A cornucopia of courgettes, designated feeding days and buttery leeks

Goodness, I’m going to have a lot of courgettes this year.

Clematis montana

At least, if all continues to go well: for seeds are a-sprouting and my greenhouse is getting full. The March seedlings are now big enough to harden off and go outside (lettuces, turnips, chervil, and a bevy of cosmos) or be potted on into their own 10cm cardboard pots (tomatoes, mostly, though I’ve also potted on the summer calabrese and Romanescu cauliflower on the grounds that they need to be hefty enough to resist slug damage before I risk them outside).

And right on their heels, the April sown seedlings are pushing through - especially the courgettes, good old reliable ‘Defender’ this year, which have given me 100% germination so I have five - yes five - plants on the way. When my kids were still here and we ate a lot more food, I used to reckon three courgette plants were more than enough to keep my family well supplied with some to spare. What on earth am I going to do with five plants’ worth?!

All my seedlings are getting a dose of seaweed tonic in the watering can once a week. When you grow in peat-free compost, as I do, feeding and watering are the bits its most crucial to get right (well, that and the brand of peat-free compost you use if you don’t make your own: do not be tempted to cut corners).

I start to feed as soon as the seedlings are up. Seeds contain enough fuel on their own to get a seedling above ground, but after that baby plants are wholly dependent on what’s in the compost. There is some fertiliser in peat-free composts, but it’s very easily leached out through watering – so it’s important to top it up with extra. I add a single capful to my watering can – that’s about half strength – on Saturdays, which I have designated Feeding Day. This is a useful little trick if, like me, you’re prone to forgetting when you last did it.

April seedlings coming through thick and fast

Watering, too, is something you want to take great care of when you’re growing in peat-free. If you see water pouring out of the bottom of your pot, you are washing out all the nutrients and reducing the ability of your compost to support your plants’ growth. So water carefully, just enough to dampen the compost but not run out at the bottom. This may need doing twice a day on sunny days – but I hope at this time of year that you’re checking your seedlings twice a day anyway, so adding a little light watering to that shouldn’t be too much of a chore. You can also water from beneath, standing your seedlings in trays or ‘baths’ of water to soak up whatever they need. This also minimises nutrient leaching, but I find I tend to wander off and forget I’ve left my seedlings in the bath.

Outside, it is direct sowing season: nature’s way, so you generally get better results faster, and it’s less work too. I’m still a little circumspect about what I sow directly into the ground, though, ever mindful of the beady eyes of mice, voles and slugs (do slugs have eyes, I wonder?) gleaming out hungrily from the hedgerows.

There are plenty of things they don’t like to eat, though, and it’s those which are most successful sown direct. I started last month, with rocket, radishes, carrots and spring onions under cloches; all now up and growing away, with cloches now removed so they don’t overheat too much. All these veg are too peppery, or slender-leaved for slugs to enjoy much.

This month I’ve added parsnips – don’t be tempted to sow these too soon in the year or they sulk – plus dill, coriander, scorzonera and beetroot. This last I sow under fine gauge wire mesh tunnels as I have found through bitter experience that mice (or perhaps voles) adore beetroot, both as seedlings and as roots, so you can’t let your guard down for a second. You can also try sowing red lettuces direct – the anthocyanins in red leaves are also offputting to slugs (apparently they taste bitter – and it is true that red lettuces tend to be more savoury and less sweet than green).

The last of the parsnips and leeks

The seeds I have still to sow are now backing up in an ever lengthening queue, though, as there are still crops in the beds left over from winter. Just a few, as we are now coming right to the end of the hungry gap and there are only a few more weeks to get through till the first broad beans. But when you have new crops that really can’t wait to go in, the only way is to clear your remaining crop and process it: spring is the season when I spend almost as much time in the kitchen in the garden, second only to autumn in terms of the sheer volume of cooking that needs doing.

This week I’ve pulled the last of the leeks and parsnips: and very well they have done me this year. I have finally cracked the right number of leeks – you want enough to keep you going right through winter into spring, not so many that you’re swamped. I planted three short (1m/3ft) rows last year and have just the right amount left to make myself a hefty batch of leek and potato soup (my favourite) and treat myself to some buttery leeks for tea - bad for the cholesterol levels, but so good for the soul.

The parsnips will become more soup (I have a slightly odd recipe I want to try which involves ginger and oranges) and if there are any left over, parsnip mash. You can freeze most surplus veg simply by frying or boiling it just as you would normally then packing it into boxes to pop in the freezer for later. Mash potatoes, parsnips, swede and carrot to freeze; and chop the last of the stored onions which are starting to sprout, fry till soft then freeze. It helps to think in terms of portions – if you usually use two chopped onions in dishes, for example, then that’s what you freeze, so you can pull it out of the freezer in just the right quantity and don’t have to waste any.

Don’t you love spring? Even more so when the rain has finally stopped, more or less, and the ground is drying out a little at last. But there is so much to do – and all at a time of year when work is starting to get busier too and in my case, takes you away from home a little more than is ideal. Last week it was an environment conference in Belfast; this week I’m going foraging (among other, more indoorsy activities) in Manchester; and next week I’m off to Gloucester to see a peat-free compost manufacturer in action. All great fun but underscored by the siren call of my garden beckoning me back home.

Beans ahoy!

I will bring you news where I can: and in the meantime among my seedlings are lots, and lots of beans for our Beautiful Beans growalong, so I’m hoping to do a little post soon on the joys of sowing into loo rolls.  How are yours doing? Hope you’ve been able to keep the slugs and mice off – and that you’re looking forward to a season that can only get better from here. Happy gardening!