Thinning your Seedlings – a neccessary evil

This is the job that I always hate.  Like you, I get quite attached to my little plants too.  Especially having watched excitedly as they transformed from little seeds into green seedlings, poking through soil.  But now the shadow of the grim reaper looms large for some of those poor innocent seedlings. 

Once your seedlings are about 2 inches tall and have more than 2 leaves, you’ll have to thin them out by removing the weakest (smallest) plants.  Sounds cruel (on second thoughts it not only sounds cruel, it is cruel!!), but if you don’t do this your plants will compete with each other for food & light and you will end up with poor quality vegetables.  For best results you need to have just the following number of plants in each spot.

• Lettuce, Rocket, Radish, Parsley - just one plant per spot.
• Beetroot - 4 plants per spot.
• Spring Onion – no need to thin

You’ll need a pair of scissors.  Simply select the plant you want to keep (usualy the biggest), and snip the other competing plant next to it just above the soil level.  The video shows you how to do this.

Alternatively you could transplant your unwanted seedlings into another pot or raised bed.  Here’s how to transplant.  You need to be careful not to distrurb your seedlings too much and don’t forget to water your plants in immediately after transplanting.

Don’t dump the plants that you have just removed.  The lettuce, rocket, radish, beetroot and parsley plants are all edible, just give them a quick wash.  They mightn’t fill you up but they do taste delicious and will give you a taster of what’s to come!

Never trust the weather

Frozen food

It’s been unseasonably cold here in SmartGrowers HQ this week as you can see from the pictures. The poor plants are looking a bit miserable at the moment. They’d look even more depressed if they realised that they’ll be booted out to make way for the new seeds in just a week or two’s time. Those beetroot, spring onions and curly leaf parsley will have to eaten by then. 

Rocket in snow

Also producing away is the rocket and lamb’s lettuce. I’ve had lots of fresh leaves throughout the winter from these. And to think I’m going to pull these loyal producers out in a few weeks time. Heartless!!

I still have a square of leeks left too. Usually leeks put on quite a bit of weight over the winter months but this year’s unusually cold weather has meant that they have not grown as big as normal. They’ll be on my plate in a few days time

Leeks in the snow

Planting Seeds in your Raised Bed

 

Each vegetable grows a certain number of plants per square.  This will be 1 per square, 3 per square, 9 per square or 16 per square.

1)      Use the planting pattern table (page 6) to see how many holes you need to make and how many seeds to sow in each hole.  For example if you are sowing carrots you need to make 16 holes in a square pattern and sow 4 seeds in each hole (64 seeds in total)

2)      Use your finger to make small hole(s) 13mm deep (half the length of your finger tip) in the compost.

3)      Pour some seeds into the palm of your hand.

4)      Use your thumb and index finger to drop the number of seeds into the hole.

5)      Use your finger to rake compost back into the hole and cover the seeds.

Harvesting Spring Onions

Your spring onions are ready for harvesting when they are about the thickness of a pencil.  You should have 4-6 sping onions in each of the 9 spots that you sowed.  Each spot will have spring onions of different sizes.  To harvest, grab the spring onion clost to the base and rock it from side to side.  You may need to dig you finger under stubborn ones.  Don’t forget to water in the remaining bulbs when you are finished and they will continue to grow to full size.

When you clear a spot sow 7 new seeds immediately.  These will grow quickly and you wil get more spring onions quickly.