Grant Douglas's Garden Diary

Week 21: Fourth week of May

Real Winter has arrived. The Monarch Butterflies are no longer flitting about their winter tree home, but are hanging there like dead leaves. If you have been keeping up with your planting succession of such things as Lettuce, Brassicas, Chinese Greens you should have enough in the garden to see you through the winter and early spring so now, with the weather so cold and wet, you can take an approximately 6 week break in sowing these things, although if you have plants ready of such things as Brassicas, then get them planted out now.

Doesn't mean there is nothing to do as Broad Beans can now be sown and they will come away slowly through the winter and be ready to move (Gaile say's move where?) when the weather warms up. Don't forget your Garlic planting and the first of your Red Onion seed sowing.

I hate frosts - I don't like sore fingers and toes in the morning, so I have to concentrate on the positives of frosts, besides the fact that it usually promises a lovely day. The frost will kill all those insects which are still chewing and sucking on your plants and they have kept going a lot longer than normal this season, so the frost does a good clean up job.

It'll sweeten your Parsnips and Carrots, tighten your Brussel Sprouts and tenderize your Kale. For Kale, you can simulate frost by picking the leaves and throwing them in the freezer overnight, and it's amazing the difference it makes to the quality of the leaf. If you have roughly dug over ground, it will break up the clods.

For frost protection of young seedlings and plants in general, I would recommend Microclima Cloth - it is a woven frost cloth rather than a pressed type such as the very find light material you can buy. It is more expensive, but will not get damaged nearly as easily.

You can lay it on the ground and seedlings will push it up, as it is so light, but if frosts are heavy I would recommend draping it over a frame so that it is not in contact with the plants, as where it is in contact the plants may get frost burn. Of course a plastic cloche will also offer some protection and Microclima over a plastic cloche, even more so.

Now is the time to be thinking about preparation of new beds for Strawvberries, Asparagus, and Dividing Rhubarb - more about bed-preparation in another diary.

Red Onions can be sown from now on. Choose slow-bolting varieties to start with e.g. Rambo (available from Egmont Seed)

Sowing or Planting this week:
Brassicas - Cauli, Cabbage, Broccoli, Broccoflower, Brocoflower (remember to choose Spring varieties of these brassicas eg Wintercross or Flower of Spring Cabbage, Snowmarch Cauliflower) Last time to plant out the seedlings you have sown.
Garlic
Lettuce (Loose-leaf Fancy and Triumph Hearting - not outside now, but in containers, in a protected place e.g. Greenhouse, veranda)
Red Onions - protect soil surface from heavy rains
Shallots
Spinach (winter varieties eg. Hybrid No.7) - not outside now, but in containers as above

Sow Direct: (in containers, protected as above)
Corn Salad
Mescalin Mix
Rocket

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