Sowing Sunday

Today has come to be known as Sowing Sunday here at the Zia Maison. The Mediterranean vegetables that like a nice long season are sown today: tomatoes, aubergines, chillies, peppers, and also the first tranche of basil and lemon grass, if there is none left from last year (and there never is). It feels like the right time to sow all of these, although I have started tomatoes earlier and will sow another batch later – the first lot will hopefully begin to ripen before any blight strikes and the second wave can take advantage of an Indian summer, should we be lucky enough to have such a thing.

However, there’s nothing significant about the date except that it’s the Sunday at the end of half-term, which makes it easy to remember. Most of the packets for the seeds I used today say ‘Sow Feb-Mar’ or ‘Sow in early spring’ and it can be frustratingly difficult to know when the best time within that window might be. It’s not even so much about whether we’re under snow in February or enjoying early spring sunshine, since the seeds will all be sown in a  heated propagator anyway. It’s more to do with what the weather will be doing in 4-6 weeks time, when the seedlings need potting up, on, or even outside altogether. Kept in tiny windowsill pots too long, they’ll grow leggy and weak; transplanted too late they won’t set fruit until late summer, but then again, plant out too soon and the cold nights could finish them off.

It’s no wonder gardeners have come up with some easy-to-remember traditions for sowing and planting. 'Plant garlic on the shortest day and harvest on the longest', for example. In truth, garlic will grow best if planted just before the temperature plummets towards zero for a 10-day chill … so, yes, just before Christmas seems like a good bet. Leeks should be transplanted on the longest day as well, apparently. Mine are usually more like blades of grass in mid-June, but the saying does serve to remind me that it’s a job moving inexorably towards the top of the to-do list.

It’s also traditional to plant potatoes over Easter weekend, which could make you a hostage to fortune given that Easter can fall at any time between late March (which would leave your spuds very vulnerable to frost) to late April (fine for maincrops, but cutting it fine for your earlies).

Whiter than white

A snowy visit to the allotment today. The fresh snowfall has flattened out the landscape and deadened any sounds, so that it seems perfectly quiet and still, just the crump-crump of my wellies stumping down the path.

 

Apart from making sure everything was all right under its blanket of snow, I wanted to dig up some leeks for supper. Despite a good 8cm of snow, the ground wasn't frozen, so the leeks were easy to lift. Disturbing the soil alerted my winter robin, who earned himself a breakfast of two fat worms while I was digging.

The brassica cage here shows what happens if you don't take the net down before the snow falls - the weight of snow on the net will have knocked the tops of most of the  plants. Last year this happened with my purple sprouting broccoli long while they were still maturing. This year, the purple sprouting broccoli cropped in September and we've been eating it ever since, so it's coming to the end of its productive life anyway.    

Notes from the Secret Garden Club

 I've posted the notes from this month's Secret Garden Club session on The Allium Family on the Club's blog here.
Fortified by MsMarmiteLover's warming glögg, We discussed varieties from garlic, onions, shallots and leeks - how and when to plant, how to look after them and how to harvest and store so that you always have them to hand. 
After the garden session, we enjoyed an allium-themed tea prepared by MsMarmiteLover and some lively discussion about alliums, and kitchen gardening in general.

Attendees took home a pot of chives, a 'lucky dip' of onion sets and garlic cloves ready for planting out, and a packet of authentic Walla Walla sweet onion seeds.


Menu

Glögg

French onion soup
Garlic bread
Warm salad of leeks

Chocolate chip and garlic cookies 
Home-made mince pies

Next month, the Secret Garden Club meets on Sunday January 29th, when we'll be looking at herbs and medicinal plants and talking about how to plan and plant your own herb garden, no matter how small your space. Click here for details and how to book tickets.

All about alliums - next week's Secret Garden Club

I’m getting ready for my second Secret Garden Club workshop next week. I’ll be talking about alliums – garlic, onions, shallots, leeks, and a few other more unusual specimens – with some practical planting and harvesting advice and lots of tips for successful growing. As with last month’s successful session on smoking, MsMarmiteLover will create a delicious feast from the alliums we talk about – there’ll be some unexpected treats in there, I expect.

I'm afraid I’m rather predictably calling the session ‘Know Your Onions’ – if I can think of a better name between now and Wednesday December 21, I’ll change it. We don’t normally run the Secret Garden Club in midweek, but we chose December 21 deliberately, as the old saw has it that you should plant your garlic on the shortest day of the year ... come along next week (book here) and find out if there’s any truth in that.

Proper Northern leeks

They grow fantastic leeks up north. You see them in greengrocers and supermarkets: long fat sturdy stems, fresh green splayed tops and sometimes a little mud still clinging to the frill of roots at the base. Obviously grown locally, these always seem to me to be proper Northern leeks. With a white stem like a small tree trunk, these leeks were made to be sliced thickly into casseroles or simmered whole and served in white sauce.

'Southern' leeks from 2008

I, on the other hand, grow Southern leeks. Slender, pale green stalks that could be mistaken for an overgrown spring onion, they have an elusive, sweet, almost nutty flavour. They would be lost in a casserole: better steamed and dressed with a vinaigrette when warm, or hidden in a tart with blue cheese. It's not that I'm growing a dwarf variety, both the Musselburghs (a pretty standard leek) and Gigante d'Inverno (even without speaking Italian, I can tell that's not supposed to produce baby-sized crops) have turned out this way.

I enjoy growing them for the taste, but am always slightly embarrassed about their fragile skinniness, especially when the relatives make the journey down the M1 to stay, and on the customary allotment visit, end up staring at them, puzzled. Have I only just put them in the ground? Are they meant to be baby leeks? Or are they, indeed, spring onions after all?

This year's leeks

I do think that the presence of leek moth at our allotment has had an effect in previous years. These days, I cover the crop with Environmesh from July, when I plant out the pencil-thin seedlings, until now, when the leek moth caterpillars will have done their damage and settled down into their pupae.

Leeks eaten by leek moth can be saved by cutting the plant right down to the ground and waiting for it to grow again, hopefully unravaged. But they are never going to grow back to gargantuan proportions.

So I was beyond delighted last week when I removed the Environmesh to find the majority of the plants this year are indeed, if not actually Winter Giants, then definitely Proper Northern Leeks. It may just be a one-off, a happy combination of weather and well-nourished soil in that particular bed, but at least I now know that I don't have to settle for spindly leeks.