Vegetables and Fruit in your Garden: Time to sow and grow!
VEGETABLES
Nothing beats the taste of homegrown, new potatoes. Eating those thin-skinned, balls of floury goodness is a highlight of the gardening year.
Many people's favourite variety of potato is the Irish variety Colleen. They are easy to grow, blight resistant and packed full of flavour. Start growing the Colleen potato now, in a pot or raised bed, for a crop of new potatoes come June. Read more about growing your own potatoes here.
Want a quick and easy way to grow some of your 5 a day? Then choose a selection of the Speedy Veg & Salad seeds from Suttons. The Speedy Veg & Salad seeds offer you a range of edibles that can be harvested in as little as three weeks. If you have limited time, space or gardening skill then consider growing some micro-green seeds including micro broccoli, peas, cress and alfalfa. They can be grown indoors on a warm windowsill, and will provide you with tasty, nutrient-dense, ‘fast food’.
Suttons also offer a large range of popular vegetables in their seed tape collection. These seeds are impregnated into a special tape that you simply roll out, into your garden soil, and cover with soil. Just add water and hey presto the vegetables start to grow through the soil within a couple of weeks. The seeds are specially spaced along the tape to save you having to “thin” or space the seeds when planting. They are so simple, yet so effective.
Lettuce, Cabbage, Broccoli, Leek
Lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and leek plants are all available now for planting in your borders or grow bags. The variety of cabbage I recommend is the Hilton. It produces deep, green, cone shaped heads six weeks after planting. Plant Hiltoncabbage every two weeks for regular pickings all summer long.
Sow White Lisbon seed now for a harvest of spring onion from June to August. Sow the seeds into well prepared ridges or borders for a crop of rich, green, great tasting salad onions.
FRUIT
Blueberries
Blueberries are a super-food linked with numerous health and wellness benefits.
Thankfully, they are also fun to grow and produce a fantastic crop of flavorsome juicy blue fruit.
They are also fantastic for adding vibrant and eye-catching colour to a garden. You can grow blueberries in pots and patio tubs.
When planting, use GroWise compost and whilst growing, feed the plants with Gro-Sure plant food. Blueberries fruit over a long period, meaning you will enjoy regular fruits from June to September. Pear and plum trees grow well and fruit reliably in Ireland. In order to achieve the best results plant the trees now on a sunny, south facing wall or trellis. Train your fruit trees to act as a wall cover, the protection from the wall will help to ripen the fruit and encourage strong growth.
Plums
The best plum variety I grow is called the Victoria – a tasty, juicy fruit produced in abundance from mid July.
Rhubarb
Rhubarb is an easy to grow and bountiful fruit. I recommend planting the Timperley variety now, which will be ready for consumption in early April.
When planting, add some GroWise compost and a handful of Osmo Pro 6 fertiliser.
By Gardening expert Paraic Horkan. Find your local Horkans garden centre at www.horkans.ie.