Thank you for joining us at the planting party! It’s great that you took something home to grow yourself, we hope it does really well. Here are the instructions for the different things we were planting…
Strawberries
It’s a good idea to plant your strawberries somewhere where they can’t spread wildly – which they will do if they get the chance! They’ll do best somewhere with plenty of sun, but you might find you need to cover them lightly with netting, or they’ll get eaten by slugs and birds. Having them well off the ground seems to work at the garden, and save them from too many pests, so putting them in a big pot might be good too. In the spring you can divide up the plants and their suckers (little clumps of roots which grow off the long ‘tendrils’ the plants send out) and have more strawberries next year!
Onions and Garlic – Karmen red onions, Centurion F1 white onions and Flavor garlic
These need to be planted out into their final growing position once they have started to sprout – they’ll be happiest in the sun – but you can start them off on a windowsill. Dig a hole a bit bigger and deeper than the pot, then gently ease the pot off and plant the whole thing upright in the ground, before packing it round with the soil you took out of the hole, and giving it a good water. When it gets hot, make sure you water them every few days (more if it gets really hot). When the leaves begin to die down, use a fork to partly ease the onions out of the soil. After a few days bend the tops over, and after a few more days lift the onions out of the soil, leaving them on the surface to ripen.
Broad Beans – Superaguadulce
These can be grown initially on a windowsill but they’ll need to be planted out when they’ve begun to sprout, and they need a sunny position but with plenty of watering. If you’ve planted more than one in a pot, separate the seedlings and plant them 23cm (9″) apart. They will need something to grow up (maybe a cane or some trellis), as they’ll get to about 90cm (3′) tall. You can expect to see the seedlings in 14-24 days, but you can leave it a bit longer before you plant them out if the weather isn’t brilliant! You’ll need to keep them well watered (every day or two in the summer) so they can grow nice big beans. Pinch off the growing tips (top pair of leaves) when the first pods are about 10cm long (4″) – the pods might grow up to 25cm (10″) big! This helps the plant to grow more beans, and deters blackfly too. You should be able to start harvesting in late July.
Peas – Meteor
You can plant these straight out into your garden once the seedlings show (usually 10-1-8 days), but it won’t matter if you leave it a little longer. Again, once you plant them out (if you have more than one plant, space them about 5cm (2″) apart) they’ll need something to grow up – this will make it easier to pick the pods once they’re ripe, which should be about July-time.
Radishes – Pink Beauty
Plant out your seedlings once they are about 3cm (1″) tall, separating them so they have space to grow. They should appear about 7-14 days after planting. Keep them well-watered and free of weeds and harvest them once you can see the radishes peeping out of the soil, this may well be in April!
Parsnips – Palace F1
Plant your seedlings out once they have sprouted, spacing the plants about 20cm (8″) apart. Keep them well watered and weed free, and they’ll be ready after the first frost of autumn, but can be left in the ground until next February!
Spring Onions – Matrix
Once again, plant your seedlings out once they’ve sprouted a couple of inches, no thinning is needed if they’re sown thinly in the first place, but you might need to split clumps up. If you harvest alternating onions (probably in about June) it leaves space for the others to grow on.
We hope you enjoy growing your veg, and then eating it later in the year!
Freedom Church Waddington 