Kitchen Garden Diary, June

June 12

My Romanesco plants are doing well in their netted cage. A cross between calabrese and cauliflower, this is one of the most visually striking vegetables you can grow, with amazing lime green heads (known as curds) made up of multiple Fibonacci-like florets. It’s one of those vegetables that makes you marvel at what nature can do, almost too beautiful to eat. I’ve tried growing it before, but with limited success. Last time, the heads blew (became loose as if they were trying to flower) before they had even formed properly, and the time before that the pigeons decimated the entire crop. That’s easy to prevent – just grow them under netting – but I didn’t know why the heads hadn’t formed properly. I dug around on the internet and found that it may have been because the soil had been too loose around the roots, which made sense as they’d been planted in a raised bed in freshly dug soil. Gardening is all about learning from your mistakes so, third time lucky, I’m trying again. I sowed the current crop in March in modules and planted the seedlings out in late April when they were about 10cm tall, taking care to firm the soil down before planting. There’s no fancy way of doing this; just walk all over the bed. Like other brassicas, Romanesco needs a good rich soil with plenty of well-rotted manure. It’s also good practice in a crop rotation to plant brassicas in last year’s pea or bean bed, as the legumes spread nitrogen through the soil via nodules on their roots. There was nothing to do to the plants today other than water them, but I also gave them some extra TLC in the form of some nitrogen-rich nettle tea, diluted and added to the watering can.

June 15

I love celeriac and use it in the winter to make endless batches of soup with homemade chicken stock and leeks. Today’s task was to get a batch of celeriac seedlings into the ground. Sown in March, they were starting to look a bit ropey with slightly yellowing leaves, a sure sign that their roots had outgrown their modules. The seeds are tiny so initially I had sown them in a seed tray, and then pricked the individual seedlings out into modules. These sat under cover in the greenhouse for a few weeks, and then a couple of weeks ago I moved them to the cold frame to harden off, so they were more than ready for their new home. I love planting seedlings into a bed: they instantly look neat and you can plant them to exactly the right spacing, in this case roughly 40cm between plants and rows. Celeriac needs a rich soil, but more importantly, lashings of water. In a normal British summer it does well, but if there’s a dry period, you have to make sure you water regularly to swell the root. ‘Giant Prague’ is the variety I return to each year, which I get from Real Seeds.

June 19

The first batch of salad leaves are almost over, and I’ve been meaning to sow more for at least two weeks. As well as sowing a few rows of lettuce each year, I try and sow cut-and-come-again salad leaves every few weeks so that I have a constant supply over the spring and summer. At the beginning of the season I sow a batch in the cold frame, and then in small raised beds, usually using the Suttons Speedy Veg seeds, which come in a range of mixes. I usually choose the spicy mix with rocket, red mustard and mizuna, great for padding out a green salad alongside more conventional Buttercrunch or Little Gem lettuce. It couldn’t be easier or quicker to grow. Just scatter the whole seed packet over a bed or even in a pot or trough, give it a bit of a rake, water it in, and watch it grow. It’s ready to cut in three or four weeks.

June 26

The marigolds are starting to flower! I always plant calendula in the veg garden, usually to edge the beds wherever there’s space, and this year I’m trying two varieties: deep orange ‘Indian Prince’ and pale yellow ‘Snow Princess’, both from Chiltern Seeds. Marigolds are great companion plants, attracting ladybirds, lacewings and other insects into your plot to keep the aphids at bay. It may not be an exact science, but companion planting certainly helps to increase plant diversity and maintain the healthy balance that is the aim of every organic gardener. And more than anything else, it makes the garden look lovely, with stripes and splashes of bright, uplifting colour. Other flowers I encourage around the edges of the beds include borage, nasturtiums and poppies, all of which seed around and return year after year. Those that pop up in inopportune spots and will get weeded out, but I can’t resist leaving a few to fray the edges of the plot and give it some character.

June 29

I dug my first new potatoes today – always something I look forward to. I love the sight of those small, smooth pebbly first potatoes, and the taste of them with some melted butter and a handful of chopped parsley. Delicious. They are generally ready to start harvesting 10 weeks after you’ve planted them, a few weeks after flowering and when the leaves are starting to yellow and die back. This year I planted ‘Duke of York’ (first early) and ‘Nicola’ (second early) which should take me through the season with a couple of sacks for winter.

June Checklist

Keep sowing salad crops and radishes for quick harvests. Sow French and runner beans, sweetcorn and courgettes direct outside. Put up supports for peas and beans. Plant out celeriac and celery. Water and feed plants with a liquid fertiliser if necessary. Keep on top of weeds by hoeing and digging over the soil. Pinch out side shoots on tomatoes.