Micks raised bed update

by Mick Colein
(Stratford on Avon UK)

May 20th, most things are growing really well at the moment in the raised beds.

Shallots and Onions are beefing up now and they have enjoyed the extra rain we have had recently.

Flat Leaf Parsley is really tasty and I have been freezing that for the winter soups and stews for a while now.

Peas are just starting to flower, so another few weeks and they will be ready for picking.

First time that I have ever grown Leeks so it will be interesting to see how they get on in the coming months. Because they stay in the ground a long time I have never really bothered to grow these before in my limited space. But the fact that I like them, they freeze easily and they are what I call a high value crop (50p per leek in the shops) makes them a must for me this year. I’ve got about 60 plants in pots and raised beds and some as can be seen in the photo growing in cardboard rolls, don’t think I will be winning any shows with them though.

Scraped some of the soil from around the base of one of the garlic plants this morning and was pleasantly surprised how much growth there was under the soil so fingers crossed and hope to get a nice crop of those.

Trying a few Pak Choi this season more for the novelty value than anything, but they look ok.

French beans (Purple Queen) are starting to come in to flower and look healthy.

Seems like we have been harvesting lettuce for months now but that’s starting to go over so put a few more seeds in to extend the season.

On the last of 4 bags of new potatoes (Rocket & Maris Peer) we averaged 3 pounds a bag of fresh new potatoes and they were delicious and well worth trying, have ordered some seed potatoes to try and grow some for Christmas dinner. The first 2 bags I emptied have now got leeks growing in them, trying to utilise all the space available to me.

But not everything in an English garden is rosey that would be much too easy.
My Runner beans have been very poor so far this year and the problem is I don’t really know why, they are normally so easy to grow.

Swiss Chard looks like its getting attacked from just about every insect in the garden.

And lastly spring onions, despite what it says on the packet, it is not a fast cropper.
I started some in the greenhouse in March and they are still not big enough to pick.

So my top tip this month is next season don’t bother with seeds for spring onions.
Instead buy a bag of onion sets from poundland there will be at least 50 in there, probably more, grow them in the normal way.
When they have grown about 10 inches of green growth cut it approx 2 to 3 inches above the onion set and use that top for spring onions.
In the late spring and summer this growth will only take a few weeks to get to spring onion size, when cut the onion set will start growing more new green tops and you can harvest again through out the growing season and you will still be left with a decent sized onion for the winter.

Mick