KITCHEN GARDENER
Helping you get your best-ever fruit and veg
Chard, carrots, spring onions… it’s such a busy time right now in my Kitchen Garden
Over the last few years, I’ve learned the benefit of leaving chard plants in the ground to overwinter, resulting in a flush of fresh leaves in spring. While this gives a much-needed harvest, it’s also best to sow some more seeds to replace tired plants.
I’m sowing a selection of colours including ‘Peppermint’ (pink) and ‘Rhubarb’ (red) into modules, with three or four seeds per cell. I must admit, I never use seed compost when sowing. I simply use a good quality, peat-free mix with a little Perlite or sand added, and I’ve never had any issues. Once sown, I’ll leave the tray in the unheated greenhouse on the windowsill to germinate,allowing seedlings to start growing without the fear of slug damage.
While I do sow most seeds in modules, there are some, namely carrots, that I prefer to sow direct into the raised beds as they produce better plants in my opinion. I’m starting a few rows now in one of the raised beds, which had well-rotted manure added to it last season, so it shouldn’t affect the roots or make them fork like fresh manure does.
When sowing, I make sure to leave 20–30cm around the perimeter of the bed for my module-sown spring onions. Doing this should help protect the carrots from root fly attack, Three or four chard seeds are sown per cell as the alliums mask the scent of the root veg. It may be tempting to sow carrots thickly in case they don’t all germinate, but having too many seedlings means you’ll need to thin them out, which in turn can attract root fly to the smell, so be frugal with your seed unless you’re growing a carrot fly-resistant variety such as ‘Flyaway’, or growing in raised containers, as root fly stay near to the ground. There are a couple of other alliums I’m starting this week as well, with leeks getting sown and calçots being planted out. While you may know the former, the latter is hardly grown in the UK, remaining elusively in its Spanish, Catalan origins. The calçot onion is grown from seed just like a regular onion at this stage, but I’m transplanting them under insect-proof mesh to prevent allium leaf miner from affecting the plants. They’ll produce a white
