This month’s jobs on the vegetable patch and patio
WORDS: Sally Nex
Your Plot
GROWING TECHNIQUE: EARTHING UP
Potatoes are popping up everywhere now in little eruptions of tufty dark green foliage. But we’re not out of the woods yet: late frosts are a real threat right through till the end of May, and they’ll burn all that lovely new growth back to ground level if they get the chance.
Earthing up potatoes helps protect those vulnerable stems as they grow. It also boosts your crop, as buried potato stems convert into roots and produce more tubers for you to harvest.
You can use a spade or draw hoe (with the blade bent over at a right angle) to pull soil up over the stems from each side; or simply heap up garden compost, grass clippings, municipal green waste or any other organic matter on top of the plants to bury the stems, leaving just the topmost leaves showing. Repeat two or three more times, stopping by early summer.
DON’T FORGET: HOE WEEKLY
Get on top of weeds now, while they’re young and easy to slice off with a hoe, and you’ll make your growing life easier for the rest of the season. Choose a dry day and work your hoe back and forth just beneath the surface of the soil to nip off growing seedlings, working carefully near your plants so you don’t damage them by mistake – particularly at seedling stage as they may look similar. Repeat this weekly and you’ll keep perennial weeds at bay.
15-minute job: Pinch out broad bean tips
Once the weather starts to warm, broad beans really switch into top gear, growing so fast you can almost watch. This means lots of lush, green foliage and succulent stems – and unfortunately, there’s nothing a sap-sucking blackfly likes better.
Blackfly congregate around the most tender parts of the plant as they’re easiest to puncture with their mouthparts. Usually, that means you’ll find most of them clustered around the shoot tips.
They can multiply incredibly quickly – blackfly are born already pregnant, so populations can triple in a matter of days. So the moment you spot any on your plants, swing into action and squish them between finger and thumb. You’ll need to do this daily through summer to keep them in check.
If you don’t fancy that rather gory and time-consuming task, though, you can act preemptively by taking out the bit of the plant they like best, so they go off in search of tastier targets.
Once your beans have set plenty of pods, remove the topmost 10-15cm of every plant, cutting the tips away just above a pair of leaves. Don’t throw them on the compost heap: broad bean tips are a delicious harvest in
