Tag: cabbages

Second helpings of cabbage

I knew I had read about this somewhere but I couldn’t remember where until I checked just now. When I first harvested some of the over wintered cabbages some weeks ago I just went ahead and left the plant in the ground with just a short stem showing.

I couldn’t remember the exact recommended procedure but it seemed to be worth a try. After a bit of searching on the web this evening I think that I must have got this from the RHS website originally because I found the following extract on their cabbage page:

Cabbages are harvested by cutting through the stem just above ground level with a sharp knife. Cut a 13mm (1/2in) deep cross in the stump of spring and summer cabbages and you’ll be rewarded with a second crop of much smaller cabbages.

via Cabbages / RHS Gardening.

Cabbage stump with new growth

Slightly to my surprise I have now found out that this actually works but I realise now that I didn’t do things exactly as recommended.

As can be seen in this picture, I forgot about cutting a cross into the stump but even my incompetence didn’t stop this from working.

Obviously in future I will always do exactly what the RHS tell me just in case the vegetable police come around to check !

 

Setting up new vegetable beds

I thought it would be a good idea to keep some notes on the problems I had when first setting up the new raised vegetable beds. In general the process went fairly smoothly but there were a number of things that on reflection I might have done differently!

image

As you can see these are just average “low-slung” raised beds (these to be precise) that I ordered from Greenfingers.com once I’d decided to expand the amount of veg growing space in the garden.

Construction

The various parts of the flat pack kits were all painted with using the leftover bits from an old tin of wood preserving paint – maybe not the ideal solution for a more permanent setup but in my mind I’m still at the “evaluation stage” so I’ll give things a try while learning lessons along the way.

The first thing I noticed during the assembly was that the wood occasionally split when screwing the sides to the uprights.  The wood is perfectly adequate quality for a raised veg bed and should last several years (maybe up to 5 perhaps?)  but it would presumably last a lot longer if the construction didn’t leave splits and cracks everywhere.

Best lesson learned:  Build them properly so it lasts longer!

Installing and Filling

imageAs I’d found no better information while researching on the web, I order in a load of compost and manure to fill up my newly created veg beds. This combination was mixed  (with a bit of digging) into  the original top soil plus some extra spare top soil I had elsewhere. I also added what little existing home-made compost I already had so I’m hoping that the mixture will prove productive in the end.

After regularly reading the same point being made by a number of different books I decided to place a cloche over the veg bed which will be getting the potatoes later. This was partly to help keep the frosts off the newly dug area and partly to  encourage any remaining weeds to show themselves so I can get rid of them before planting.

Best lesson learned:  Use covers  in late winter so  weeds start growing and  you can get rid of them early!

Planting and results

Once the first veg bed was in place late last autumn I gave in to the impatience and temptation to plant something by nipping off to B&Q to buy some cabbage seedlings. I planted them out with great expectation for the future and they were immediately set upon by something which nibbled leaves relentlessly – presumably caterpillars although I never found any.  Some netting has since been added but even by February the plants were less than impressive so I’ll just have to give them time.