May 2012 Kitchen Garden Guide

Shallots, garlic, broad beans, onions, spring onions

The first frost for the year has come only 2 days after I harvested my pumkins, which was lucky because pumpkins do not store well after being even partially frozen. Always leave about 20cms of stem on, when you cut them from the withered vine, so that rot does not creep inside the pumpkin itself. Put them somewhere warm and dry, like inside a tin shed, to harden off but make sure the it is rat free! To make a change from regular pumpkin soup, I often use a Thai style recipe. The ingredients for 500g of pumpkin are 1 onion, ½ -1 Tblsp. Thai red curry paste, ½ litre any stock, 300ml coconut milk and a handful of Vietnamese mint.

Once you have removed the pumkins, tomatoes, zucchinis and beans, it is time to lime your soil and plant out those seedlings you have hopefully raised from seed, ready for this day! These include brassicas, Asian greens, lettuce and the onion family plus garlic cloves, shallots and broad bean seeds. These plants cannot access many nutrients in the soil if it is acidic, no matter how much you feed them, so lime in the form of garden lime or dolomite is essential for acidic soils.

Many seeds can also now be sown in the hothouse and in frost free areas. Contrary to popular myth, most plants can happily be planted into the soil in the hothouse. The important thing to remember is to mix up the plantings so pests and diseases do not get a hold. My hothouse is tiny, so it is impossible to rotate tomatoes, as I do outside. I have noticed that many people grow tomatoes in tubs, in small hothouses, which is a great solution. In my hothouse, over winter, I grow many salad greens.... mache, miners' lettuce, frilly mustard, celery, bok choy and best of all, a whole wall of sugar snap peas. There is nothing more wonderful than picking fresh, crisp, sweet, sugar snap peas in a warm and sunny hothouse, while waiting for the frost to thaw outside.

Some plants are day length sensitive. Onions are an example. They need constantly lengthening daylight hours to grow and form bulbs. This will occur after the winter solstice on June 20^th. Prepare  some trays for them, adding dolomite to the seed-raising mix, and sow seeds of suitable varieties in late May. Don't be tempted to buy advanced seedlings as they will simply bolt to seed in spring. Peter Cundall follows tomatoes with onions, adding just dolomite and potash, as onions do not like a rich soil.

May is the time to walk your garden paths, count your blessings for living here and plan for anything you are wanting to plant out through winter, such as deciduous trees and shrubs, as well as berries. Watch the movement of the sun. Take notice of the wind. Dig a little in the soil and check for water logging, rocks, heavy clay, roots from other trees and how well other plants have been doing in various parts of your garden. Buy from local growers who will tell you everything you need to know and who will sell you what will grow well where you live. Choose well and you will be rewarded for many years.

I would like to introduce you to some of my fellow online vegetable gardening “friends”. This month please go to Mumbai, where Preeti has beaten the odds and helped establish an incredible community garden on top of a sea of concrete, at the Port of Mumbai. Preeti is an office worker who was bothered by all the waste from the port's cafes and sought a solution, which has inspired people all over the crowded city of Mumbai to regain home vegetable gardening skills and to connect through this beautiful community garden. Go to urbanleavesofindia.blogspot.com.

Sowing and planting guide for May:

Sow outdoors: Broad beans, garlic.

Sow in hothouse: Peas, Asian greens, lettuce, coriander, chervil, corn salad, miners' lettuce, onions and rocket.

Plant out strong seedlings of: broccoli, red cabbage, fennel, kales, Asian greens, corn salad, miners' lettuce,

Tip for May:

Fallen apples are a magnet for those horrid European wasps. In autumn they are hungry for sugar, which they take to their nests to help get them through winter; ready to multiply in spring. I have a very pretty, glass device which can be hung in a tree or sits on a table. The feet keep it up off the table and wasps crawl into it, just like crawling into a hole in an apple. Inside is a lip around the bottom into which I put a sugar syrup, by taking off the cork. That is sufficient to attract wasps, which persist in trying to fly out the top, which is capped and the wasps soon drown in the syrup. You could add a wasp poison if you want to.