Wellbeing/gardening
From small pot to big plot... and plate
With light levels at a minimum and little or no active
growth outdoors, it’s easy to think this is the time to
put your feet up! But remember: the early bird catches
the worm, and preparing for the year ahead can bring
much-needed sparkle come springtime.
With Alice Whitehead
5
things...
Homegrown health
GARDEN GADGETS
provides a sweet and
What: Celeriac nutty flavour to a myriad Super sowing
To do now
Why: While it’s high in of dishes. Grate alongside
Give your seedlings a
1 Force rhubarb under vitamin C, dietary fibre parsnip in warming bakes;
hard start with this heated
straw and cloches. and potassium, this blend into soup; roast, or
windowsill propagator,
2 Prune fruit trees and bushes. root vegetable is low in mix with potatoes for a
which has seven lidded seed-
3 Tackle hard landscaping and saturated fat and very low superior mash.
raising trays that are gently
prepare the ground.
in cholesterol. Fit tip: You’ll burn about
heated by a 15-watt element.
4 Start chitting seed potatoes
How: Not to be judged by 50 calories by harvesting
● Super 7 Propagator,
(see the ‘Ask Us’ section for
its knobbly cover, celeriac a row of celeriac.
£39.99, www.thompson-
more details).
morgan.com, 0844 248 5383
5 Inspect stored crops regularly
Young shoots: ● Add some ‘worm food’
for signs of rot.
gardening with kids such as kitchen veg
Seed bed
This airtight tin makes a
To sow and plant now
Making your own mini scraps and cover with
superior home for saved
wormery is a fascinating a cloth secured with an
Broad beans, shallots, garlic, seeds and bulbs, helping cut
winter project for kids and a elastic band.
fruit bushes, plus indoor sowings the cost of your garden and
of spring/summer crops such
great way for them to learn ● Keep in a cool dark
allotment shopping bill.
as tomatoes, early leeks, onions
more about composting: place and keep moist but
● Bulbs & Seed Box, £15,
and celery.
● Take a large cut-off bottle and not wet (if it starts to smell it
www.gardentrading.co.uk,
make some holes in the bottom needs to be discarded!).
0845 608 4448
To harvest now
for drainage and at the top for ● Kids will love watching the
Brussels sprouts, celeriac,
aeration, then layer with sand, worms process the vegetable
red and green cabbage, kale soil and leaf litter. scraps into compost (but
and parsnips. ● Send the kids out to collect the remember to release the
worms (wet and shady areas are worms back into the wild after
best) and pop into the bottle. two or three weeks!).
3 ways with... winter salads
or plastic, sow your
Pot As a cool levels increase) – in salad leaves and make
Ask us
weather crop, pots outside the kitchen a cover from fleece,
Q How do I chit
each potato and stand
it’s possible door for easy picking garden canes and pegs
seed potatoes?
it up on its end so that
to have salad (as long as it’s a sunny to keep the frost at bay.
A Chitting gets seed
the rose end (this is
leaves for all seasons spot, with a cloche for
Plate Conjure up
potatoes off to a
the end with the most
(though they will be protection), in trays in
the essence of warm
flying start and can
‘eyes’) is on top. Put
slower growing). Good the greenhouse, or on
ones to try include: a windowsill. summer days by serving
produce earlier and
them on a windowsill,
corn salad, mibuna, pasta with home-made
heavier crops. It’s best
in a cool room, with
Asian mustard, winter Plot If you’re lucky rocket pesto; shred
to start chitting from
plenty of natural
purslane, endive, rocket enough to have a radicchio leaves into
late January onwards
light (but not direct
and radicchio. If you polytunnel, you can sow a red wine risotto; or
(and about six weeks
sunlight) and the eyes
didn’t sow before the early outdoors. But if make an Asian chicken
before planting) by
should start sprouting.
end of November, you you don’t, simply warm salad with mizuna
spreading the potatoes
Once these long, dark
can get sowing again the soil for a week or so leaves in a lime and
out in seed trays or
shoots are 5cm long,
in January (once light by covering with fleece lemon grass dressing.
old egg boxes. Take
it’s time to plant.
Sweet Magazine 65
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