My Tiny Plot

When I first started vegetable gardening I was very confused about what constituted a successional vegetable. Gardeners on TV shows and in books were always harping on about ‘carrying on with your successional sowings’ like everyone knew what to do. I didn’t.

So, now that I get it I thought it would be helpful to do a short post on what is successional sowing and which vegetables will benefit from being sown in this way.

Sowing successionally means that you sow a small amount of fast maturing crops at around 2 week intervals to give you a harvest the summer long instead of a glut at one particular time. These are normally vegetables that don’t store well in the ground or go to seed easily. For example, it’s a good idea to sow veg like lettuce in this way unless you really need 79 lettuce to be ready all at the same time.

It’s a good idea to separate your seed packets into those you need to sow once and those you need to sow successionally. I keep my successional veg packets on the potting shed bench throughout the growing season to remind me to sow a little of each every couple of weeks.

Vegetables that you might consider sowing successionally will include:

• Lettuce
• Radish
• Spinach
• Peas
• Spring Onions
• Carrots (especially early Carrots)
• All Salad Leaves
• Rocket (in early Spring and late Summer)

Some people make two sowings of these vegetables throughout the year to ensure that the crop spans the growing season:

• Tomatoes
• French Beans
• Runner Beans
• Beetroot

If anyone else has any successional veg to add to the crop then add them to the comments.

I planted my Cauliflowers today. I sowed them with the tomatoes back in March and now they are about 10cm high. Because we have a walled garden the temperature is a little higher inside than outside so it’s totally safe to plant out Cauliflowers.

I watched a show once where they suggested mixing lime with potting compost. The idea was to dig a big hole for each Cauliflower and put the lime mixture in the hole before planting. Lime helps combat Club Root which, if you have it in your soil, can ruin your chances of growing Cauliflowers or other Brassicas for a good few years to come. So needless to say I’m taking every precaution to avoid that.

Despite taking these precautions, Cauliflowers are still difficult to grow well. If the club root doesn’t get at them then the Cabbage White butterflies will, and if their caterpillars don’t munch through the whole lot then Cabbage Root fly will make the leaves wilt and die. The reality is that Cauliflowers will probably take up a lot of your time and attention – probably more time and attention than is really worth it if we’re being honest.

It’s time to replant the Tomato seedlings that I put in the heated propagator a few weeks ago.
I’m growing two cherry tomatoes (Sub Arctic, and Gardeners Delight) and one standard variety (Robin). I may also buy some yellow variety tomato plants later on from the garden centre. I always end up with more tomatoes than planned.
Usual rules apply; always handle seedlings by the leaves rather than the stalk, take as much soil with each one as possible etc. Special rules with tomatoes include: plant them a little deeper in their new pot than in the seedling tray and water with tepid water so as not to shock them. Then cross your fingers.

…population 22 and growing. As you can see I did my first ‘potting on’ this weekend. There were a few casualties, inevitably. My inexperience and heavy-handed transplanting skills meant the death of two cucumber plants and five tomatoes. Although I did manage to save one sweetcorn seedling from the decimated crop that died last week of an ‘overnight chill’. So I’m happy with that. That means we now have 11 cucumber plants, nine tomatoes and three courgettes, – too many cucumbers right?
I’ve put them in Ryan’s Counter Strike killing den, I thought they might like the sound of machine-gun fire and soldiers repeatedly saying things like ‘affirmative’ and ‘yes sir’…!
Of course it’s also the sunniest room in the house too (cunning).