Shirley Lanigan tells you what to do with rhubarbs, apples, pears, plums, raspberries, rocket, Jerusalem artichokes, Swiss chard, leeks, winter cabbage, spinach, purple sprouting broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and strawberries. Phew!

The year is winding down slowly, and in the garden this is obvious everywhere. This year the autumn was particularly wonderful and all the more appreciated for being so at the end of yet another wet, miserable summer. But autumn too has more or less moved on and left in its wake chillier, darker winter weather to take hold.
But the wonderful thing about gardening is that the winter is the parent of the spring. The processes that gardens are undergoing through these coming months will quietly prepare it for the explosion of growth in the New Year. So much for what nature might be doing.
When it comes to the gardener, the jobs taken care of in the garden over the next few months will be repaid many times over by results next year. In the kitchen garden there are plenty of things to watch out for and jobs to see to in November.
A blanket of mulch
Rhubarb is long finished cropping by now. The leaves are yellowing and dead and any left lying over the plants need to be removed. Many plants need to be protected under a blanket of mulch, leaves or compost to shield them from the worst that the winter can throw at them by way of low temperatures and frost.
The thicker the blanket, the better the plant will perform. It can continue to develop roots over winter in the warmed ground. But in the case of rhubarb, a protracted cold period is exactly what the plant needs to prepare itself for next year.
Therefore, removing dead foliage and cleaning off the top of the crown will set up rhubarb plants for next year’s growth. If you want to lift and divide rhubarb crowns, now is the time to do this. It is also the best time to plant young plants bought in the nursery.
Load of compost
Prepare the bed well before planting new rhubarb plants. The same applies if you are digging up and dividing old crowns. Add in a good load of compost or well-rotted manure as you remove perennial weeds and their roots. Plant the sets or crowns close to the surface of the soil with buds just barely covered. Make sure to firm them well in, as soil expansion, if there is frost, will lift the plants up out of their bedding.
Each plant can take up a good deal of space, as they measure approximately a metre around. But one plant is usually enough to keep an average sized family in stock.
More plants than that would only be required if space is not at a premium, the family really love their rhubarb and you are willing to freeze or make jam with the surplus. (Rhubarb jam is hugely improved if stem ginger is included.)
When it comes to harvesting, leave the plant until it is in the ground about 18 months. When the time comes to harvest, only take a few stems in the first year. Rather than cutting, rhubarb stems should be twisted gently and then pulled cleanly away from the plant.
Many people have a fondness for the special pale pink forced rhubarb stalks that look like little jewels when cooked. There is an art to obtaining them. Obviously wait until the plant is old enough to deliver a good number of stalks.
Well-rotted manure
In February, cover the plant with a thick layer of well-rotted manure or compost mixed with straw. Place a rhubarb forcer or even an old black bucket over this and wait for about six weeks when the stalks are soft and pink.
While this produces what most people consider the champagne of rhubarb, it puts a lot of stress on a plant and so it should not be cropped again for another two years.
(If this is the plan you could also begin to drop hints to friends and family on the desirability of a lovely terracotta rhubarb forcer as a present for Christmas.
They look good as garden ornaments even when not in use. The desire for forced rhubarb is another reason for growing more than one crown. With three crowns one could be forced, one rested and the third for the ordinary late crop.)
Finished harvest period
Meanwhile, the last of the apples, pears and plums have been picked. I wrote enthusiastically about autumn fruiting raspberries back in September, and to drive the message home further, they have just finished their two-month harvest period in this part of the world.
After a month of constantly available fruit, the family began to get fed up with daily fresh raspberries and the second month was spent freezing them for use over the winter.
So once again I would recommend the planting of autumn raspberry canes as soon as possible for a small crop next year and for bigger crops in subsequent years.
Rocket is a salad crop that can be sown as late as the end of October and if you put fleece covers over it the crop will have an even better chance to deliver a modest crop of leaves in the late spring.
Jerusalem artichokes
Jerusalem artichokes have been growing like wildfire all summer and autumn. The plants are anything up to three metres tall now and ready for harvesting. Often thought of as similar to potatoes, the Jerusalem artichoke is also a tuber but different to the potato in other respects.
They should be dug up for eating as and when they are required. This is because they do not store well. Out of the ground they lose nutrients and the sugars in the tubers are converted to starch, ruining the taste. (Having been served artichokes too long out of the ground could be the reason that some people dislike their taste.)
Cut the foliage back to about 30 cm over the ground as the frosts hit. This will ensure that you can see where the crop is in the ground. This is important on several levels: It is of course necessary to know where your underground crop is so that you can find it when you go to dig, but in the case of artichokes, it is also important that you dig every last tuber up and use it.
A risk is worth taking
Any left in the ground will grow on next year with more vigour than you would wish. They can become rampant weeds. But because they are such a tasty vegetable, the risk is worth taking. Making sure you have everything dug up means that next year, you will only have to deal with the newly planted seed crop.
Related to sunflowers
Jerusalem artichokes are related to sunflowers and carry small sunflower-like blooms. Their tall slim habit along with the sunflower-like appearance means that they can be used as decorative plants. Sometimes they are even used as tall and fast-growing screens between beds and paths. Always bearing in mind the need to annually dig up every single tuber, this gives them a versatility not found in many vegetable crops.
Other crops ready for lifting and cutting are Swiss chard, leeks, winter cabbage and spinach.
Protective nets
Those cabbages still in the ground should have nets over them to protect them from pigeons that could otherwise reduce them to lacework in quick time. The same applies to purple sprouting broccoli and Brussels sprouts.
It is important to go further than simply draping netting over the plants. Pigeons will just stand on the plants and peck through the net. Employ the taller plant supports that are no longer needed on the decorative garden to make a fence around the cabbage plot and then drape the netting over this ‘cage’ and secure it to the ground pinned to batons or slim planks.
If you have a strawberry patch, it should be cleaned up for next year. It is important to reduce the opportunities for disease and pests to settle in among the old foliage over winter. Cut out dead and brown leaves.
Lift and remove any remaining layers of straw or hay put in around the collars of the plants in the summer to protect the developing fruits. The rotting straw is an ideal place for slugs to hide as well as bacteria to develop, which will cause trouble with next year’s crop.
Straggling runners
Once this lot is consigned to the compost heap you can get in and uproot any weeds that have taken hold among the strawberry plants. Then cut away any straggling runners and the tiny plants on the end of each.
The tidied bed will not just look more presentable over winter but it will be ready to start growing with gusto in the spring without an accumulation of weeds, pests and diseases.
It is not too late to plant strawberry plants. If the plants are big, you will probably be able to pick fruits from next year. Discard any old strawberry plants that were not very productive this year.
Strawberry plants are short-lived and should really be replaced about every three years.

Shirley Lanigan advises gardeners that nature abhors a vacuum and there are useful jobs you can do in the garden at this time of year to maintain it — as well as plants that you can sow

It is a good feeling to arrive into October having enjoyed a warm, mostly dry and for a few precious days, glorious September. Having put up with such a topsy turvy, wet and dull summer, we are even more grateful for a decent stretch of Indian summer than we would normally be. It somehow feels as though that good weather has put the gardening year back on track.
The monsoon summer is over and things feel right again. We can plan and do the seasonal jobs that need seeing to. The garden is, after its bad start, still offering up food to be eaten and stored. Cabbages are often left in the ground until we want to use them. This is fine but left out in the open they tend to attract predators.
Cutting them, removing the outside yellow leaves and storing them in a cool dark place can prolong their storage life by quite a bit. Go through the heads in as far as you can to pull out the slugs that will otherwise happily feast on the leaves in the peace and quiet of the shed when they are being stored.
Priceless certainties
Some people recommend sprinkling a bit of salt about the plants to deter slugs. I am not sure that anything short of a great deal of salt would fully see to a slug attack and that is hardly safe or sensible.Potatoes still left in the ground should be dug up and stored too. Obviously discard any slug damaged tubers. If slightly damaged, they can be used immediately. Just cut the affected areas out. The best ways to store potatoes is to start by brushing off the excess soil.
Then leave them lie out on sheets of paper or wire racks for a few hours to dry them fully. Next pack them away in double brown paper bags or sacks, or even hessian sacks if you can get hold of them. Leave the top of the bags slightly open to allow air to circulate. Store them in a dry very dark spot between five and 10 degrees.
Remember that light is the enemy of the spud. Light turns them green and poisonous.
All this may seem a bit over the top and fussy for a few potatoes when you can buy them so cheaply. But remind yourself that you grew these babies yourself. They are probably tastier than the shop bought potatoes and you know for certain that they were grown without recourse to a battery of chemicals. You also know just how good the compost you grew them in was.
These are priceless certainties that should be kept in mind as you begin to think that life is too short to be spent cleaning and storing spuds… Apart from everything else, this sort of work is relaxing. Carrots can be lifted and stored in trays of sand in a dark dry shed if you want. Turnips, kohlrabi, Swedes and celeriac can be treated in this way too.
Riddled with holes
They need to be stored at temperatures below five degrees, lower than potatoes which can live happily up to 10 degrees. But parsnips, beetroots, celeriac and carrots can also be left in the ground until you need to use them. Parsnips benefit particularly from being left in the ground during the cold months as the cold temperatures convert the starch in the roots to sugar, making them sweeter and tastier.
The only problem is that crops left in the ground tend to attract the attention of slugs, worms and other hungry creatures and you might dig them up to find them riddled with holes. So decide yourself.
French beans
Any runner or French beans still on plants are, by now big, starchy and quite a way past their best. Cut the plants to the ground, but do not dig them up. Hang the stems with their pods attached upside down in a warm dry spot for a week or so. Then empty the pods and leave them dry out for a further few days on wire cake racks before decanting them into dry sealed jars for use in casseroles and stews over the winter.
Meanwhile there is a good reason for leaving the roots of peas, beans and other leguminous crops in the ground. The reason for this is so that the nitrogen and other nutrients which these roots contain in particular abundance can be returned to the soil as the roots die down, enriching the ground for a hungry crop next year.
In the natural scheme of things as you take one crop out of the ground, the chances are that it will be replaced by another, self-sown one – of weeds. This is exactly what you do not want. In the past, the advice was to dig the ground over thoroughly, take out all weeds and keep it bare and weeded over winter, perhaps covering it with a tarpaulin of sorts.
But nature abhors a vacuum and bare soil is, in the eyes of nature, a vacuum. Planting a green manure is a smart move to make now. This will do several things. Firstly it will protect the bed from being colonized by weeds over winter. Green manures are fast growing crops that quickly cover the soil. After a few months, when they have grown, you simply go at them with a shovel, turning over the earth, chopping the crop up and digging it in where it will feed the soil organically. This is the sustainable, green way to weed and feed.
Winter
The first two weeks of October are good times in which to sow some green manures. The seed can be bought in any good garden centre. Try Vicia faba, or field beans, Vicia sativa, or winter tares, or Secale cereale – Hungarian grazing rye. These are hardy and can be left to grow over winter.
There are proper crops that can be sown too: Garlic can be planted from now up until November. It benefits from spending a period of cold weather in the ground. Whatever you do, resist planting garlic bought in the supermarket or brought home from a warm weather holiday.
Garlic grown in hot dry countries is absolutely unsuited to life in the cold, damp Irish soil. In the garden centre you will find varieties bred to live in our climate. Two or three bulbs will break into several dozen cloves, each of which will grow into a bulb next year. Discard the very small and puny cloves. Big juicy cloves will grow into more impressive plants. Plant them in an open well drained spot. If planting in blocks, as you might in the ornamental garden, leave about 20 cms between each clove.
Grow them yourself
If planting them in more classic vegetable garden rows, leave about 10 cms between each clove and 20 cms between each row. Garlic is an easy crop that requires little fussing. Water the cloves in spring if there is a dry spell. Keep them free of weeds and you will be able to harvest them next July or August.
If you have a cold frame, an unheated greenhouse or lengths of fleece tunneling you can still sow salad crops for use over winter. There are some varieties of lettuce particularly suited to living in the ground over winter. But if space is plentiful and you still have summer salad seed left over from the past year, why not try to use up some of that as well. I have found that in mild winters it is surprising how many of the summer salads will grow to healthy baby leaf stage over the next few months.
They taste particularly delicious out of season when you grow them yourself. And the surprise of what might grow and might not adds to the fun. There is no real loss as seed kept over winter loses its viability and you will need to buy fresh seed next year anyway. But in the meantime, buy a packet of winter lettuce seed as an insurance policy for at least one guaranteed crop.
Coming growing season
The best winter lettuces are ‘Winter Density’ and ‘Brune d’hiver’. They can be sown in modules or trays or directly into the ground but the success levels will be higher if you use modules. When they are big enough to handle, the little plants can be transferred out in the ground, under glass or cloche in about four to six weeks.
Lastly, if you grow asparagus, now is the time to cut back the tall, feathery foliage for the winter. Once this is done, clear the weeds out of the bed without digging down too far to where you might interfere with and damage the precious asparagus roots.
Finish off by piling on a good thick mulch of compost or farmyard manure over the dormant bed. This will set up the plants well for the coming growing season.

Shirley Lanigan bemoans the years she wasted trying to nurture a miserable, inherited apple tree and is now seeking a replacement. Here, she offers tips for choosing an apple tree and on how to store a glut of the fruit

I have not been able to visit a garden recently without being sent home with apples – sometimes lots of apples. As far as the Irish apple is concerned, this is the season of plenty. For some, the word ‘plenty’ should be replaced by the more appropriate word ‘glut.’
And among the many divisions that parcel one half of the world from the other is the line that marks those who see ‘plenty’ off from those who see ‘glut’ in times of seasonal abundance of fruit or vegetables.
Those people who send us home from visits with bag of apples ranged out along on the back seat of the car are, I would guess, among the half that sees glut. The others, meanwhile, are happily, thriftily and busily storing up the surplus fruit for use later in the year. Good for them. It would do all us all good to join their ranks.
When offered lovely eating apples by a garden owner, or plums or cooking apples to bring home, etiquette dictates that you say, “Yes please.” A reply of “No thanks” will be met with “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure” will inevitably be followed by an “Are you really sure?” Keep life simple and just say, “Yes please.” These poor people are desperate. They have made as many apple pies as they can eat. The pork has been accompanied by copious amounts of apple sauce and yet still the apples are there, waiting to be eaten, hanging on the trees or lying about on the grass waiting for small boys to pick them up and throw them at windows or passers-by. They are making their owners unhappy.
Pots of cookers
So say “Yes please” and bring the bounty home with you. It is the right thing to do. I inevitably end up with lines of plastic pots of cookers sitting on the back seat of the car after most garden visits at this time of year. This is no complaint.
I garden in an old mid-sized town garden. Up until last year, it was home to an apple tree — and what a tree. It was a pathetic sight to behold, a scrawny and shapeless thing. It did nothing other than detract from its neighbours. It was an old tree of about fifty years and by the time I arrived to live with it, it was well past its best. Although trying to eat the rather tasteless fruit, it was hard to imagine that it could ever have had a period that could be called best.
Not knowing its name, I could not tell if it was an eater or a cooker and the taste did nothing to throw light on the matter. It seemed too bitter to be an eater yet it was no more impressive after cooking. It could just about be used in an apple tart if there were blackberries to bump up the flavour or if a great number of cloves were added to give it some punch.
I lived with it for 13 years, partly out of misplaced sympathy and a reluctance to knock any tree. Disposing of it there and then might have led to its immediate replacement and a decade of good apples since enjoyed. Instead, I tried to improve the situation with years of pruning and adding liberal amounts of compost to the ground around its roots.
After four years scowling at its ungainly shape, I made an attempt to beautify it. Some Clematis jackmanii was grown up against its trunk in the hope of producing something good to look at. This only met with partial success and the weight of the climber cannot have helped the miserable tree in its struggle.
In the end, a hard heart kicked in and I did what I should have done the first day I saw it. I chopped down the miserable specimen, putting it and its scabbed fruit out of their miseries. The area is now planted up with a mass of flowering phlox and a good rose that flowers all summer. It gladdens my heart every time I look at it.
A magnificent tree
But there is now no apple tree in the garden and a replacement is needed. In order to make up for the years of dull apples and ugly tree, the replacement needs to be a magnificent tree. A lot is expected of this tree and so time is being taken on the eventual choice. I cannot make up my mind as to what I want to plant.
A trip to the Irish Seed Savers in Scarriff, Co Clare in a few weeks will hopefully settle the problem. The Irish Seed Savers specialise in identifying, saving, growing and dispersing as many old Irish apple cultivars around the country as is possible. They want to encourage us to begin growing our own Irish apples again.
At one time, there were hundreds of Irish varieties to be found all over the island. The numbers have been dwindling fast over the past few decades and we are in danger of losing many interesting tasty and unusual apples to oblivion. The Irish Seed Savers are trying to stem the tide and turn it back. To date, they have rescued over 140 types of Irish apples from extinction.
They are a registered charity that can be joined. Membership subscriptions help them to further their work. But it is also possible to buy apple trees from them. I hope to have them help me choose a heritage tree that was bred in my particular part of the country and that suits the soil and local conditions around here. I hope to find a tree that that will produce delicious eating apples.
Pies, tarts and cakes
A really good cooker would be welcome, too. These will hopefully be trees that will produce apples that will keep well, right through the autumn and winter, for pies and tarts and cakes and everything else they might be needed for. They will also be adding to the diversity that our productive gardens have been losing for too long.
But that is a task for the next few months. In the meantime, there are apples that are being presented in bulk right now as gifts. They need to be dealt with. Here are a few pointers on storing apples. It should hopefully mean that those being sent home with big bags of apples can do so happily, knowing that they will be able to keep and use them at their leisure rather than in one frantic apple-clogged fortnight. But mostly it will ease the burden of the gardener with the heavily producing tree or trees who has, in the past, simply despaired rather than stored.
Soon find out
There are varieties of apple that store well and those that do not. Many people who own trees have no idea as to the name of their apples. Without this knowledge, they cannot find out whether their apples will store or not. If you do not know, take the chance and store the apples anyway. You will know soon enough.
The first job is to inspect the apples to be stored. It is important to separate perfectly sound apples from those with any blemishes, bruises, cuts or imperfections. Only perfectly sound apples store. Damaged fruit will spread rot throughout the whole batch, so sort them thoroughly. The old saying about one bad apple ruining the whole barrel is absolutely accurate, so be strict. Blemished fruit is perfectly good for immediate use. Just cut out the bruises and eat or cook.
Wrap each individually
Take the fruit to be stored and wrap each individually in a quarter page of plain black and white newspaper or unbleached tissue paper, twisting the parcel firmly at the top. Stand these parcels on trays with a small space between each individual. Use shallow, single-storey fruit boxes. The supermarkets are only too delighted to get rid of them. In addition, their sturdy ‘corner posts’ allow you to stack multiple trays on top of each other. If you can find the light wooden slatted fruit trays, this is even better as they allow air to circulate more thoroughly between the fruits and good circulation will allow for longer storage.
North-facing wall
Once stacked, the trays should be stored in a cool shed, outhouse or garage. If you have a spot on a north-facing wall, this will be the best of all. A small amount of damp will cause no problems and will even help the storage process. The main consideration to worry about is heat. Ripening happens as a result of the presence of ethylene and ethylene needs warmth. Heat and constantly fluctuating temperatures encourage the presence of ethylene and so brings on the ripening process. A temperature of between 30-40 degrees centigrade is perfect. Do not store apples in the same place as potatoes, as the potatoes will hasten the apples ripening.
l The Irish Seed Savers Association, Scarriff, County Clare (061 921866).
www.irishseedsavers.ie

Shirley Lanigan writes that with a little ground preparation and care, autumn-fruiting raspberries are one of the easiest of all fruits to grow in your garden

Arriving home from a holiday, the absentee gardener can sometimes wish they never left their post. During the period of absence, the garden invariably turns into a place of chaos and mess. But that is a given and after a break, the gardener will probably be rearing to go and smarten the place up with no delay and with great enthusiasm.
The possibility that Sept-ember and October might enjoy a warm spell spurs us on to have the place looking its best should the Holy Grail of an Indian summer happen along. All this is usual in a normal year. 2009 has not been a normal year.
Wettest summer
It has, in fact, been an out-of-the-ordinary year. We have just had the wettest June, July and August since the mid 1850s. The weather station on Valentia recorded the highest rainfall for the three summer months since records began and in Donegal, they had 8” or 21.5cms of rain in the same period.
We are told that it was also one of the sunniest summers on record— but frankly, it was hard to see the sun through the rain, so for many that statistic rings a bit hollow.
In any case, the result of leaving the garden untended for any amount of time in these warm, wet, almost monsoon-like conditions is that it all falls apart rather badly.
The problem is added to by the fact that the rain is continuing and the Indian summer seems a bit unlikely. So even having returned, it is impossible to get a mower through the long, soggy grass.
Its untidy appearance makes everything else look even more dreadful. The hedges, leaning over under the weight of water, likewise defy the electric strimmers of all but the most kamikaze gardeners.
Puddles everywhere
Weeds have taken over the borders, looming tall over their bedraggled cultivated relatives. Paths, particularly gravelled paths and drives, are puddled as the water table lurks only millimetres from the surface.
It is a sorry sight – apart from one area. The raspberry patch. Raspberries love the rain. They thrive on it. So while all else becomes more of a mess, the raspberry bushes grow apace and the fruits are now ripening and coming ready for eating at a satisfying rate. I am referring to the autumn-fruiting raspberries. The summer-fruiting raspberries are well past their productive period.
Autumn raspberries
Autumn-fruiting raspberries are perhaps one of the easiest of all fruits to grow. Where other fruits can have the novice in a state of fearful panic when it comes to pruning, pest and disease control, pollination and general care, autumn-fruiting raspberries get on with the job of growing, quickly and without fuss.
They also usually fruit in the first year – although in the sort of quantities that allow you to decorate a bowl of cereal or provide the garnish on a plate of something like a chocolate tart or a bowl of ice cream. You will not make jam in the first or even second year of growing raspberries.
Actually, on the matter of jam, it invariably feels like a bad move to use gorgeous home-grown raspberries for making jam. Buy the frozen bags from a farm shop for that.
The home-grown crop is something a bit more special, to be enjoyed fresh, raw and generally unadorned. A good raspberry is arguably the number-one fruit we can grow in Ireland. It is one of the few fruits that fare better without hot, dry conditions. So while we may envy the Mediterranean countries their oranges, figs and peaches, the northern countries rule when it comes to the raspberry. Our short, cool summer, the very reason that fruit like figs fail to ripen well, is exactly what raspberries require.
Fruiting varieties
Whatever about more experienced gardeners, anyone new to the business of gardening should try to grow some autumn-fruiting varieties. Now is the time to begin preparing to bring them into your garden.
Some tips for growing autumn-fruiting raspberries:
Planted in the sort of conditions they like, they will thrive. The site needs sun for only half the day. This will hopefully widen the choice of sites available in the garden. In addition, raspberries can stand an amount of wind, widening the choice again.
The books will say that raspberries do not like alkaline soil and have a preference for a pH of 6.5, which is slightly in the direction of an acid soil, but my experience has been that they are happy enough in an alkaline or limy soil as long as it is not too alkaline.
Once the site is chosen, dig the soil over thoroughly, removing all traces of perennial weeds. This is a crop that will be in situ for many years. Starting with a clean bed will make it easier to prevent weed build-up as the years go by.
Root rot
Choose a well-drained site in the garden. If the ground is not free-draining, if it is holds its water or has a tendency to water-log, raspberries will succumb to root rot. But this problem can be remedied. The drainage can be improved on any soil.
A mild problem can be cured by the simple addition of plenty of grit and farmyard manure or compost. These will open up the soil structure and allow water drain away more easily.
If the problem is more extreme, such as in a new garden in which the builder may have drizzled a thin sprinkling of soil over compacted sub-soil (or even worse, rubble), more drastic action and possibly even the help of a professional will be needed.
A gravel trench
This will involve removing the rubble, breaking up the compacted soil, possibly layering in a gravel trench to drain away the water and bringing in good topsoil. This sort of problem will prevent the cultivation of almost any plants and should be the subject of a column to itself.
Adding organic matter in the shape of farmyard manure or compost was recommended in an effort to lighten up a heavy, damp soil. But even if the soil is free draining, it will still benefit from the addition of plenty of compost, which is like the magic cure-all for soil.
Aim to incorporate about a barrow load per square metre. This sounds like a lot, but once the ground has been fed initially, it should be unnecessary to feed the crop as it grows. However, a yearly mulch of compost, dumped over the bed after fruiting has finished, will be rewarded with a better crop the following year.
Before planting summer-fruiting raspberries, it is necessary to put a support system of posts and wires in place. This is so that the fruiting canes can be tied up and supported. Meanwhile, the new, smaller canes that will produce a crop next year will develop by themselves. After fruiting, the old canes are chopped down and the new canes are then tied up in preparation for the following year.
A no-support system
However, you can get away using a no-support system with autumn-fruiting raspberries. This is because they are more straightforward: fruit is borne on this year’s canes, this year. After the harvest, simply chop the whole bush to the ground and cover the stubs with a thick layer of compost.
In the spring, new canes will appear. They may even appear a distance out from the existing plants. If this is the case and you do not want the colony to expand, simply remove the unwanted shoots.
If you are a tidy gardener, you can, if you wish, tie the crop in as it grows, but you do have a choice with the later varieties.
Plant vigorous varieties like ‘Autumn Bliss’ about 20” or 50cm apart so they will have plenty of room to grow.
On the subject of space, while raspberries do take up a fair amount of space and are generally more suited to a slightly bigger garden, it is still possible to grow a small crop in a container.
Replant new stock
Unlike their relatives in the ground, which can live for anything between five and twenty years, pot-grown varieties may not live more than year or two and it may be necessary to replant new stock regularly. But as the canes are among the most inexpensive plants you can buy, this should pose no difficulties. Canes can be bought bare-root in the winter. They come tied in bunches of three or five plants.
Preparing the ground now over the next few weeks will ensure that you can plant them as soon as you buy them. Bare root plants should always be planted as soon as possible after purchase. They can dry out and die otherwise.
I wrote that raspberries pose few problems, but even the hardiest of plants are prone to some diseases and pests. Among the most likely attackers of raspberries are root rot and raspberry aphid. If you want to avoid these, ‘Autumn Bliss’ is resistant to both. It is also a particularly tasty variety and delivers a good-sized crop.

Shirley Lanigan says that although the growing season is almost over, there are still a few vegetables that can succeed at this time of year. Neither is it time to let your garden turn wild and tatty, after all the work you did over the summer

While the harvesting season gradually and slowly winds down and we cut, eat, freeze and store the various different crops we grew this year, there are still some planting and cultivating jobs that can be seen to in the vegetable garden. Keeping up the work now will see to it that there is more on the way and in the pipeline.
In late August/early September, growth is still in swing – if not full swing, particularly in the strawberry patch. Strawberry plants are largely finished cropping and at this time, they are sending out long runners, on the end of which are tiny new strawberry plants. As these touch the ground, they take root and begin to grow.
Taken in hand, these little babies will become new strawberry plants, producing fruits next year and the year after that. What should be remembered about strawberry plants is that they have a fairly short productive life. After about two or three years, they tend to lose strength, producing a reducing number of smaller fruit. So they need replacement every two or three years.
If you have not been growing strawberries already, you can of course head to the garden centre and buy new plants to start the ball rolling for 2010. But if you already have plants, this is not the only way. Look at the old plants. The most inexpensive way to get a new fresh patch of strawberries going is to propagate runners from the existing stock.
Runners
These runners can be left to take root in the ground, but tend to be more successful if grown in good compost. Stand small pots of compost beside the existing plants.
Tuck them a little way into the soil for stability. Next, layer the little runner onto the top of the compost and use a U-shaped pin made from a 15cm length of wire coat-hanger to hold it down, so that it keeps contact with the compost and takes proper root.
In the meantime, prepare a new bed for the young strawberry plants. Dig out any weeds and add in a large quantity of compost. In about three weeks’ time, the little plants can be cut free of their mother plants and transplanted into the new bed. The stage is then set for next years’ crop of strawberries.
One of the great aspects of vegetable gardening is that when you are busy eating one load of vegetables, there is nearly always something else you can be in the process of sowing and bringing on. So there is generally a new treat to which you can look forward.
Right now, there are several crops that can be sown: spring cabbages are perfect for sowing now. Netting draped over the bed will protect the seedlings from cabbage white butterflies and other pests coming to lay their eggs on and devour the new plants.
Look out for the presence of cabbage white eggs on already maturing cabbages. The eggs are laid on the underside of the leaves. These eggs are very recognisable by the way they are laid in beautiful patterns. Rub them off the plant before the resulting caterpillars get a chance to cause trouble. Draping the plants with netting will protect from further batches being laid.
There are also onions that can be sown now. Japanese clumping onions are perfect for this. Spring onions like ‘White Lisbon’ can also be started off. If you are going to be around to keep an eye on them, starting them in seed trays is a good idea. The little plants can then be planted out at the end of next month. If you are not going to be around to keep them watered, plant the seed straight into the ground.
Just make sure to sow in a weed-free nursery bed in straight lines, to make it easier to distinguish between the seedlings and any weedlings that will most certainly emerge at the same time. Marking the seed with a line of sand will help distinguish the wanted from unwanted crops.
Japanese onions are well suited to winter growth. They need to be planted in a bed already used for another crop and not fertilised or fed afterwards.
Too fertile a bed will encourage soft growth, which is not desirable. The varieties to try include ‘Swift’ and ‘Senshyu’. There is also still time to sow winter lettuce. ‘Winter Density’ and ‘Brune d’hiver’ are two that do well outside in Ireland when we have milder winters.
If the winter is cold, plastic or glass cloches will deliver an extra bit of protection, which will allow them to continue slow growth. Even a few leaves to add to a meal as the nights draw in give it a slightly special feel, so it is well worth growing winter lettuce.
Winter purslane is a great salad crop, a little like lamb’s lettuce. It has ‘fat’ juicy leaves that are extremely versatile and it grows well outside at this time of year.
From now until mid-September, spinach can be sown regularly at two-week intervals. The reason for this is that spinach can be a bit tricky to germinate. Too warm and dry and it will go wrong, too wet and it will go wrong.
Sowings
It does not take too much for spinach to bolt and go to seed. So making several sowings give multiple chances to get a line of plants going before the weather gets too cold.
Even if they all take, spinach cooks down to nothing, so you are unlikely to be unable to eat it all anyway. In any case, it makes sense to use up the spare seed at the end of the year. Actually, if you are feeling like a bit of an experiment, look around the shed and hunt out all left-over vegetable seeds. Pull them all out, from carrots to swede, parsnips, turnips, beetroot, Swiss chard, the salad crops and really everything apart from the warm-weather crops like tomatoes and courgettes.
Unless stored very carefully in the perfect conditions, seed loses viability. Kept until next year, when you plant it at the perfect time, it could be fairly useless and the work done at that perfect planting time will have been wasted. It is best to start each season off with new fresh seed for best results.
However, it feels terribly wasteful dumping the leftovers of this year’s seed. If it was going out to the compost heap anyway, why not try planting it now when the chances of success are not so good? Our autumns and winters are so unpredictable and the weather just might be clement over the next two or three months – a phenomenon not unknown in the same way that a wet and soggy June and July are not unknown.
Success
If you have the seed to spare, you never know what success might meet you. Any resulting vegetables will feel like food for free and they will accordingly taste all the better for it.
Remember that if you want to do this, give those against-the-odds vegetables the best site you can afford them. The most sheltered and sunniest spot in the garden is where they should be sown. Forget about tucking them away in a damp, cold, windy and shaded spot. If that is the plan, you might as well just put them in the compost heap.
Once planted, see how things go over winter. If we have a good warm autumn and a mild winter, you could be pleasantly surprised.
With regard to protection, some of these vegetables will certainly want protection as the season marches on. Beetroot, carrots and winter lettuce will benefit from cover as the days get colder, so prepare for that situation now.
Have miniature plastic or fleece tunnels ready to pull out at short notice. Failing to do this now while the days are still mild could see you hunt in vain for tunnels when the weather is cold and the garden centres have replaced such items with Christmas decorations!
Apart from the anticipation of vegetables to come, there are other good reasons to get out to the garden now. If you tip away gently, carrying out this small task and that little job, the work will be enjoyable and satisfying and the place will look good even as the duller end of the year beckons.
An ordered-looking garden invites you out to do a bit of work. A place where all has been left to its own wild devices, just because you are finished the bulk of the harvesting, becomes wild and tatty very quickly. So keep up the good work.

Shirley Lanigan says that growing herbs is one of the most popular forms of gardening, and even the amateur gardener can do quite well if they understand the basics of what each herb requires to flourish

Of all the different types of gardens there are, herb gardens are among the most popular. People whose interest in gardening is not even slight can often be persuaded of the charms of growing herbs.
One could speculate forever as to what the reasons for this might be but simply put, herbs are easy to fall for. Whether it is herbs for cooking, medicine or cosmetic use, they are certainly plants that give full value.
Not only do they look and smell good growing, there are a whole host of uses they can be put to after they have given value out in the garden. In many instances, growing a few herbs is the gateway to gardening proper. And any gateway into the garden is a welcome one.
An easy to love plant
When you do a first-word-into-your-mind association test with someone, ‘rose’ will usually accompany ‘flower.’ ‘Lavender’ is the word most associated with the word ‘herb.’ The scent, the gorgeous soft petal shades and the beautiful mounding shape lavender creates make it an easy-to-love plant.
Unfortunately for most of us living in Ireland, lavender is probably the herb that will cause us the most trouble to grow, should we try. The trouble with lavender lies in the very connotations that go with it – heat, warmth, sun and the south of France. Heat, sun and dry air are unfortunately generally not common in Ireland.
Over the past two summers they have been in particular short supply. And lavender is, to put it mildly, not at home in the sort of warm, damp conditions that has dominated our summers recently. When you do see lavender doing well in Ireland it is generally in a hot spot or sun-trap. A sun-trap against a wall is probably the best location to give it.
Treat it mean
Add to this a free draining, gritty, even stony soil. Do not plant it in fertile or well worked, loamy, compost-rich soil. Treat it mean and keep it keen would be the advice when growing lavender. If you can give it those conditions, grow lavender by all means. If those conditions pertain outside your window, front or back doors, so much the better.
The scent will waft into the house and rise up when you rub up against it as you walk by. If your conditions are too rich, get used to the idea that you will need to replace your lavender plants every year or two as they begin to flag. Generally thought of as a herb for perfume, pot pourri and the like, I was recently fed lavender biscuits, and they tasted so good I decided I had to learn how to cook them.
If lavender springs to mind first, parsley arrives quickly on its tail. No kitchen can do without parsley and no garden should be without it. Grown in utilitarian lines in the vegetable garden, it will perform well, of course. But parsley is such a decorative plant it can be grown in the flower border too.
Its substantial froth of leaves make a good foil to so many flowers. It looks great in pots or containers and it holds itself up, looking good, for a long period. It used to be said that parsley only grew in households where there is a witch. Some say it is hard to germinate, but try it.
Several gardeners I know recommend scalding it with hot water for a few seconds to break dormancy.
Another way to do this is to soak the seed overnight in warm water. It can be sown from late spring until the end of August, thinly, about 2cm deep in good fertile soil.
Flat Italian parsley has become all the rage in the kitchen, but after a few years of growing it, I have come to the conclusion that our old curly variety is just as tasty and certainly a lot more decorative looking.
Thyme
Thyme is another herb that is easy to grow, useful in the kitchen and decorative. There are countless varieties. Choose the one that suits your circumstances. If you want lots of the stuff for cooking, choose Thymus vulgaris.
Its stems can grow up to 30 cms long, making it easier to strip of leaves. Grown in free draining soil in a warm situation, it will do best. Spread a layer of gravel or grit under the plant before planting it so that it doesn’t spend the wet winter with its feet in the damp. It hates this. The only problem with Thymus vulgaris is that it can look a bit untidy. It is not the neatest looking plant. But however, there are some beautiful species of thyme that can be used for their good looks as well as their culinary uses.
Thymus serphyllum ’Elfin’ is a low-growing species. It makes an interesting little hummock or pillow of tight green leaves. This habit means that it can earn its keep as a decorative plant in an alpine rockery, in a terracotta pot with a mulch of gravel around its neck or creeping out in a gravel bed. The little pink flowers in summer as an added attraction.
Thymes also come in silver and gold varieties. Thymus citriodorus ‘Silver Queen,’ is as its name suggests silver-leafed. The leaves have a silver outer margin. As its name also suggests, it is lemon-scented. Some people use it to make a tea. For cooking, it is particularly suited to use with fish or roast vegetables. ‘Golden King’ is similar but with gold margins on the leaves.
An alpine bed made up of a number of different thymes can be a really good looking feature. The alpine bed at Enniscoe Garden in Mayo has a lovely display of thyme let to roam over a sunny stony expanse.
Rosemary is a lovely shrub, sweetly scented and with pretty lilac coloured flowers. The only problem with rosemary is that it can often grow too tall for the position is planted in. Planted on a patio near the house for ease of access, it is preferable that the shrub stay tidy. If it gets too big in such a situation it can be a nuisance.
Drapes and dangles
Choose instead Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Prostratus’. This is a variety that drapes and dangles rather than reaching skywards. It is perfect to plant on top of a low wall by the barbeque or beside a patio. It too likes sun and dry hot conditions. So place it in a sweet spot and again, add a lot of grit to the soil if your soil is rich and moisture retentive.
A dislike of damp and cold is something many of the herbs we love have in common with each other. Many are native to the Mediterranean. Their slim or tiny, needle-like and waxy leaves are witness to that. Waxy, small and needle-like leaves are designed specifically to protect from evaporation and water loss.
It is a safe bet that a plant with these will fare best in your driest, sunniest spot. They will not love life in a bog garden. And whenever you come across a sad-looking lavender hedge you can bet that it is not getting enough sun and probably living in a too-moist soil.
Sage
Outgrowing their space is something that a lot of shrubby herbs are prone to. Sage is the ultimate troublesome plant when it comes to growing. Sage has a habit of really spreading out and taking up space. One bush of it can sprawl out to nearly two metres across. This is a lot of space to give over to one herb in a small garden – even if it is good-looking.
If space is at a premium, go for a compact variety like ‘Kew Gold’, a golden-leafed variety that will stay neat and small. It grows up 30 cms with a spread of 45 cms. For a small green thyme choose Thymus officinale ‘Berggarten’ and obviously avoid a variety with something like ‘Holt’s Mammoth’ in its name.
While we often have to be careful when finding the perfect home for herbs, there are however a few herbs that really appreciate our damp and wet conditions. The mints are nicely at home in the dampest Irish soil. Look at the bigger, wider, flatter leaves many species of mint carry. They look ‘lush’. Lush-looking leaves are an indicator of a taste for water and humidity.
Mint
In stating that mint grows well, it should also be stated that it can grow too well. It is a plant that likes to spread and planted straight into the ground in your garden it will one day break your heart.
Grow it in containers within which its wandering roots can cause no trouble. If you want to grow mint in the ground, cut the bottom out of a bucket or large plastic pot. Sink this into the ground so that its neck is just 3 – 5 cms above level with the soil.
Fill it with soil and plant the mint into the centre of the container. Using a black container is the best idea as its rim will not be as noticeable on the top of the soil as other colours.
MORE:
Some interesting herb gardens around Ireland:
The Grey Abbey Physic Garden, Greyabbey, Co Down.
Kylemore Abbey Walled Garden, Kylemore Abbey, Connemara, Co Galway. www.kylemoreabbey.com
Gardens of Ireland Lavender Field. Kilmacanogue (Just off the N11 travelling south) visible on the left.
The Ballymaloe Cookery School Garden, Shannagarry, Midleton, Co Cork. www.cookingisfun.ie

Shirley Lanigan writes that even though June might be the best month for harvesting in the vegetable garden, there is other work to be done to ensure that you have vegetables into the autumn and winter.
By the time the end of June comes around, it is all too easy to sit back and be pleased with the results of work put in earlier in the year in the vegetable garden. Right now, it is nearly all happening on the harvest front and in a few weeks, it will be absolutely running at full tilt.

Lettuces of every description are coming to maturity. Early potatoes are being dug up and carried like precious little golden globes to the kitchen, where they will be greeted by an enthusiastic chef. There could also be beetroot, scallions, early carrots and summer cabbage to eat. For those organised few who remembered to sow broad beans back in November, the bean pods are also ready to pick now.
h4. Asparagus
Meanwhile, for the really diligent gardener who was willing to put in long-term work over the past three years, there has been asparagus to cut over the past few weeks. Growing asparagus with success can bring on feelings of smug self-congratulation beyond all.
While on the other side of the fence, it can draw on wells of untold jealousy in those who have to resort to buying their asparagus spears in the supermarket with the ordinary people.
In any case, while happily dealing with the abundance of early summer crops, it is possible to forget that there are lots of things that can be done to extend the harvesting season right up to winter. The mistake of reveling in early success is one often made by novice vegetable growers. The old hands know better.
They are already aiming toward the crops that will bring them comfortably up to and beyond Christmas – even as far as next spring in the case of something like purple sprouting broccoli. That particular brassica almost rivals asparagus in the desirability stakes. It costs a fortune for a few spears in the supermarket and they never taste as good as the homegrown version.
h4. Finding space
But even with the best will to continue sowing and planting, given the great surges of growth that take place in May and June, it can be hard to find space to accommodate new sowings in the ground at this time.
Another point to remember is that the very enthusiasm of that general growth can swamp a newly set seed-bed.
Again, the novice can find that they sow seeds, go away for a short holiday and come home to find the seedlings have been out-competed by faster growing, more numerous weeds and are almost all lost.
h4. No competitors
A way to deal with both of these problems is to sow the seeds in trays or modules. Unlike the ground, where there are more weed seeds in every square metre than there are stars in heaven, seed compost is sterile. So the vegetable seed sown in it has no competitors.
In addition, if you have to go away for a few days, you can get a friend or family member to mind your babies until you get back. Initially using seed trays and pots also gives you more time to clear mature crops, either eating or freezing them. Then by the time the new seedlings are ready to go into the ground, space should be free to accommodate them.
While there are plenty of seeds that can be sown at this time of year, it is important not to put off sowing them. It is possible and even sometimes desirable to delay sowing some things earlier in the season. But by the end of June, we have reached the half-way point in the year. What were lengthening evenings, up until now, have just toppled over into the second half where the days will begin to shorten. So plants will have fewer hours of sun per day to germinate, grow and put out a crop. From now on, fast acting is the best policy.
Among the crops to sow now are more beetroots, to add to those planted over the past six weeks or so.
Beetroot sown now will stay in the ground right until the late autumn, when it will be fabulous roasted with carrots and potatoes for Sunday roast. At that point, it can also be stored for use over the winter.
As outlined above, beets can be sown in modules or straight into the ground. Keep the seed watered or germination will be patchy at best. If left to dry as they develop, the globes will taste woody too so keep them watered – but not water logged. Ordinary turnips or swedes can be sown too. In a few weeks, when moving the little plants into the ground, it is important to deal gently with them.
h4. Little shoots
Start by watering them. Then squeeze the sides of the modules of pots to slightly compact the root balls within. Next, gently tip the whole lot over into your hand fingers splayed between the little shoots and making sure not to damage the young leaves. Settle the root-ball gently into a pre-dug trench in the ground. Water the lot in. It is important not to disturb the roots. They will then grow on over the summer.
By the end of the month, outdoor tomatoes should be put out. The tall varieties must be well supported with tall sturdy bamboos in a well composted, sunny, sheltered spot. If space is a premium, plant them into grow-bags on a patio and they will grow nicely.
h4. Grow bags
Make a virtue of the fact that grow bags — unlike beds — are portable and place them against the sunniest, warmest wall for the tastiest tomatoes and the biggest crops. The courgettes, squashes and pumpkins written about a few weeks ago are also ready to move outside where they can spread out and really begin to grow. And they really will grow. They can be like triffids, growing even as you watch them. They obviously take up space.
But lack of growing space in the beds need not be a problem, even as you wonder what to do with the tray of fat squash plants looking for an outdoor home. I came across pumpkins growing from a very confined bed a few years ago. The bed took up only a small corner covering no more than a metre square on the edge of a large gravelled area. But the pumpkin plant was not confined. Left to its own devices, it had run riot over the sunny expanse of gravel. This both looked great and worked well because gravel soaks up heat very effectively. This suited the sun-loving pumpkins. The fruits, as they grew, were placed up off the gravel on bricks to display them and save them from rain splash.
There was very little else growing in the courtyard but it was still stylish looking as well as low maintenance, in a bachelor-pad sort of way.
h4. Late summer crops
A courgette plant or two draped out over the side of a tall free-standing planter is another smart-looking way to grow these late summer crops for maximum visual impact.
Courgettes, if not quite as bad as pumpkins, still take up a lot of space per single plant and in a small garden, a square metre is a lot of space that could be used more productively, delivering a few different crops in the place of one. Working up on a height frees up valuable ground space and the addition of height improves the look of any garden from a balcony right up to a full-scale walled vegetable garden.
h4. Perfect for sowing
Peas are still perfect for sowing. Choosing the early varieties is best policy around now. This might seem contrary to the information on the seed packets but sowing early types later in the year works as they tend to ripen in a shorter period of time than main crop varieties. And working from the start of July, you are dealing with a shorter period of time.
Once again, the seeds can be sown in pots or modules two per small module or four per 9cm pot. I find growing peas like this helps in the battle against predators too. You tend to get more plants to the size where slugs lose interest. They do not show as much enthusiasm for older coarser foliage as they do for new soft shoots and baby leaves – rather like humans.
The peas can be put out into a good fertile bed with supports in the shape of chicken wire or pea sticks when they reach 15-20cm. You should be picking peas by autumn.
h4. French beans
Sowing a new crop of French beans is also a good idea even toward the start of July. These tender plants really do hate our cold weather, which for them can mean average early-June temperatures. Late crops can catch up on earlier ones surprisingly fast if the weather is to their liking.
Finally, carrots should continue to be sown in short drills at two weekly intervals.

Shirley Lanigan writes that now is the time to really get busy in the vegetable garden and you will soon see the fruits of your labours… literally!
Ornamental gardens are generally at their best at this time of year. This means that for a few weeks at least, it is possible to sit back and just enjoy the fruits of your work. The productive garden is getting ready to come into its own too. But unlike an established herbaceous or mixed border, even the most mature vegetable garden calls for work at this time of year:
Growing vegetables largely involves annuals – plants that are sown and complete their life cycle in one year. So the gardener is on the go fairly constantly. You do not just plant vegetable seeds and forget about them. A small amount of upkeep is required on all vegetables and a slightly larger amount is needed for some. The rewards are many times out of proportion to these efforts.

h4. Earthed up
Potatoes, planted several weeks ago, should have been earthed up by now. If this has not been done, move quickly and get earthing up. This involves piling on a load of compost, earth, straw or even grass clippings over the young plants, when their shoots reach about 20 cm. You completely cover at least the bottom fifty per cent of the plant. The reason for doing this is that a good percentage of potato tubers grow close to the top of the soil.
Any sunlight hitting the potatoes near the surface discolours them, turning them green and rendering them poisonous. Layering on a thick blanket of compost, before the plants get too big protects the potatoes from light damage and they continue growing.
It also benefits the crop by suppressing weed growth. Quite obviously, weeds vie with potatoes for nutrients and it makes sense to deal with them.
Earthing up also increases the number of potatoes each plant produces and frankly you will never feel you have enough of your own home grown potatoes, so anything that increases the yield is welcome.
Lastly, manure, farmyard or home-made compost all help condition and improve the soil structure for future crops.
The potatoes will be ready to dig and eat by the end of the month and on into July in the case of earlies. Once they have flowered, dig away.
Some impatient types who want a few new baby spuds in advance of the proper crop of earlies do what is known as ‘grabbling’.
This is digging gently around the outside of the plant and teasing out some small outer tubers without digging up the whole plant which continues to fatten up the rest of the tubers. In July and August second earlies can be dug up.
Main crop spuds come in after that when their leaves have died down. Check the label on the packet the seed potatoes came in if you are unsure as to what you planted.
h4. Fascinating to watch
Every two weeks plant another short row of carrots, spinach, beets, lettuces of all types, scallions and peas. It is fascinating to watch how fast one batch will germinate when the previous batches might have come up slowly and patchily.
A week’s weather — good or bad — can have an enormous effect on how a batch of vegetables progresses. Keep that in mind at all times and remember that, with vegetables, don’t take success and failure too personally. Sometimes it seems as though you can do no wrong. Everything comes up fabulously, prolifically and to order. Other years, it seems as though God has updated the seven plagues of Egypt and sent them to your garden to torment you.
The first time I started growing vegetables, I tried basil. It was started off in trays indoors, and then transferred to the garden in June.
Throughout the Summer we were harvesting great sheaves of basil leaves, enough to make several good batches of pesto as well as sending all visitors away with armfuls of leaves. I thought I was brilliant.
In fact, it was only the weather that was brilliant.
I tried the same act for several subsequent years only to be met with utter failure and bafflement. I gave up trying to grow basil outside in Kilkenny and am convinced that the non-gardening acquaintance who lives close by — and claims to do so successfully — is a terrible liar. She even claimed to get a good result last year. Maybe she thinks watercress is basil…
For me these days the basil grows in pots that move in and out of the house — depending on the weather — but I can only dream of growing it in quantities large enough to make pesto. With vegetables, success can be as much to do with weather and luck as with skill.
h4. Trial and error
But you can work to enhance that luck. When space allows, sowing some of those lettuces, spinach seeds and carrots in different places around the garden is a good policy. Slug and pest attack will invariably be different in different parts of the garden. The micro-climate of one corner may prove far more amenable to growing salad crops than another. Trial and error on your own patch of land will teach you what to grow, and where, in a way no book can.
By now we should be able to plant out many of the tender vegetables that were started off indoors a few weeks ago. French and runner beans, courgettes, squashes and pumpkins will take up their outdoor homes in the garden over the next week or two – assuming the temperatures are kind. Err on the side of caution, and if the temperatures are not warm enough at ‘the correct time’ — according to the books — wait a bit. French beans are particularly prone to sulking in the wind and cold.
Outdoor tomatoes can also go out. But bear in mind that they really want a sunny sheltered spot. Think of the tomatoes enjoyed on holidays. They crave heat and sun on order to ripen and develop taste. Tomatoes take a bit of care but they are worth the fuss.
h4. Pick sturdy plants
You might be putting out the plants you grew yourself or those bought in the garden centre over the past few weeks. But even if you did grow your own, adding in a few different varieties picked up in the shops will add to the variety when it comes to eating the results at the end of the Summer. If buying plants in, pick sturdy plants that are not too elongated and lanky.
Some ‘Tumbling Tom’ tomatoes will grow very well in a good substantial-sized hanging basket. Insert a few little clumps of chives or – pray for it – basil plants, and the result could be a rather interesting looking and more useful alternative to those damned petunias. Make sure to give them good rich compost. Tomatoes need feeding. Apart from trailing varieties, there are also countless bush and standard or tall varieties.
If growing in grow bags, two plants per bag is the best although you can fit three.
Insert supports before the plants. Use tall strong bamboo canes. Be generous and do not use flimsy supports. These will be heavy plants. There are also good quality metal spiral supports available in the DIY stores.
The plants should be deep enough in the compost so that the bottom leaves are level with the top of the soil.
Tie in the main stem to the support using a slightly loose figure-of-eight knot that allows the stem thicken up. For really productive plants remove excess side shoots as they grow.
h4. Stop growing
Late in July or early in August, prepare to stop the plant growing on endlessly by pinching out the top few leaves. The plant should have developed between two and four trusses of flowers/developing fruits by then and if the top growth has been stopped the plant will put all its energy into their development.
There is no need to water too often until the plant shows flowers. When the flowers do appear, a heavy watering once a week should be sufficient. Do not let the soil dry completely, but water-logging it will lead to trouble and tomatoes that split and taste watery.
Use an organic tomato feed about every two weeks if using grow bags or if the soil you have planted them into is not very fertile.
When the fruits ripen pick them. If the late summer weather is unpromising and ripening looks as though it might not happen, dig up the plants and hang them in a bright dry spot – in a greenhouse or porch or something similar. The ripening will then continue.
A truss of green tomatoes put in a brown bag with a banana will ripen as the banana releases gas but they will not taste as good as those that ripen on the plant.
Just be sure to dig the plants before any early frost hits, as frost and tomatoes equal mush.
h4. Free fruit
If you forget, and leave the plants and their green fruits to their own devices outside as Autumn comes in, you might still meet with success. Some varieties will continue to ripen by themselves, particularly the cherry tomatoes. It will be like free fruit.

Shirley Lanigan says that now is the time to get planting beans, courgettes and pumpkins and offers some tips for getting the most out of these plants this year
While many of the vegetables that we can grow outside are already in the ground and faring nicely, there are some crops that really must wait until the year is well under way before they can be expected to hold up under the vagaries of the Irish summer.
These are the French and runner beans, courgettes and pumpkins. Growing them in our climate requires patience, and the willingness to act later rather than sooner. It is always satisfying to the less than organised gardener that they are ahead of the game for a change.

Planted outside too early, these plants, which require warmth and sun to thrive, will sulk, refuse to grow and generally disappoint. Under the stress of cold and wet, they may also succumb to attack by disease.
h4. Serious set-backs
Our early summer is often unreliable. The temperatures fluctuate too wildly. One day it seems the summer might have arrived and the next, whipping winds and a drop in temperature roll us back to early spring weather, and young tender plants suffer serious set-backs.
The reliable way is to start off the seeds indoors, either in a greenhouse or on a warm windowsill. Even if space is at a premium, they take up very little. Unlike many crops such as salads, carrots, onions and radishes, it is not necessary to plant great numbers.
A family will want no more than one or two courgette plants, a single pumpkin and a few dozen beans. Even if you plant double that number of seeds as insurance against losses, it should still be possible to find enough space on your windowsills for a few weeks as the seeds develop.
These seeds tend to germinate quickly — which makes them great plants through which to introduce children to gardening. The fast-growing fat leaves that a courgette, sunflower or pumpkin seed sends up can be mesmerising and hook a child on growing.
And the heart-shaped leaves of young bean plants will bring back images of Jack and the Beanstalk to the toughest nut. Over the weeks, regular watering, turning and potting them on into bigger pots (if necessary) takes little effort and watching their progress is a pleasure.
h4. Planted outside
When the weather warms up properly, they will have reached a size big enough so that they can be planted outside – where they should continue to grow almost as fast as they did indoors. Even in a bad summer, August and September — the months when beans and pumpkins ripen — temperatures tend to be more bankable than the supposed summer months of June and July.
Beans, courgettes and pumpkins perform equally well in the vegetable garden and as dual decorative and productive plants on a balcony or in a container garden. Beans are pretty plants in themselves. The flowers can be beautiful, and trained up a wigwam or obelisk, a half dozen bean plants will create good-looking, almost instant height in a small garden.
There will be some, if not a great many, gardeners who forgot to sow the relevant seeds a few weeks ago. This should not matter. They can still get out to the garden centre, nursery, DIY store, home and farm shop, country market or farmers’ market where they should be able to get hold of a few plants.
Alternatively, a friend with particularly green fingers might oblige with some of their excess seedlings. In desperation you could contact the local horticultural society to see if any of the members might sell you a few plants. They might, in return try to get you to join. Do so. The fund of information washing around these clubs is endless and of an excellent standard.
Once the plants have been obtained and the temperatures are up, harden them off before planting out full-time. Hardening off means putting them outside for a few hours each day. This is to soften the shock between life on the warm windowsill, or snug greenhouse and the contrasting chilly climate outdoors.
h4. All bets off?
When the weather is really safe, hopefully in the first half of June, you should be able to plant them out. (If not, after last year’s miserable summer, all bets might be off as mass exodus from the country will put paid to all gardening plans.) In any case err on the side of caution and do not put them out too soon.
Courgettes are simply young marrows and sometimes called summer squashes.
They take up quite an amount of space. Each plant can take up more than a square metre of space. But they are very productive, and therefore worth the space. They are also pretty.
They can be grown in a big container like a half-barrel or something the same size raised up off the ground as a grand eye-catching feature — perhaps in the middle of a small garden.
The flowers are gorgeous and can be eaten deep-fried. The fruits can be cucumber-shaped or round. ‘Rondo de nice’ is a good round courgette while ‘Patriot’ and ‘Defender’ are tasty traditional-types.
h4. Transplant carefully
They dislike being disturbed, so transplant the little plants carefully when moving them to their permanent home. This should be good and fertile. Some people grow them on top of the compost heap which suits the plants, as the food and heat generated in the heap serves them well. The massed leaves also make the compost heap look considerably better than it will otherwise look.
Once the plant starts to grow, any loose or straggling growth can be pegged into position within the space available. This applies more to squashes and pumpkins than courgettes. Keep the weeds away and water plants regularly until established. When production starts, pick the fruits regularly or they will grow large, become marrows and the plant will stop producing new fruits. The smaller the courgette the tastier it will be.
Beans should be planted in the sunniest, most sheltered, wind-free spot you can afford them. They will also need to be protected for a few weeks from slugs once planted out. Put copper slug rings around the little plants.
Once the young leaves toughen up a bit, the slugs will ignore them and the rings can be removed for use elsewhere. If planting them directly into the soil erect a double row of supports, tied tent-like at the top. Leave about 45cm between each cane and plant two plants per support.
Dwarf cultivars can be planted about 20cm apart and while the larger plants need two-metre tall supports, dwarf plants can manage on pea sticks intertwined. As the pods develop, water regularly and this will help them swell.
Pick the beans as soon as they are large enough. Check the plants thoroughly every second day. It is amazing how fast they can appear and turn into long, stringy monsters if left to their own devices. The whole pod can be eaten if it can be snapped open. When it goes beyond that stage, the young beans inside can be taken out and eaten fresh. They must be cooked, however, as they contain a toxin when raw.
Plants stop producing if you stop picking. The recommendation is generally to leave some pods on the plant to dry and become haricots. But fresh beans are incomparably delicious and always expensive to buy. Good-quality dried haricot beans can be bought easily and cheaply. I would eat them all fresh or freeze the surplus. ‘Blue Lake’ and ‘Cobra’ are good climbers. ‘The Prince’ is a dwarf worth trying.
Runner beans are another tender crop worth growing for both looks and taste. For good looks, ‘Painted Lady’ and ‘Scarlet Emperor’ are hard to beat. Runner beans can grow up to three metres, becoming very heavy plants so be prepared to give them sturdy supports. Put the supports into the ground before the plants.
The same applies to French beans and even peas. (Spearing the roots of small plants with afterthought supports is inadvisable.)
Runner beans can be planted closer than French beans: Leave about 15cm between plants and 60cm between rows. Good fertile deep soil is vital as well as a sunny wind-free spot. Digging a load of compost into the trench sometime before planting is a good idea. Once planted, add a layer of mulch to hold in moisture. Water them well when the weather is dry. If the soil is acid, add lime. Pick the pods when they are about 15-20 cm long. Excess beans can be frozen.
h4. Squashes and sweet corn
Runner beans came from South America where they were traditionally planted in the same beds as squashes and sweet corn. The idea was that the sweet corn would grow tall and the beans would use those strong stems as climbing supports. The two together could then shield the squashes from harsh sun.
While harsh sun is some way from the top of the lists of gardening woes in Ireland, I know some gardeners who use the method these days and swear by growing all three crops in this interdependent way.

Shirley Lanigan says the rewards of growing your own vegetables are many. Even if it won’t solve your financial problems, the satisfaction from growing your own vegetables, herbs or fruit is enormous.
Will growing vegetables be the saving of the nation? Is it at all possible that getting back to nature will prevent our going to the fiscal wall? Can we dig our way to victory, either on an allotment, in the back garden or on a balcony? Of course we can’t. Growing a few spuds is not going to rid us of the woes that government, unfettered market economics and greed have landed us in.

But even so, the garden is arguably the best place to take troubled minds off dwindling bank balances, disappearing pensions and tottering career prospects. It is the perfect retreat in which to recharge before getting back out and into the fray.
h4. Something special
There is something special about eating something home grown – from a modest few herbs sprinkled over the dinner, a rhubarb tart made with sticks from your own patch or a full-blown feast made up entirely of vegetables, fruit and herbs grown by you from seed and scratch.
The satisfaction enjoyed from the diversion and exercise of growing vegetables is not just multiplied, but it is squared and even cubed when you bring the resulting crops into the kitchen. It may not be saving the planet but you will do yourself physical and mental good growing vegetables. And the chef will thank you.
Those who already grow food know and have always known these things. But anyone who has yet to try, should do so. A few hours work and a few weeks waiting is all that it takes to get hooked.
h4. Growth is everywhere
The real experts and enthusiasts started off months ago getting ready to begin growing this year’s vegetables as soon as spring arrived. But leave the experts to their own devices. Early May is as good as any time to start. The ground is warm. The temperatures have risen and growth is everywhere.
This is a perfect time to plant seed. It will germinate quickly, grow like lightening and by the end of June there will already be a few crops ready for harvest as you wait for others to mature. Start with salads. The reasons for beginning with these are many: Firstly, lettuce, in all its guises is almost foolproof to grow. It grows fast and unlike many vegetables, it can be planted anywhere you have a bit of space. It can also be planted in the same spot for several years and does not require rotating in the way many crops do — in order to prevent a build-up of diseases and pests in the soil.
Planted in containers or window boxes, it is possible to be self sufficient in lettuce with nothing more than a windowsill. Into the bargain, you can begin to pick baby leaves a few short weeks after planting the seed. Pulling and eating these makes space for the reduced number of remaining plants to grow bigger and fatten up.
Depending on the space available to you, choose about three of four complimentary varieties. Mix green and red leaves, strong substantial cos-types with softer, loose-leaf and butter-head varieties and some strong tasting endives. Include rocket for a peppery taste and, if space allows, a few Chinese leaves will widen the palette again.
h4. Specially chosen
If working on a small scale, rather than splashing out on a lot of separate packets of each, buy specially chosen mixes of seed. There are thousands of seeds in one packet.
Something to remember with a crop like rocket is that you will rarely need to sow rocket seed for a second year. Rather like parsley, once introduced, it self-seeds around the garden, springing up in unlikely areas in future years and providing free crops. Considering the price of a few wilted rocket stalks in the supermarket, it would be mad not to grow rocket.
If planting directly into the soil, start by digging over the area, removing all weeds including the roots. Rake the ground to take out the stones. Then firm down the area to level and rid it of air pockets.
If the ground is in any way fertile, lettuce will be happy to grow without the addition of fertilizer but some well rotted farmyard manure dug in will always be welcome.
Gluts of any crop are a curse. The secret of growing is to sow little and often.
Draw a stick across the plot making a drill about 1cm deep. Water the drill and sprinkle the seed lightly along it. Cover it with a light dusting of soil and label it. A metre-length drill sown every two weeks through the summer will give enough leaves to feed a family right up to winter.
h4. Initial thinning
The reasons for growing in straight lines are mainly aesthetic. Doing this also allows you recognize the crop as it begins to grow — preventing it being mistaken for the weeds, as there will be plenty of those too. An initial thinning can be made in the line when the little plants are about 10cm tall.
After that, simply cutting or pinching out a few leaves along the length of the row, but leaving the roots in place will allow the plants re-sprout as they are harvested. This is called the Cut-and-Come method of cropping. It is much more productive than simply pulling the whole plant out of the ground. (There is a particularly militant group among Vegans who believes that cut-and-come is the only justifiable way of eating plants. The reasoning is that they do not ‘kill’ the plant while raiding it for food).
Summer spinach is another easy crop that can be sown now. Unlike lettuce it does need a fertile soil. But on the plus side, given our climate, it does not need too much sun. In fact, in full sun it germinates very badly and runs to seed too quickly. Disliking hot dry conditions, its instincts are to set seed and reproduce quickly before it shrivels and dies in the heat. The unremitting rain last year made it a great year for spinach in Irish gardens. But assuming we will enjoy a decent summer this year, choose a moist, slightly shaded soil for best results. Plant it about 3cms deep and keep it well watered.
Spinach beet, also known as Swiss chard, is a less demanding plant than true spinach. It too can be sown now in the same way as spinach. When it grows, thin it so that there are about 16 cms between each plant. The baby leaves can be eaten while the remaining developing plants will deliver right up to next spring. There are several varieties of chard with beautiful red and gold stalks, making it a crop that can earn its keep in a flower border or decorative container garden.
h4. A great vegetable
Beetroot is another crop that can be sown now and in staggered stages up to July. Many of us in the past few years have discovered that there is more to beetroot than the beetroot we grew up on – the pickled slices from a jar.
I would not want to make little of that eye-watering salad beetroot which I still love but it was like revelation when I eventually experienced beetroot — warm, sweet, steamed and tossed in butter. This was a horse of a different colour. Beetroot is one of the greatest vegetables. Thankfully it is also one of the simplest to grow.
Responding to the new-found interest, seed companies are now offering a wider range of beetroot varieties to the gardener in a range of colours — including yellow and white, as well as red and white striped. Actually the red and white striped varieties were always with us but considered to be unwelcome, flawed aberrations.
Today, we seek them out as an interesting variation. I am trying a striped variety called ‘Barbietola di Chioggia’ this year.
h4. Italian
A good number of the more interesting and tastiest vegetable varieties available today are Italian. This is good but remember that coming from warmer climates, some might need slightly better shelter to thrive than tougher varieties bred in Ireland and Britain.
Beetroot seeds generally come in little clusters. Soak them for an hour or two before sowing and they should germinate faster. In any case, in six weeks the baby beets will be ready to lift and eat.
Keep sowing small numbers up to mid-summer and the later sown batches can be left in the ground for use over winter. Beetroot is a great winter vegetable.
Again, as with spinach, make sure not to let beetroot seedlings dry out. If not watered sufficiently, beetroot can taste woody and the globes will obviously, not develop greatly.
Sow it, like spinach about 3cm deep. The leaves of thinned plants can be eaten in salads, steamed of stir-fried.
h4. Make notes
Finally, make notes of the varieties you found particularly tasty, strong-growing and trouble-free so you will remember to include these in your next year’s vegetable garden. Also of those you would prefer not to grow again.