Welcome to the third ‘Follow Us’ update of 2021, a space where we talk about how we’re growing in our own Ergrownomics raised planters this year, and walk you through how you can achieve the same results at home, yourself...Feel free to follow along, and be sure to follow us on Instagram & Facebook to never miss an update! As usual, key is at the bottom, so scroll down now!
March ended this week, with the weather causing quite a stir! It reached in excess of 24.5oC in London (20oC in Hereford), making the 30th March, 2021, the warmest day in 57 years. However, as always seems to be the way, temperatures plummeted into single figures the next day and have remained stubbornly there ever since - with overnight frost and strong, drying winds compounding the misery, and ensuring that sowing the outdoor planters was probably folly. The above has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt the value of the cloches in evening out the weathers lumps and bumps in the spring.
The Lamb’s lettuce and American Land cress in Planter 1 did not take kindly to the short but sharp increase in temperature, with both bolting almost instantaneously! We did try the small delicate yellow flower heads of the American Land cress, and the similar white flowers of the Lambs lettuce, but neither were particularly pleasant.
Spring Onion ‘White Lisbon Winter Hardy’ in Planter 2 continues to grow well having now fully shaken off the damage suffered during the winter months as a result of the new growth, and reaching 150mm (or thereabouts) in height.
The increasing temperatures which built to the hiatus on the 30th March should have triggered the three rockets in Planter 3 to germinate. However, disappointingly, only a handful of seedlings of Rocket ‘Wasabi Arugula’ in Row 1 emerged. This confirms the greater importance of soil temperature than air temperature on germination and the need for a sustained period of at least moderate air temperature (mid-teens) to produce any meaningful increase in soil temperature.
Seedlings of all three radishes in Planter 4 have all made good progress since last week. The cloche was removed on the radishes during the daytime in the first half of the week to prevent any risk of the plants overheating, but replaced at night given the risk of frosts. The cloches are fortunately easily removed and replaced to allow this sort of ‘toing-and-froing’!
This week we are continuing to harvest Lettuce ‘Artic King’ in the vented polytunnel. Artic king is a hearting lettuce but is brilliant as a line lettuce as it grows from the centre, pushing older leaves outwards as they increase in size. The leaves are very accessible and easy to snap off cleanly at the base which is well above the soil surface guarding against the risk of infection by pests and diseases. The larger leaves are quite stiff with a crunchy stalk. The planter shown contains 18 lettuces and produces half a dozen large leaves a day, which is more than sufficient for two rounds of sandwiches and has being doing this for 12 weeks so far! We are also now harvesting new season chives and garlic chives from the planter. These taste great and do a great deal to elevate an average omelette! The planter also contains native birdsfoot trefoil which, as a nitrogen fixer, is a useful addition; it’s also colourful when the chives are past their best and appreciated by bees. The planters do provide opportunities for complementary planting, although this example is a happy accident borne out the trefoils ability to defeat our overzealous weeding!