What can you do in the vegetable plot in spring ?

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We are entering one of the busiest times of year in the vegetable plot, the spring. 6 months worse of harvest depend on it, including the best delicacies of the vegetable patch!

Work a little, prepare a lot
There is no need to dig the earth deeply: this practice tends to disappear as it is very tiring and with other technics such as the ‘permaculture’ the soil is hardly turned over. It is useful however to loosen up the ground. For this, use a Broadford (also known as grelinette, which has become a generic brand). A garden fork will do on smaller areas. More than working the soil, it is its cleaning that is important. Remove all the weeds which have grown during winter and mulch the cleaned areas in order to keep them tidy.

Get your sowing on the go
Outdoors, varieties which need sowing depend largely on minimum temperatures. Plenty of vegetables such as radishes or young salads only tolerate slight frost but no more. As the forecast is unpredictable, sow your varieties every fortnight. If one area fails to grow, the others will provide you with a harvest. Cover them with a forcing cloth to help the ground to warm up.
Indoors, summer vegetables (tomatoes, marrows, peppers, etc.) are sowed as from the beginning of March to mid-April. You must have a warm space (at least 20°C) and very bright in order to make the seedlings wait until planting-out time. It is the right time to equip yourselves with a mini-green house, even a cold frame to do all your sowing or an indoor growing kit.

All out on roots vegetables
The spring is also the season to plant or sow all the root’s vegetables. Plant onions, shallots and garlic before the first heat arrive as they do not like dry weather. Wait until the Lilac blossoms to plant potatoes. Sow carrots rather early, at the same time than radishes as the carrot’s seeds require more than three weeks to come up.

Clean the perennial crops
Strawberry, Rhubarb and Raspberry plants as well as all the plants which remain in the vegetable plot all year round start growing again as from the end of February. Pull the weeds which smother them. Remove also all the old leaves from the previous year as the young ones won’t be long to appear. Mulch the ground with green lawn wastes or bulk mulching, especially the Strawberries’ base. If your soil is poor, supply a little bit of compost on the ground (1kg per m2) to give them a little help.
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