Planting jerusalem artichokes

At last! The days begin to noticably lengthen, the sun feels warmer than it did a few weeks ago and there are signs of things growing again.

I’ve just spent a couple of weeks up in northern Scotland at the Phoenix Project, apologies for no articles in recent weeks - I’ll try to make up for that soon. There’s a good selection of vegetables for eating fresh from the garden there now: kales, cabbages, purple sprouting broccoli, even some calabrese, carrots, turnips, jerusalem artichoke, radicchio, leeks, parsnip, brussels sprouts, swede, winter radish, beetroot.

Its time to begin sowing and planting outside if conditions are favourable.

Don’t be too hasty though, seed planted in cold, waterlogged soil will more likely rot than grow - if mice and birds don’t eat it first! As always, be guided by your soil conditions and perhaps use cloches or horticultural fleece to warm the soil for a couple of weeks before sowing and to protect your early sowings from the worst of the weather and wee hungry beasties.

Crops I would be sowing or planting outside in the second half of February…

Jerusalem artichoke - any time before early April, space about 18″ (50cm) apart in offset rows, about 4 to 6″ (10 to 15cm) deep, they will be a waist high forest by late June and may reach 10′ (3m) by September so beware of shading nearby crops. They can be a useful windbreak and often produce small, sunflower-like flowers in late summer. Their tubers which crop from November through March are great boiled or roast, and make excellent soup. Anyone who is currently growing jerusalem artichokes should have spares they could give you at this time of year.

Broad beans - Aquadulce varieties germinate and grow at low temperatures, if you didn’t sow in October / November you can now. I usually do 2 or 3 rows spaced about 8″ (20cm) between seeds within and between rows, then 2′ (65cm) gap to next crop. They’ll grow to about 3′ (1m) tall and crop for several weeks from late June. After mid March I would sow varieties other than Aquadulce, such as Witkiem Manita.

Garlic - needs a period of cold to convince it to form good bulbs - if it doesn’t get it can sulk underground for a year! so, if you didn’t plant in October you need to before mid March. Space about 12″ x 6″ or 9″ x 8″ apart (30cm x15cm or 23cm x 20cm) and plant 2″ to 3″ deep (5cm to 8cm).

Just about everything else needs cloche or fleece protection for sowing outdoors at this time. Some worth considering: early carrots, radish, cold hardy lettuce, turnip, early peas, spinach, rocket. By the end of March you should be able to remove and re-use these cloches for later tender crops.

A cloched seed bed is useful for starting early varieties of: leek, brussels sprout, summer cabbage and cauliflower, cold hardy lettuce, mizuna. Also all of these could be started in an unheated greenhouse or coldframe in seed trays.

Indoors there is plenty you can be sowing if you can provide a little heat. A heated propagator is very useful but anywhere with a temperature of 65 to 75 F (17 to 25 C) to germinate the seed then over 50 F (10 C) and good light to keep them growing will do.

First are onions - which you can sow indoors from January through March. I sow in seed tray inserts with 24 to 40 modules per tray, sowing 3 or 4 seeds per cell. these should result in 1 to 4 plants per cell and you don’t need to thin unless you want all big onions. Once the seedlings are growing well, usually after 3 or 4 weeks, you can move them from the propagator and put in any light, frost free place.

Celery and celeriac need about 70 F (20 C) to germinate and usually take 2 or 3 weeks.They need a long growing season so should be started in February or early March. Again I use seed tray inserts as for onions, sow 2 or 3 seeds in each cell but these need to be thinned to 1 per cell once they’ve grown to 1″ (2.5cm). When growing well they can be taken from the propagator like onions.

Peppers (capsicum), chillis and aubergines like 70 to 80 F (20 to 25 C) to germinate, unlike onions they’d like these warm temperatures to keep growing as well, so save your warmest places for them. I sow straight into seed trays, spacing seeds about 1″ (2cm) apart. Once they are 1″ or so (3cm) tall I carefully ‘prick them out’ individually into 3″ (7.5cm) pots for growing on indoors before planting out in early June.

It’s too early yet for me to sow outdoor tomatoes indoors, but if you are growing greenhouse tomatoes you can start them like peppers now.

Parsley is really slow to germinate in the cold. I sow 10 to 20 seeds per 3″ to 4″ pot (7 to 10cm), start in a propagator now, then grow on in a window before planting out without dividing in April or May.

If you are going to grow potatoes now is the time to get them and start ‘chitting’. Potatoes will stay dormant if kept below 40 F (4 C), above that they will start to sprout. Chitting is letting them do this in a light and cool (about 50 F, 10 C, not much warmer than this or they’ll sprout too fast) place. They need to be the right way up, ‘rose end’ upwards, egg boxes are very good for chitting potatoes.

I’ll write an article devoted to potatoes very soon.