Tasty salad day (From Blackpool Citizen)

Tasty salad day

11:14am Thursday 24th May 2007

• Print
• Email
• Share

SALAD days are here!

This week we had the pleasure of taking our first salad leaves from the gardens - and very tasty they were too.

It is a wonderful feeling to be able to pick the first few leaves from various plants that we have grown in our raised intensive beds and then create a salad with them.

At least they have survived, despite the heavens opening on a regular basis. In fact, the lettuces and salad leaves seem to be thriving the more rain they receive.

Amazingly, the vegetable garden has survived unscathed despite the huge downpour followed by a battering from hailstones at the weekend.

I was dreading looking at the plants thinking they would be washed out by the massive rainfall and then crushed under the weight of hailstones.

But when I did pluck up courage to venture out, I found to my surprise that they were unscathed and looking pretty perky.

The patio potato plants I bought from a local garden centre are also flourishing in the Victorian-style potato barrel and I have been building up the compost around them as the shoots grow.

I just hope the future potato harvest is as good as the bushy greenery suggests.

But I am still waiting for the second potato barrel to show any signs of growth - but there's time yet. We have spotted the first head of broccoli appearing on one particularly healthy plant, and the other plants, like peas and dwarf beans, peppers, cabbages, celeriac, suede and carrots, are all looking healthy, so far.

Even the cucumbers and courgettes, which are more delicate than other plants, also look fine, so we must have done something right when we planted them. But in my darker moments, I still think something is going to go horribly wrong.

The tomato plant in the conservatory is blossoming with about four fruit beginning to develop. The tomato plants outside, while looking OK, are growing much more slowly.

I have yet to plant up the two plastic dustbins I bought for £8 each, but we will do that this week - weather permitting.

I have some baby carrots growing in the intensive raised beds, but I want some normal sized carrots as well so I will use one of the plastic dustbins for those. In the second, I will plant some leeks.

I have a strawberry barrel which needs 32 plants. I will probably order them over the internet this week as I want different varieties to fruit at different times during the coming months.

A fellow urban gardener is Rob Godwin, who started his vegetable patch in his backyard in Cemetery Road, Farnworth.

The 31-year-old arboricultural consultant set up his garden because he wanted to get his children involved in growing plants.

Using 12 inch-wide strips on two sides of his backyard, Rob built up the beds using compost and well-rotted manure to raise them 10 inches higher.

"I started the vegetable garden about six weeks ago and now have carrots, beans, peas, onions, leeks, broccoli, cabbage and courgettes in the garden, with chilli peppers and tomato plants on the windowsill.

"I also have redcurrant and whitecurrant bushes, a cherry tree and a blueberry bush.

"I have split the veg into roots and brassicas so that I can rotate the crops better.

"The children, especially my daughter Maddy, who is six, are really getting into gardening and planting. Now I've done this, I want to get hold of an allotment across the road and start growing more vegetables."

l If you have an urban vegetable plot you are proud of please email me at: wwright@theboltonnews.co.uk

• Print
• Email
• Share