The first gentle reminders that spring is on the way can be seen around the garden. Snowdrops flowering, daffodils pushing up and some green appearing on the earliest of shrubs. I suppose St. Bridget’s day marks the earliest signs of spring. For the grower this is a useful nudge to get us moving to prepare for the coming season. Outdoor beds for early planting are now covered over to slowly kill the formal and informal green manures. This is a very easy way to prepare soil but needs up to three months to kill off the cover by excluding light. So, if you are using this method at home get going quickly if you want beds ready for spring.
The incessant rain over the last few weeks has made the cultivation of the soil impossible. I’ll have to wait till things dry up. Winters and springs are much wetter now, which can make preparation difficult but at HQ the soil has been improved with the regular addition of our compost which means that water no longer sits on the surface for long, enabling you to get on the soil much faster after rain. At Curraghmore we were fortunate to inherit a superb soil that is testament to the hard work of generations of gardeners, the sort of legacy all growers would like to leave behind.
The rain has seen me busy in the tunnels and glasshouses. The first sowing of the year, the onions have now been in a few weeks, on the heated mat. The sowings of early crops; kale, kohl rabi and broccoli will go in shortly. These early crops are a lot of work but are essential to keep the kitchen, shop and box supplied. Later sowings are much easier, so at home, unless you are a glutton for punishment, it’s probably better to wait a month or two before sowing. Home growers can often get a bit over excited and sow too early, but it is essential to have the beds ready in the garden and the weather to be warm enough when you want to transplant.
Our grape vine in the glasshouse has had its winter prune, which looks like something of a massacre. The side shots are all cut back to a bud or two from the mainstem. I then spray them with water, this helps control (drown I suppose!) any red spider mite hiding in the bark. Grapes are a lovely crop to grow, if you have a tunnel or glasshouse. Plant them on the north side of the tunnel and you don’t really loose any growing space for other crops. It seems to be a crop that people find impressive but are actually very easy to grow, as long as you prune them three times a year.
Working in my glasshouse it feels spring is just around the corner but as ever as a grower the Irish spring is a complete unknown. Are we due another “Beast from the East”, a continuation of our biblical deluge or a gentle, benign late winter and early spring? A crystal ball would be nice, or maybe that would make life too predictable and boring.
