Caring for your Vegetables
Be prepared to care for your plants
Once you have prepared the ground and planted your seeds you have only just begun the work of growing your own vegetables. There's a variety of techniques you might employ to help your crop along.
Some of the main considerations are:Growing Under Glass
Young seedlings are very tender and can be easily harmed by frosts occurring in early spring. Furthermore, most young plants thrive in warmer soil. This means that you can often sow your seeds earlier and expect quicker growth if you sow under glass (or polythene) that traps and helps retain the sun's heat.
This kind of support for your plants comes in many forms, from a full sized greenhouse down to the humble cloche fashioned from a few discarded sheets of glass propped up around your plants. For the larger area poly-tunnel stretched over wire hoops provides a very effective solution at an affordable price. You can even opt for small seed germination kits that will sit on a windowsill or in a conservatory.
Whatever you choose, ensure it is big enough for your plants so that they are free to grow without their leaves touching the sides and ensure you are able to control ventilation without the risk of cold night frosts blowing through.
Transplanting
In some cases you may plant your seeds in the location where you intend them to grow to maturity and produce their crop. Indeed there are some plants that insist on this treatment and don't take kindly at all to being disturbed, particularly root crops, for example.
In other cases, you may plant your seeds in one place that is sheltered or protected from predators and then, when they have germinated, transplant them to their permanent home. The classic situation when this applies is where you start your seedlings off early under glass and then transplant them into the garden. You may also obtain your plants as seedlings in the first instance rather than raising them yourself from seed.
As always, check the information on the seed packet or in the catalogue to see if there is any benefit in transplanting or if it is practical at all.
If your seedlings have been raised under glass, remember that transplanting them into the garden is effectively to move them from one micro-climate to another that is cooler. It is good practice, therefore, to help them acclimatise by increasing ventilation for a few days before you intend to transplant them – a process often referred to as hardening off.
For any plant, transplanting is quite a traumatic experience and therefore you need to make conditions as ideal as possible. Obviously you want to choose a time after late frosts are likely and the soil in the new bed is not too cold. The day before transplanting, water both the seedlings and the plot where they are to go.
Make the transfer as gentle to the plant as possible. Minimise disturbance to the roots by retaining as much soil/compost around each seedling as you can and ensure the hole you prepare for each seedling is an appropriate depth so that the roots are buried to the same depth as they were before transplanting.
Gently firm the soil around the new plants and water them in. It is important to monitor them for a week or so while their roots are established to ensure they are not allowed to dry out.
Thinning Out
When growing plants from seed, most people have a tendency to sow the seeds too thickly. In fact, in some cases, this is advisable because it allows for a proportion of seeds that fail to germinate.
However, it is often the case that when the seeds begin to grow, the young plants are simply too close together resulting in plants that are competing for vital resources. The answer is to thin out the seedlings, which should be done sooner rather than later so that the remaining seedlings have maximum opportunity to thrive.
Thinning needs to be done carefully as soon as the plants show themselves above the surface. What you must avoid is disturbing the roots of remaining seedlings as you extract those you no longer want. Spacing of the remaining plants is most important but where possible it is good to retain those seedlings that appear to be strongest.
Use your fingers to protect the soil around those plants you want to retain whilst removing the others. Normally you should have little difficulty in pulling the plants out of the soil assuming you haven't left the job too late.
Once again it is worth reading the seed packet or catalogue for recommended spacing of the remaining plants.
Compost and Fertilizer
Compost or manure often contains valuable nutrients but its primary benefit is to improve the structure of the soil, allowing air and water to penetrate and retaining the resources needed by the growing vegetables. Fertilizer is needed to replenish the nutrients that have been lost to the soil, usually by the previous year's crop.
Compost is incorporated into the soil when it is dug over at the end of the previous growing season. The main exception to this is when you are preparing the ground for root crops. Subsequently you may add more compost during the growing season in the form of mulch about one to two inches thick. First ensure the soil is well watered and free from any obvious weeds before applying the mulch, which will then serve to suppress weeds and help retain loss of moisture through evaporation. It has the added benefit that the compost will eventually be taken into the soil by the action of worms and will thereby further improve soil structure. (See Composting for more information)
The main nutrients you need to provide in the form of fertilizer are nitrogen, phosphates and potash. There are numerous general purpose fertilizers available that are based on these three, perhaps the best known and usually least expensive being Growmore. (See Improving Soil Fertility)
Fertilizer needs to be added to the seed bed before sowing, following the instructions that come with the product in regard to coverage. You may also need to add more fertilizer to some crops during the growing period in the form of a top dressing. Simply distribute the fertilizer on the surface of the ground and allow nature to take the nutrients down to the roots of the plants. When applying a top dressing, try to avoid leaving any fertilizer trapped on the leaves of the plants where it won't do any good and may well harm the plants.
Watering
Not many modern vegetable plants will survive a prolonged period without water. Even if they do survive, the crop is likely to be much diminished. The obvious answer is to ensure your plants always have sufficient moisture but this is not as simple as getting out the watering can or the hosepipe during a dry spell of weather. Much of the secret of ensuring sufficient water lies in the preparation:
- First ensure the ground is capable of storing and retaining water by incorporating a good supply of organic matter. If your soil has been neglected, you may have to add compost or manure for a number of years until it reaches its optimum condition.
- Next ensure there is sufficient moisture in the ground when you sow your seeds or plant your seedlings. You don't want the ground to be waterlogged but the top ten inches or so of soil should be thoroughly wet.
- Then, to prevent unnecessary loss of moisture through evaporation, apply mulch to the surface of the ground once the plants have grown sufficiently.
In a temperate climate such as we experience in the UK, this might be all that is required since moisture levels are regularly replenished by the rain. However, there are times of prolonged drought when you may need to give nature a helping hand.
It is not usually a good idea to water a little each day - much better to give your plot a really good watering each week during a prolonged dry spell. You may use a watering can, a hosepipe or one of the proprietary irrigations systems that deliver a measured quantity of water through a hose that is perforated along its length. Whatever technique you employ, watering should be gentle and prolonged for as long as necessary. As far as practicable try to emulate nature's method of rainfall.
Weeding
If you have prepared well by removing or killing weeds before sowing and then applying a layer of mulch, weeds should not be too much of a problem.
For the most part you should be able to control most weeds by regular and frequent use of the hoe. The idea is to use a forward thrusting action to cut off the tops of any weeds just below the surface of the ground. Consequently, hoeing should be done at a shallow angle and restricted to the top inch or less of the ground. This action will kill off any annual weeds and will starve the below-ground parts of perennial weeds. Obviously you need to be very careful not to catch any of your vegetable plants or they will suffer the same fate as the weeds.
If Hoeing is not a practical proposition for whatever reason, you can try using chemical weed killers but as with hoeing you need to take great care not to get any on the plants you want. The other option if you only have a small plot of land is to remove the weeds by hand.
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