Some of the courgettes have been planted out into the vegetable garden. We usually wait till the end of May before planting them out, as there is still a risk of frost. The nights are cold, but covered with a glass dome, they should be safe.
The seeds were grown in pots, and are looking healthy.
Courgettes prefer an open well drained site. Traditionally, marrows were always planted on the farm muck heap. So, we try to mimmick those conditions, by digging a large hole and filling it half full with well rotted farm yard manure. This is covered by some fibrous, strawy material, and then soil. The courgette is usually planted on a slight mound.
Slugs adore courgettes, and break off the growing tip. So we surround the plant with soot, if we can find it, because the slugs will not move through soot. This year soot is in short supply here, so we have surrounded the plant with light sand – hoping that the slugs will not like that either!
The newly planted courgette is covered with a glass jar, jam jar, or whatever is available. This will reduce transpiration, and stop the plant wilting because of the wind. The glass will also protect the plant from cold nights.
Related articles:
The squash family
Planting butternut squash seeds
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Monty Don, the new president of the Soil Association, announced at the Guardian Hay festival that vegetable gardening must continue to expand.
The Gaurdian reported that “Holden and Don advised the turning over of private gardens, public parks and open space surrounding offices to vegetable growing.” Holden said that, in light of environmental concerns and what he believes is an impending oil crisis, he was calling for “a national policy of self-sufficiency in staple foods”.
More food must be produced locally and gardeners are capable of growing superb quality vegetables. Vegetable growing must continue to expand!
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It is important to protect vegetables from the cold which is predicted for the next few nights. Frost is forecast, and it looks as though we will have some seriously cold temperatures over the next few nights.
Young seedlings are tender, and vulnerable to the frost. At worst, they will be killed. Otherwise the frost will damage their cells, slow down their growth, and reduce their potential. Frosted vegetable plants will not yield so much.
Return on effort is one of TopVeg’s guiding principles – so do not allow the frost to affect potential yield, & reduce the return on all the effort put in so far.
Protect the plants from the cold temperatures by covering them over. (more…)
Controlling weeds in the vegetable garden is important at this time of the year when all plants are growing quickly.
small-thistle
Click the links below for more TopVeg weed help:
- the need to attack weeds when they are very small
Five minutes with a hoe as you inspect the vegetables each evening has a significant effect.
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A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2006, found that mental health problems were lower in rural areas. This could be due to Mycobacterium vaccae, a ‘happy bug’ found in garden soil. In rural areas, the “friendly” bacteria is breathed in through dust, & found on homegrown vegetables.
Dr Chris Lowry has carried out research at Bristol which indicated that soil may help depression (The paper: Lowry CA, et al., Identification of an immune-responsive mesolimbocortical serotonergic system: Potential role in regulation of emotional behavior, Neuroscience (2007), doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2007.01.067)
Dr Lowry, said: “We believe that prolonged exposure to this bacteria from childhood can have a beneficial effect.
“This research also leaves us wondering if we shouldn’t all spend more time playing in the dirt.”
It is thought that the bug helps the brain to create serotonin, which is a mood enhancer. This chemical is often absent or low in patients suffering depression.
Working in the vegetable garden and eating home-grown vegetables could well have the added benefit of cheering the family up, thanks to the Mycobacterium vaccae which is present in garden soil!
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Research done at the University of Texas, has shown that the nutritional value of vegetables bred for their size decreases as the size of the vegetable increases.
Bigger tomatoes:
- have lower concentrations of lycopene, the anti-cancer chemicals
- less Vitamin C and beta carotene
Larger potatoes and sweet corn
- have less iron, zinc and calcium
The best things are wrapped in little parcels! Research shows that today’s bigger food is less nutritional than the smaller sized varieties found in the vegetable garden 20 years ago.
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Vegetable gardening is a sure way to loose weight:
- eating the produce of the vegetable garden makes you cut down on the fatty foods
- working in the vegetable garden burns off excess calories
Robert Johnston (69), a retired security worker at Belfast City Airport, and his wife Sheila live in Carrickfergus and they have five children. In the Belfast Telegraph on 8/8/08 he says:
Having an allotment and growing your own fruit and vegetables gives you a great sense of achievement — and I also lost two stone within a few weeks from working so hard on it.
Vegetable gardening has many benefits and loosing weight is one of them.
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Now is the time to get the children interested in gardening. Give them
a small patch – let them define the shape with string and put stones
around the border.
Choose easy-to-grow plants and as many different ones as you can get
into the small space. Carrots, radishes, spring onions and beetroot
are good vegetable choices.
Help them prepare the soil:
* remove all stones and clods
* dig the patch
* break the soil into small crumbs – they can jump up & down, or use
a fork
Let the young ones design the planting scheme. Do they want:
* plants in rows
* or blocks of plants in different shapes
They can plan it on paper, draw out the design with a stick on the soil,
then sow the seeds.
Keep an eye out for pests, & develop a strategy together for keeping
pests out of the garden patch. Put up bird scarers made from CDs or
ribbons hanging from sticks.
Find a small can or jug which can be used to water the seeds regularly.
Oversee the project to ensure rapid results – which will encourage
further vegetable gardening!!
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Growing your own vegetables is rewarding, on any scale. But how big should the vegetable garden be? A row of radish, a tub of beans or a trough of lettuce will produce a thrill at any meal. But what size garden is needed for total self-sufficiency?
In the old days a working man needed a 20 pole (a pole is 25 sq meters)
plot to grow all the fruit and vegetables needed for his family. This is
probably a larger area than we would use today. A ‘working man’s
family’ was larger in those days. Also, he did not have the benefit of
our modern vegetable varieties, which are disease resistant and heavier
croppers.
The TopVeg patch keeps a couple supplied with vegetables every day of
the year, with some left over to give away. In July, August & September
it also supplies ample veg for 4 hungry, working men.
The TopVeg kitchen garden is divided into 7 beds. Each bed is 1.8m wide
by 15 m long, giving an area of 27 sq meters – just over 1 pole. So,
with 7 beds we have in excess of 7 poles.
These figures would suggest that 10 poles is an adequate area to grow
enough vegetables for a family of four to be self sufficient. But
this area has to be fully productive, using netting etc to keep insects
off carrots and brassicas, so that they crop to their full potential.
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