As it says on the front page: 'there are no absolute rights or wrongs about gardening'.
Useful tips given in this handy booklet include the following:
- It's not just what you do, it's when you do it. Regularly walk around your allotment site to see what other plotholders are doing, and how they're doing it.
- To plant parsnips: form a groove for planting and at the bottom place two layers of newspaper and water well. After spacing the parsnip seeds on the newspaper, cover with two more layers of newspaper, water again, and cover with soil - a 'snip tip!
- Dig up parsnips when they have matured and before wintry weather sets in. Dig a pit, and put the parsnips in it upside down, with a good layer of straw or milch over them. You will now have a well-stocked parsnip larder, accessible whatever the weather.
- To plant a tiny seed in very dry weather: after making a shallow drill for the seeds, water drill well, sow seeds and then backfill with dry soil.
- To get brassicas off to a good start, and also deny the flea beetle the chance of ravenging young seedlings if planted on the plot , it is best to raise them in a greenhouse or cold frame at home: sow seeds in pots or trays in John Innes No 1 compost; pot on later, when the first true leaves have developed, in John Innes No 3 compost; by the time the strong young plants are ready to plant out on the plot, they will be in the best condition to overcome whatever might beset them.
- When you pass by your brassicas, do clouds of irritating whitefly rise up? A way of reducing this pest is to plant french marigolds between the rows of brassicas. Not only will they attract hover flies which will feed on the whiteflies, but they will provide a spot of colour as well. Growing French marigolds in the greenhouse will also help to protect tomatoes.
- If you've ever planted broad beans or peas and they've been eaten by mice (lots of holes in the soil - has beens). Tip: soak the seeds in paraffin for 24 hours which mice don't like much.
- If your leeks grow too big (never with me!), plant two or three leeks in each dibbed hole.
- Some seeds need help to germinate, try soaking in very hot water before planting, to give them the urge to get going. Examples include parsley, spinach, beetroot and parsnip.
- Don't throw away worn out gardening gloves or thick rubber gloves without cutting off the fingers first. Give these unwanted digits a second leave of life by using them to protect the end of garden canes of any size.
- Old packets of brassica seeds? No sure if they are past their 'grow by' date. To check for germination capability, place seeds on some moist kitchen towel on a shallow tray and place in the airing cupboard. Keep an eye on progress - any survivors can be potted on in John Innes No 1.
- Early sowings of turnips can be prone to flea beetle attack, which late crop will avoid, so defer sowing seed until mid-August and to use quick-growing white variety of turnip.
- Old garden canes: cut into shorter lengths, tie into bundles. These are ideal overwintering accommodation for ladybirds, who'll be keen to rid your plot of aphids come the spring.
- Do you often wonder when will the ground be warm enough to plant seeds? A good rule of thumb is to be aware that in Spring, the temperature of the air is in fact equalled by the temperature of the soil at ground level - if the air feels far too cold, the ground will be too cold.
- Lettuce seeds will only succeed in cool conditions - if it gets really hot, don't sow them!
- Rhubarb is a slightly odd plant. For instance: is it a fruit or a vegetable? Whilst it is mainly used for pudding dishes, it is however classed as a vegetable when it comes to showing. Stalks are edible - leaves definitely are not. So tip is when planting out brassicas, put some rhubarb leaves round their roots. This will them protection against attack by cutworms (fat grey or brown caterpillars, about 3 4 cm long which live near the surface and can sever stems at ground level).
- Pinch the tops of the broad beans when the first pods of have set, to make the plants less vulnerable to black fly attack.
- Gather the leaves of rhubarb, boil them up. Strain the leaves and apply the resulting liquid using a watering can onto the broad beans to combat the spread of blackfly.
- Cardboard tubes from loo rolls and kitchen rolls are great for leeks. Dib a hole for leek plant, slip in cardboard tube, and at harvest time the leak will be lovely and clean.
- Another use for these cardboard tubes is to fill with compost and plant with broad beans or parsnips (at four seeds per tube) and cover them up. With parsnips, remove three weakest seedlings to allow strongest to carry one.
- With damsons, each year pick the whole crop - or you'll get none at all the following year!
- To ensure you don't mislay your tools, paint the handles in a bright colour, or fix coloured sticky tape to them.
- Roots of convolvulus are a nuisance. Either pile tangled mass into a loose heap and allow to dry out, then burn. Or put roots into a bucket of water, leave for about two weeks by which time the roots will have turned into a harmless mush.
- TO BE CONTINUED .....
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