you're a Patreon subscriber, if you're at the Superfan level, you get the whole book for free - you should have had details of that already. And if you are a Ledge-end, then you get a mahoosive discount, and again, details of that should have been emailed to you, how to claim your discount, which brings the price down to £4.99. If you haven't got that, or you have any questions, please drop me a line through Patreon or email ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. So I hope you enjoy this! I've chosen the chapter about sowing and planting because a lot of the principles in this chapter will also apply to indoor gardening, so even if you don't have any desire to grow outside, you'll still find this useful, I am sure!
Jane Perrone
Chapter Seven: Sowing and Planting. "Sow carrots in your gardens and humbly praise god for them, as for a singular and great blessing." Richard Gardner, "Profitable Instructions for the Manuring, Sowing and Planting of Kitchen Gardens", 1599. The earliest seed I remember sowing was moss curled parsley, which my mum chopped up for a sauce to serve with white fish and new potatoes. I can't remember why I chose that particular herb. Perhaps there were some spare seeds in the shed. Or maybe I was keen to provide my mum with a ready source of ingredients for my favourite dish. I must have been around seven years old. I sprinkled the seed in a meandering row along the flower bed below the kitchen window. A patch of earth that was lit up every year by those vivid yellow and red tulips so popular in the '70s, stamens wobbling under the weight of dusky pollen, and a colour so bright that when you held the red ones up to your face, they cast a crimson shadow across your cheek. I remember going back to check my seeds the following day, naively assuming that a few hours in some damp soil would be time enough to allow them to sprout! I had to wait a couple of weeks, a long time for a child, but they did grow, providing my first harvest a few weeks after that. I was astonished that such a simple recipe of soil, seeds, sunlight and water could produce leaves with such a fresh, unique flavour. Things haven't changed much. I still find the process of seed germination miraculous: one week the soil is flat and barren, the next, it's covered in fresh green shoots, and I still sew parsley every year, the flat-leaved Mediterranean type as well as the curled. I also marvelled at the relative ease with which such a diverse range of fruits and vegetables can be grown on the same rectangle of soil, from the deep, crisp purple of a cabbage, to the soft sweetness of a June strawberry. And even now I will sow seeds on a whim, with a particular meal in mind, and impatiently examine the soil a day later to check if anything has happened! I've usually given up all hope of any germination by the time the seedlings pop up. This gets me into all kinds of trouble. One season I put in a packet of leek seeds and was so convinced that they had utterly failed to germinate, that I planted some tomatoes on the site of the rows. It was only a few days later, while weeding, that I realised that what I thought were grass roots were the all-too-quickly abandoned seeds.
With no greenhouse to my name, I have to make do with whatever space I can find to service my sowing addiction from around the beginning of January to the end of May. The windowsills in my house are festooned with pots and trays of every conceivable size, all playing host to the different seeds I'm hoping to grow that year. Not everything needs to be cosseted indoors or under glass. Some crops can be grown in situ, on the plot, while others can adapt to either start in life. It varies from seed to seed, so my first top tip on sowing is mundane, yet routinely ignored. Read the back of the packet! While I can understand the temptation to chuck away the manual for your new DVD player or laptop, the instructions on a seed packet are usually only a few lines long and could make all the difference between success and failure. Grabbing a random handful of packets from my seed box, I can see the potential for confusion. No two seed companies display the relevant information in quite the same way, but there are a few key facts to look out for.
Best before date: Most seeds won't last more than a few years at best, so make sure you use up, or give away, any seeds before the expiry date. Sow direct, or under glass. Plants that hate being transplanted are best sown in the spot where they are to grow. Others need to be nurtured in warm conditions that only a greenhouse or windowsill can provide, then transplanted to their final cropping position. Once it's warm enough, some packets will tell you how deep to plant the seed, which can be very useful, as this varies according to the type and size. As a general rule, seeds should be covered with a layer of soil no deeper than their own diameter or they won't germinate. In other words, the smaller the seed, the finer the soil cover. But if in doubt, take a ruler down to the plot to measure the depth of your sowings and make sure they don't exceed the packet's instructions.
When to sow, transplant and harvest: All crucial information, but don't follow it too slavishly. I've sown things months late and still had a bumper crop. Spacing: This can be the most confusing of all. The package should tell you how far apart each plug should be along a row, and also how far apart each row should be, but sometimes the distance between each plant will be described only as, say, 30 centimetres by 15 centimetres. Is that rows 30 centimetres apart and spacing within rows 15 centimetres? Do check. Nevertheless, spacing is another one of those somewhat arbitrary rules that are there to be broken, so don't let yourself become obsessed by measuring things out to the millimetre.
Before you read any further, let me say this: as much as I evangelise growing from seed, it's by no means a must for the budding allotmenteer. There should be no shame in buying seedlings by mail order, or from a nursery. You'll still end up with a crop that you have lavished attention on and having an allotment shouldn't be an exercise in guilt. Seed-sowing is one of the most time-consuming jobs, so if you don't have time for it, ditch it, or mix and match, raising some of your own plants and buying in others. Plug plants are ideal if you lack suitable window sills for seed trays, or if you don't want the bother of preparation, sowing and pricking out. If you decide to follow this route, you can skip merrily down to the section on transplanting, safe in the knowledge that you won't have to worry about all that waiting and watering. The practicalities: as you may have realised by now, every allotment gardener has their own idiosyncratic method of growing, and sowing seeds is no exception. Some allotmenteers will swear by making their own pots out of old newspaper, while others will insist that seed trays are the one true way. You can only find out what works best for you through trial and error, but here are a few pointers to help you along the way. As I've already said, some seeds need to start life under glass; in other words on your windowsill, in a greenhouse or, at the very least, in a cloche or cold frame. If you want to grow Mediterranean veg, such as tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, chillis and sweetcorn on your allotment, you'll need to find a warm, south-facing windowsill to start them off, preferably covering their pots or tray with clear plastic bags to create a warm environment. If you have the funds, invest in a heated propagator which will keep your seeds at a balmy 19 degrees, or 20 degrees centigrade - the optimal temperature for germination success for these lovers of warmer weather. Once the seedlings have emerged, provided the room is relatively warm, you can switch the heat off, although if they are situated on a windowsill that gets chilly at night, you may wish to leave it on, to prevent the young plants being shocked by a sudden temperature drop. Some plants, like salad crops and brassicas, benefit from being started off in a controlled environment, even if they don't need the extra heat. They can get going without the threat of slug or snail damage and you can wait until they're strong enough to withstand pest attacks of all but the most serious kind, before transplanting the seedlings. Other crops will have no objection whatsoever to being planted straight into the soil on your plot, provided the conditions are right. In fact, it's even preferable for many root crops that don't like to be disturbed while growing, such as carrots, beetroot and parsnips.
Sowing mix: Passionate about peat free. Sowing seeds inside can be a deeply satisfying enterprise. It is a way of spending the gloomiest February or March day. They will have you dreaming of the sun on your back a few months hence, knowing that the work you are doing now will pay dividends in the summer. There's nothing better than switching on the radio, getting my seeds out and pottering around, sowing up a storm. I'm not too fussy about the compost I use in seed sowing, as long as it is peat-free, moisture-retentive and contains lots of air pockets for the seeds to develop. There's not much else required. The seedlings won't be in there long enough to need much in the way of nutrients. I tend to use a mix of two handfuls of bought-in potting compost to every one handful of sharp sand and one handful of vermiculite, a lightweight flaky mineral that absorbs water well.
When sowing fine seeds, such as lettuce, it's worth sieving the mixture to remove any big lumps that might restrict the young plant's push upwards towards the light. One ingredient that will never show up in my seed trays though, is peat. Britain's peat bogs are teetering on the edge of total oblivion. 94% of the UK's original, lowland peat bog habitat has gone, largely to the trade in peat for gardeners, who use it in potting mixes and soil improvers. Around 60% of the peat you'll find at your local garden centre comes from peat land habitats in Britain. Why should you care about bogs? Because they're unique habitats that are rich in wildlife, from carnivorous plants, to rare birds. The frustrating thing is, despite the fact that peat-based compost still dominates the market, there are plenty of peat-free alternatives made from composted bark, municipal green waste and coir: coconut husk fibre. You may find they take some getting accustomed to, if you've been used to peat-based mixes, but given the government's target is to remove peat from compost by 2024, it's about time we allotment holders got with the programme.
Sowing hardware: There are a number of choices when it comes to sowing hardware. The most basic and cheapest of all, is a seed tray: a shallow, rectangular, plastic container, with drainage holes in the base, which can be salvaged from supermarket fruit packaging. Small seeds are scattered randomly on the surface of the compost, while larger ones are sown in grid patterns. However, using a seed tray means you will at some point need to transplant prick out the tiny seedlings into individual containers. So you may want to avoid this by starting instead with either module trays which have moulded rows of separate slots for each seed or individual pots, which are easily made out of folded newspaper or recycled yoghurt pots with a drainage hole punched in the bottom, with a screwdriver. You can also buy clever little dried soil discs covered in netting, called Jiffy Sevens, that can expand to form capsules and make for hassle-free transplanting. One increasingly popular sowing shortcut is to plant seeds thinly in a length of plastic guttering bought from a DIY store, ideally keeping them in a greenhouse, or under some kind of cover, over the spring. When the seedlings are big enough to be transplanted, you simply prepare a shallow furrow, or drill, on your plot and slide the row of plants and soil into the slot with minimal disturbance to the roots. Peas seem to take to this method particularly well. If you want to avoid plastic altogether, there are plenty of alternatives. Young root systems and stems are very vulnerable to damage, so there's certainly something to be said for pots that can be planted straight into open ground with minimal disturbance to the seedlings. Some allotmenteers swear by using the cardboard centres of toilet rolls for certain seeds that need lots of space for their roots, such as sweetcorn and beans. Homemade pots constructed of newspaper, or cardboard, also work well. If you prefer to avoid a DIY job, pots made of coir are one answer. They're sold in a variety of sizes and thicknesses, and the looser-weave pots can be put straight into the ground when your seedlings are ready to transplant. One final tip that comes slightly out of left-field, is eggshells as pots. Yes, egg shells, not egg boxes, although they'll work too! According to the classic American self-sufficiency book, 'The Mother Earth News Almanac', provided you crack your egg carefully at one end and wash it out thoroughly, an egg shell makes a perfect container for seedlings. When it's transplanting time, the egg can be gently broken to encourage the roots to poke through once ensconced in the soil, and the minerals released from the shells as they break down are good for plants, so everyone's a winner.
Allotment Diary, March 2006: And so it begins! My annual mission to grow tomatoes outdoors, without the protection of a greenhouse, on my allotment. It's an exercise fraught with danger and tinged with the hope of achieving delicious, ripe tomatoes. On Sunday evening, far too late for any non-obsessed person to start such an enterprise, I decided to start sowing tomato seeds! Even though lots of tomato seed packets suggest sowing in February or March, if you are sowing to grow outside, it's best to hold off until the end of March, otherwise you're left with leggy seedlings desperate to be planted out when it's still too chilly for them to thrive.
How to sow: Once you have combined your potting compost, sand and / or vermiculite, it's worth moistening the resulting mixture before you begin loading up your chosen seed containers. This will make it easier to work with as you fill the pots or trays, and will also mean you don't need to risk disturbing the seeds by flooding the soil when they are already in place. I tend to put the compost into a bucket or bowl, add some warm water and stir it around with my hands like a cake mix to ensure that the soil is thoroughly damp but not soaking wet. It's better to use warm, rather than cold, water, not only because it's kinder on your hands, but also because the seeds will get less of a shock if they are placed in a warm environment which should aid germination. If you forget to add water before sowing, put some warm water in a dish and sit the pots in it so they can soak it up from below.
Fill about three quarters of the pots with compost and tamp it down a little. An old-style 35 millimetre film canister is ideal for this job, as it can be used circular-end down for individual pots, or rolled across the surface of the soil in seed trays. Then sow your seed as thinly as you can. Two or three seeds per pot or module will do. I don't think there's ever been an occasion when I thought "I wish I'd sown more seeds!". If the seed is particularly small and fiddly, bulk it out by adding a few teaspoons of sand to the seed. Then sprinkle the mixture on the compost. Then you can add a thin layer of vermiculite or compost. It's best to err on the side of caution. As I mentioned before, it's important to follow the instructions on the seed packets when trying to assess how deep seeds should be sown. If you sow seeds too deeply, they may exhaust all their energy before they break through the surface. Some seeds prefer to be left exposed. Again, scrutinise that packet. Label each new sowing carefully. Don't assume that you'll remember what's what, particularly once you've shifted your trays from your potting bench onto the windowsill. Now, I've made this mistake many a time and expended much time trying to work out whether a particular tray of seedlings were brussel sprouts, or kale. Don't have a potting bench? Nor do I! Just use a couple of old tea trays on some old newspaper, on either the dining table or a table in the garage. Make a note of the variety and the date sown, so you can accurately judge how long they take to germinate - particularly useful if you are as impatient as I am and eagerly waiting for the first green shoots!
The gap between sowing and germination varies from seed to seed. I've seen radishes germinate in as little as three days, but more tricky customers, such as celeriac and parsley, could take up to a month and not all the seeds from the same batch will sprout at the same moment. Some could take a fortnight to appear when their fellows are already reaching for the sky. If you're using a seed tray, once the seedlings have grown a strong steam and developed at least a couple of real leaves, as opposed to the cotyledons, the first pair of leaves that emerge after germination which usually look nothing like the subsequent leaves, they will need transplanting into individual pots. This process is known as pricking out. Gently dislodge the soil around the base of each seedling with your finger or an old kitchen fork, until the roots lift free as you raise the plant by one of its leaves - never touch the stem! A seedling will probably survive a damaged leaf, but if the stem is broken, it will inevitably die. Pricking out is fiddly, time-consuming work, which is why it's almost always better to sow two or three seeds in individual pots or modules, if you can, then you can pick the strongest performer in each one and thin out the remaining two: thinning out simply means gently uprooting and discarding a proportion - usually a half or two thirds - of the seedlings you've germinated, to give the remaining ones room to develop. This was always a bit of a mystery to me, as a new gardener. Why kill off so much of the new life you've just successfully created? The fact is, most of us sow seed far too thickly. It's easily done, particularly with any seeds that slipped through your fingers at an alarming rate, and although it seems like a waste, it's much more inefficient to grow two plants that are fighting for resources and space than one that has the ideal circumstances for strong growth. So, steel yourself and thin those seedlings, then you'll only need to move the remaining seedling once from the pot or module, in to its final cropping position, on the plot, usually once weather conditions are right and the plant is mature enough.
The other potential problem when raising plants from seed, is the fact that sometimes your young charges will collapse for seemingly no reason. Aside from a lack of water, a condition called 'damping off' is the most likely cause. Damping off is caused by fungi that thrive in the damp environment that prevails in seed trays. It's particularly prevalent in heated propagators, where conditions can become fetid if you forget to open the air vents on the top of the clear plastic covers regularly. If just one or two seedlings keel over, you might get away with scooping them out, along with the surrounding compost, and leaving the rest to grow on. If the whole lot is affected, it's best to start all over again. To avoid this problem in the first place, you should resist over watering. Keep the compost damp but not wet, by watering little and often, and maintain good hygiene. In other words, wash containers in between sowings and use fresh compost for each new batch of seeds. A great tip to prevent damping off I gleaned from a fellow plot-holder, is to water with chamomile tea - once it's cooled, of course! The tea possesses anti-fungal compounds that will help to stave off the problem before it kills your seedlings, which, if you hate this herbal brew as much as I do, is just about all it's good for!
Allotment Diary March 2005. One of my favourite parts of gardening is planting seeds and watching them grow, spotting the first green shoots breaking out of the compost and expanding to meet the sunlight. Making a seed bed: sowing seed directly into the ground will save some, but not all, of the labour involved in sowing in trays or pots. First you'll need to create a seed bed. Think of this area as The Ritz of your allotment, the high-end accommodation offering the best start in life for its star residents: your seeds! They'll need a bit of pampering if they are to develop and, most importantly, crop. Well, one of the many mistakes I made as a newly-minted allotmenteer, was falling prey to impatience and trying to sow seeds when the soil just wasn't ready. As I learned to my cost, it really is a waste of time capitalising on a warm spell in early spring to sow some sweetcorn, when it will rot unless the soil temperature is at, or above, 17 degrees centigrade. Seeds just won't germinate if it's too cold or wet for them. Although the exact temperature needed varies from plant to plant, broad beans and cabbages can cope perfectly well with five degrees centigrade, while tomatoes need at least 15 degrees centigrade. So a thermometer will help you check when the temperature is right. But if in doubt, wait.
If you don't want to invest in yet another piece of allotment kit, there is another way. In medieval times, gardeners would test whether the soil had reached the required temperature by sitting bare-bottomed on the ground! If it was bearable, excuse the pun, to stay seated, the time was right! To avoid embarrassment, you can use the back of your hand instead. You can easily tell if the soil is too wet for sowing by checking your boots. If the dirt is clinging to them in heavy clods, it's too sodden for sowing. If the earth falls off easily, the time might just be right. And there are ways to beat the weather. The laying of black plastic sheeting on the soil surface a few weeks before you plan to sow will not win your plot any beauty contests, but it will help to warm and dry the soil surface and allow you to get going a little earlier. Covering the ground with some horticultural fleece, a cloche, or cold frame will serve the same purpose and these can also be used to keep the soil temperature up once seeds are sown.
The second must-have for a seed bed is a relatively flat, weed-free, fine and crumbly soil surface. I include the word 'relatively' largely out of guilt because I have been known to bung in a row of seeds in less than perfect conditions! This usually happens because I've left it late to sow a particular vegetable and don't have time to turn the soil into a Gardener's World- style fine tilth! All I can say is: do your best! It's actually pretty hard to prevent every single seed from germinating through poor soil preparation, although I have achieved this rare distinction in the past, so don't despair if you don't have time to make your seed-bed absolutely perfect. But assuming you have a bit of time on your hands, try to work the soil with a fork or hoe until the soil is fine and crumbly, with lumps no bigger than your thumbnail. A rake is great for smoothing over the surface. And if you end up breaking away the largest clods and putting them somewhere else on the plot that's fine. As when making jam or chutney, you know you're getting there when the soil forms a dip when you run your finger in a line through it. If it does, hey presto! You have created a V-shaped indentation, or drill, just right for sowing your seeds in! But I suggest waiting two or three weeks between preparation and sowing. This will fool all the weed seeds on the patch of earth into germinating, then you can clear them away, allowing your chosen seeds to germinate competition free.
You may notice on a trip around your local allotments, that there are two ways of thinking about how to sow seeds. The old-school approach is straight, uniform rows across the width of the plot. The alternative approach, often teamed with raised beds, is a less formal system of sowing, where an area which could be as small as a handkerchief, or as large as a few square metres, is sown in blocks, either using regimented spacing in a grid pattern, or with the seeds scattered completely at random. If you decide to sow in rows, there is no need to feel restricted to straight lines. There are any number of ways of arranging your seeds. If you do like things regimented, you can ensure ramrod straight rows by using a garden line, a length of string tied to a stick at either end, which you can place in the ground and use to trace your seed drill. If, like me, you prefer things a little more random, forget the straight line and sow as you please. Try a pattern of curvy lines, or even a circle! Whether you plant in a straight or curved line, the seeds should be sown at the same spacing as indicated on the packet. If the seeds are so fine that they stray out of your line and onto the surrounding earth, you can always tidy up by thinning straggling seedlings once they've surfaced, and never feel compelled to sow a complete row of a single crop. Better to sow shorter rows of the same crop over a number of weeks, to produce a longer harvest period, or sow short stretches of several different vegetables at once. When sowing in blocks in a raised bed, the spacing can be closer than that recommended on the seed packet, but you'll have to experiment to find out what works for you. Just how close together your vegetables will happily grow depends on the soil, the weather, and what you decide to grow. Do bear in mind that if you err on the side of planting closer than the packet recommends, you can always remove plants if things become too crowded. It's a lot more hassle to sow extra seeds amid a crop that's already growing. With bigger seeds, such as squash, you can station sow. Put two seeds in every spot where you want to end up with a plant, ensuring that at least one of the two will germinate. Alternatively, you can sow your squash in pots, in May, indoors or in a greenhouse, and transplant them to their final growing position once the risk of frost has passed in June. Either way, courgettes and pumpkins always need more space than you think. Consider leaving a metre or more between sowings. Any less than that and the plants may become stressed because they're battling each other for water and nutrients, and may stop fruiting. It's a matter of personal choice which sowing style you go for, and one that's as subjective as whether you prefer coffee or tea. However, many advocates of each method may try to convince you otherwise. Each has its benefits. The row system can be easier to weed and water, while block planting, combined with raised beds, will maximise growing space, help to crowd out weeds and avoid damage to the soil structure by using clearly-defined paths between beds, meaning you won't be compacting the soil used for growing by walking on it. I have tended to use a mix and match approach, block-sowing some crops and sticking with rows for others. There's one crop that you absolutely must sow in a block and that's sweetcorn. The cobs will only develop if the flowers are well-pollinated and the best way for that to happen is by planting in a cluster, ideally a square.
Allotment diary, January 2006. Traditionally, onion seeds are sown on Boxing Day; 26th of December, for any non-UK listeners. I've always been convinced this is just a way out of spending any more time in fraught family situations! "Sorry love! Must go and sow my onion seeds now! Couldn't possibly play Twister with Auntie Mary and the kids again!" I was a day late with my onions, which went in on 27th December!
Seed storage: If you've over-enthusiastically ordered far too many seeds for the size of your plot, the issue of how and, indeed, whether to store them in between seasons will become an important one. Seeds have a varying lifespan. According to the experts from Kew Gardens who are working on the Millennium seed bank project, certain hard-coated seeds have been successfully germinated when hundreds of years old, while Dan Jason, founder of the Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada, claims to have grown tobacco plants from one thousand year old carbon-dated seeds found sealed in an indigenous burial site in Ontario! But I wouldn't leave your seed stash that long if I were you. Most plants you'll be growing on your allotment will have seeds that remain viable for at least a few seasons, but it's always best to use seed that is as fresh as possible. Pumpkin and other squash seeds are reputed to last around six years or more, while parsnip seeds will fail to germinate if left for more than a year. If, like me, you become a serial over-orderer of seeds, then think about giving the surplus away to your allotment neighbours, or sow more than you need, so that you can pass on the extra seedlings to someone who doesn't have the time or space for growing their own plants. If you have any half-full seed packets left after that, or if you have saved your own seeds - see chapter five for how to do that - it's best to find a place for them where they'll stay in tip top condition. While it may be tempting to put spare seed packets in your allotment shed, or storage box, I'd advise strongly against it. Unless you can be absolutely sure that conditions are completely dry and frost free, seeds do best in an entirely dry but cool environment: an unheated, but not damp room is best. The kitchen's another no-no, as it's too humid and warm. I store my seeds in a lidded cardboard box in a cool room where they can be easily accessed for each week's sowings, rather than shoved away in a drawer where they are easily forgotten. A concertina file with sections for each letter of the alphabet works well or you could file them by which month they will be planted, or by family, all the brassicas, cabbages, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, etc. together and so on. Some people prefer to store seeds in airtight jars. And this method is probably best if you're serious about keeping a lot of seed. Of course, carefully storing your seeds away in a labelled box isn't always possible or even desirable. Many old-school gardeners swear by putting melon and squash seeds into their coat pocket for several weeks before sowing. The idea is that the detritus inevitably found in the pocket of every gardening jacket, sand, dried leaves, grit and so on will score the seeds' hard coating and speed germination once they are put in the ground.
There are other ways of encouraging seeds to sprout. Seeds with hard coatings such as beetroot can be soaked in water for 12 to 24 hours prior to sowing to soften them up and encourage the green shoot to burst into the light. Sometimes fate intervenes. However, there is always the possibility that a packet of peas will burst in your gardening bag, and several months later, you'll notice that some of them have germinated when your water bottle leaked on them. I treat such mishaps merely as opportunities for an unexpectedly late pea harvest!
Planting out: How do you tell when a tender plant, such as a tomato or squash, that started its life indoors or in a greenhouse, is ready for the cruel world of the open plot? First of all, the plant must be big enough to survive outside. It must have grown its first two sets of adult leaves, as opposed to the cotyledons or seed leaves that first appear when a seed germinates, and it should have a firm stem and enough of a root system to survive the trauma of being moved outside. If the roots are visible from the hole at the bottom of the pot, that's a good sign. Soil and air temperature must also be right, but then anything that you've grown under glass will get a shock when it moves into the open air and bright sunlight. To soften the blow, every plant first needs to be given a chance to acclimatise to their new conditions. This is a process known as 'hardening off' and if it's not done, you'll probably find your carefully-raised specimens will keel over from the shock of the chill, draft or blazing sunshine. Take your pick. Even plants that started life in a cold frame will need this, although not for as long a period. Hardening off can begin with putting trays of seedlings outside in a sheltered spot or inside a cold frame for a couple of hours. On a sunny day, bring them back inside, but gradually introduce more and more exposure to the elements. The process can take two to six weeks, depending on the plant and the weather. You'll be able to see the plant changing, as the soft growth put on during its time inside becomes harder and the stem becomes more sturdy. Unfortunately, there's no magic indicator that says a plant is fully hardened off, but provided you have gradually increased its exposure to the elements over a period of weeks, you should find they cope well with their new home. Once you think your seedlings are fully hardened off, get them ready for their final trip to the plot by giving them a good dousing at least half an hour before they're moved.
Planting out, or transplanting, as it is also known, is the most stressful procedure for a young plant and ensuring that they are not thirsty will help ease the transition. It also helps to do your planting out on an overcast, cool day, when the plant will find the move less traumatic. When it comes to moving a plant from pot to plot, the main rule is to try to limit disturbance to the delicate root system that you've been sweating over. Make sure you dig a hole that's larger than the root ball, the root system and the soil that's clinging around it, with plenty of room to spare. Once you've inserted the plant, back-fill the hole with more soil, gently pressing down around the base of the stem to firm it in. Try to make sure the soil level is roughly the same as it was in the pot. If in doubt, err on the side of burying the stem deeper. Indeed, some seedlings will benefit from such treatment. I got into the habit of planting tomato, courgette and pumpkin seedlings to just below the first leaf. After observing that they will throw out extra roots from any section of their stem, provided it is covered in soil. Not only does this help to support the growing plant, but it also encourages an extensive root system that enables the plant to deal with sometimes erratic watering that can occur when you can't get down to the plot every day during hot summer spells. I was delighted to discover recently that I wasn't the first to think of this. Native Americans in hot dry parts of the USA plant their seedlings so that only the top few leaves are visible. Again, there are various things that could catch you out. Check back to the seed packet. You did keep the seed packet, right, for instructions on when and how to plant out, as it could contain vital information that might vary from vegetable to vegetable!? Take leeks: the roots of each seedling need to be trimmed by a third before they are placed in individual holes, each about 15 centimetres deep, so there's not more than five centimetres of leaves visible above the soil. You need to trim off any excess. You can make the hole with a dibber - a pointed stick used for making holes in the earth - trowel handle, or wooden spoon. Having transplanted the seedling, pour water into the hole but don't fill it with soil. This will give the leak breathing space to develop a long thick wide stem. Tender plants, such as winter squash, courgettes and tomatoes, should not be planted outside until all risk of ground frost has passed. Depending on where in Britain you live, this can be anywhere from mid May to the end of June. And beware of being caught out by a random warm spell! If you want to plant out anyway, make sure your plants have some protection at night from fleece, a cloth, or cold frame, otherwise, you'll have to watch the weather reports like a hawk and be ready to make a mercy dash to the plot.
Everyone seems to want to add something to the bottom of the hole when transplanting. For seed potatoes, it's comfrey, or torn up newspaper, or compost. For brassicas, it's chopped up rhubarb leaves, to act against cabbage root fly. With courgettes and cucumbers, it's a carrot. Yes, you heard that right! A carrot stuck into the ground next to a new courgette plant is reputed to attract nematodes; parasites that would otherwise attack the plant. You'll learn through trial and error what works for you and neighbouring plot holders may offer up possibly conflicting advice too.
Planting direct: Seeds, on the whole, are tricky customers. Sometimes, when sown carefully in pots on the windowsill, they don't germinate. Sometimes they die when transplanted from seed tray to plot because their roots are accidentally damaged, or because of an unexpected cold snap. Other times, when sown direct on the plot, they germinate, then the seedlings get wiped out by a slug in week one. The potential pitfalls are considerable. So, it is with a lighter heart that I turned to the diverse group of crops which, on the whole, make life easier for the allotmenteer because they don't involve seeds and can be planted directly into the soil. This group includes potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes which, in the case of the former come in the form of specially prepared mini tubers known as seed potatoes. The planting direct group also includes rhubarb and asparagus, which can be bought as dormant plants known as crowns; globe artichokes, which can be purchased as mini plants, known as offshoots; onions, garlic and shallot, which can be bought as sets, specially prepared mini bulbs, which, in the case of onions, swell to their full size, or, in the case of shallots and garlic, multiply to create bunches of bulbs; and soft fruit, which can be bought and planted out in the winter, as canes; bare-rooted stems that will grow away nicely once planted in a good spot. Each has their own foibles, but, on the whole, they are easier to work with than seeds and less vulnerable to sudden collapse. The general rule is this: buy them as close to the desirable planting time as possible and plant them as soon as you can after purchase, weather conditions allowing. Every plant will be happier in the soil, than stuck in a pot, bag or net. This is particularly true of soft fruit canes; raspberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries and blackberries. These are usually bought as dormant plants in the autumn and winter. Go to the monthly tasks list at the end of the audiobook for guidance on when to plant what.
When it comes to planting potatoes, there's a lot of rot talked about how you must do this or that otherwise they simply won't grow. Anyone who has accidentally left a spud or two behind in the soil, only for it to sprout next season, or seen a potato plant poking out of a compost heap will know that this is a myth! In reality, they're dead easy and just about as close as you can get to a must-have crop - fun to harvest and universally welcomed in the kitchen, particularly if you try one of the more unusual varieties. The old-fashioned way of planting potatoes, is to dig one long trench to put the tubers in, but I find it easier to make individual holes of about a hand's depth for each potato. A bulb planter - a cylindrical tool that is pressed into the earth and then withdrawn to remove a plug of soil, leaving the perfect-sized hole for a bulb or potato tuber - works well for this task. Put the tuber in the bottom of the hole and try to remember to make sure any sprouts, which form the plant's stems, not its roots, face skyward. Don't cover it with soil until every potato is in the ground, as it's easy to tell where you're up to that way, particularly if you're interrupted by an unexpected rain shower, or a chatty neighbour! Finally, make a little hillock over each one, to protect the emerging stem from frosts and also to remind you where the tubers are. With onion and shallot sets, the key is to plant them shallow. Leave the very top poking out of the ground. Birds seem to love playing with them and if you return to the plot to find them strewn all over the place, re-plant a little deeper, so they are completely covered. This won't do any harm, but they will take a little longer to emerge. Don't just force them into the ground, but use a dibber, or dibber substitute, to make the hole, otherwise you risk damaging the onions' nascent root system and slowing its growth. Over-wintering: Over-wintering is one way you can get ahead of the pack each spring. In gardening terms, over-wintering, in its widest sense, simply means a method of caring for a plant during the winter that will ensure it will survive. For instance, by bringing tender garden plants, such as fuchsias, into a greenhouse, or conservatory, to protect them from frost. In allotment terms, over-wintering means planting specially-prepared seeds, or sets, in the late summer or autumn, which will start growing, survive the winter, and supply you with an early harvest far sooner than would be possible for crops started in springtime. Peas, garlic, broad beans, lettuce and onions are some of the most popular crops for overwintering. But do make sure you buy the seeds or sets that stipulate they are specifically produced for overwintering. Look out for the varieties marked as 'Over-wintered' or 'Over-wintering', the terms are interchangeable, or 'Autumn-sown' on the packet. Trying to grow over-wintered crops can be a hit-and-miss affair. Too much rain, or a boggy soil, and your onions may rot away to nothing. A really bitter winter could kill every one of your young plants off. So any protection you can offer your over-wintering crops from extremes of temperature and hungry birds, the better. A layer of horticultural fleece, held up with hoops, or wire, or canes, or an extra layer of compost around the young plants will help, as will a free-draining soil. Of course, if you have cold frames, cloches, a greenhouse, or polytunnel, where the over-wintered vegetables can shelter, you're far more likely to reap a bumper crop. However you do it, growing a handful of over-wintered crops will extend your growing period by several weeks and give you a warm glow of satisfaction, managing to grow a crop while the rest of the plot lies dormant.
Spotlight on Beetroot, Chioggia: This is my favourite beetroot variety, not least because it has the ability to completely surprise unsuspecting dinner guests with its startling appearance. The skin is dark pink, but cut it in half and you'll reveal concentric rings of white and blood red, that look rather like a bull's eye boiled sweet. Beautiful isn't an adjective often used in relation to beetroot, but this variety really deserves the description.
Think of beetroot recipes, and you probably think of the Russian soup Borscht, but as its name suggests, Chioggia hails from Italy. This isn't so surprising, given that Beetroot was originally cultivated from a wild plant found growing in coastal Mediterranean regions. Chioggia seed is frequently sold as Barbabietola di Chioggia. Barbabietola simply means Beetroot in Italian and the Chioggia bit comes from this Beetroot's place of origin, an Italian coastal town some 25 kilometres south of Venice. As is often the case with old vegetable varieties, the Chioggia Beetroot doesn't have a precise birthday, but it has been around since at least 1840, although it's likely that it was first grown much earlier than that, perhaps even as early as the 16th century.
Chioggia is easy to grow, like all beetroots, but it has a delicate flavour that's a little less earthy than other types. I find it ideal for roasting whole, which is less messy and time-consuming than boiling, and when it's turned into soup, the resulting dish has a pretty pink hue. It's best picked when it is between golf and tennis ball-sized. Seed sources: The Organic Gardening Catalogue; Seeds of Italy; Tamar Organics; Thomas Etty Esquire.
Jane Perrone
I hope you like what you heard, and do remember to visit janeperrone.com, the show notes for this episode, 249, for details of how to buy the whole audiobook, to listen to at your leisure. And thank you to Ian Bradley, who mastered the audiobook for me.
Next week, December 30th 2022, no new episode, but I will be releasing one of my first 50 episodes, which is usually only available to Patreon subscribers. I'll be re-issuing that for your listening pleasure over the new year, so that should be fun: you can hear an early edition of On The Ledge! I'm looking forward to hearing it myself! In the meantime, I do wish you a fabulous festive season. Take a break, take a breath and enjoy your plants, as always! Bye bye!
The music you heard in this episode was 'Roll, Jordan, Roll', by The Joy Drops; 'The Road We Used To Travel When We Were Kids', by Komiku, and 'I Snost, I Lost' by Dr. Turtle.
All Tracks are Licenced under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.
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Get your copy of The Allotment Keeper’s Handbook now! Click here to buy from my website. The audiobook is also available from Audible, Google Play, Scribd and Spotify.
This is your chance to hear a sample chapter from my book The Allotment Keeper’s Handbook. I explain a little about the background to the book and introduce an extract about sowing and planting.
What’s it all about? The Allotment Keeper's Handbook is my no-nonsense guide to managing your own organic vegetable patch. This book was first published in 2008, but is now available as an audiobook for the first time. Packed with invaluable advice, from how to choose an allotment and test its soil to knowing your chickweed from your chicory, it offers an enjoyable and inspiring shortcut through the trials, errors and frustrations of starting a kitchen garden.
What chapter do we hear? The chapter I read in this episode is all about sowing and planting - with a focus on outdoor food growing, but some of the advice in here will also be useful for sowing any kind of seed. At the end of each chapter of the book I throw a spotlight on a particular vegetable: in this sample chapter it’s my favourite variety of beetroot!
Want to hear more? You can buy a copy of my audiobook here for £10.49. It’s also available on Audible, Google Play, Scribd and Spotify.
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CREDITS
This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops and I Snost, I Lost by Doctor Turtle.