Planting - edibles

On 22 June we planted out some winter brassicas. The plants all looked fine when they went in but after a while it became apparent that all was not well. The plants were only making slow progress. We were not doing very well with brassicas with earlier plantings being devastated by slugs.

In the end it was decided, rather than struggling to try and sow more seeds and have the young seedlings run the gauntlet of slugmageddon, we would order a collection of young plants from DT Brown. Martyn posted about the arrival of the plants on 20 August here.

Rather than immediately commit the young plants to the vagaries of life on the plot they were potted up and popped into our cold frame complete with all manner of slug combat devices.

Last week we felt that the time was right to transfer them to the plot.

This year all of our brassicas have been grown under enviromesh in an attempt to keep whitefly at bay as well as the cabbage white butterflies and wood pigeons. Typically in a year when most butterflies have been noticeably absent the cabbage whites have still been on the prowl.

The first covering of mesh was removed. In this bed were two varieties of cauliflower Clapton and Romanesco.

Most of the Clapton plants had rallied but Romanesco were fit only for the rubbish tip. We have never grown brassicas in this bed before but evidence seems to point to the demise of Romanesco being down to club root. Before we took over the plot it was overgrown and I can't remember in the 30 or so years having ever seen brassicas growing there. We can only assume that weeds from the brassica family have contaminated the soil.

The Brussels sprouts growing close by are also a club root resistant variety and are growing well.

If as seems likely that the ground is now affected by club root it would seem that varieties described as having resistance to club root have a valid claim.

The problem is that the collection that we bought is made up of varieties that do not claim to be club root resistant. To try to give the plants a better chance the planting holes were filled with compost but will this be enough?

Some of the brassicas have been planted in a separate area of the plot which also has never grown brassicas before but has been home to wallflowers - an ornamental member of the brassica family. Will this also have been contaminated with the disease?

All the plants have been given a covering of enviromesh. So far, ten days later, they seem to be growing OK but only time will tell whether these plants will thrive or perish.

Once winter sets in and there is a danger of snow we plan to replace the mesh with netting as this will offer less resistance to the snow and allow a more gentle covering.

The varieties of brassicas in the collection that we planted are listed here.

We are still using the onions that we planted last autumn. Last week we planted autumn onion sets for harvesting next year. We bought two varieties Senshyu and Radar, The yellow varieties do better for us than the red or white ones. Unlike the spring planted onions we plant these sets straight into the ground. We try and plant as soon as we see the sets in the garden centres so that they are off to a better start before the winter weather sets in. We have found this works for us. Even if the sets only produce small shoots I think a better root system develops.

Martyn described the planting in more detail in this post in this blog.

The sets are planted through trenches cut into weed control fabric. This cuts down on competition from weeds which also reduces dampness around the developing bulbs. Any weeds growing in the trenches are easily removed.

In the garden we have planted cut and come again salad leaves in our Woodblocx bed.

Slugs and snails permitting this will supply us with fresh leaves over winter.

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett