Kitchen Garden Magazine

Grow your own fruit and veg with the UK's No. 1 Kitchen Garden magazine

Jobs for January

This month we welcome back Sue Hoy to the pages of KG. Sue is head gardener at the wonderful restored Victorian walled garden at Normanby Hall near Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire and will be bringing you her top tips and essential tasks to take you through the gardening year

Delicious rhubarb

Rhubarb has always been a very under-rated crop, but is at last beginning to get the recognition it deserves. It’s easy to grow, requiring little maintenance, and is a real seasonal treat in spring. If you take action now, by forcing a few roots, you can have a really early, succulent crop. Forced rhubarb is sweeter, and much more tender than a crop growing in the open ground, and it’s easy to achieve.

Make sure that dead leaves and stems are cleared away from the plant before covering the new nubbly shoots, which should be visible with a bucket or large pot. If you have it, pile up fresh manure around the pot, which will add heat to speed up the forcing. The earliest forced crop should be ready in late February/March dependent on the variety. Check after a few weeks to see how the pale stems are developing. The same plants shouldn’t be forced each year because repeated forcing will weaken them.

There are relatively few rhubarb varieties in general cultivation, which is a pity because each variety has a unique flavour. ‘Hawke’s Pink Champagne’ for example has lovely pale pink stems and a sweet, delicate flavour when it is forced. ‘Prince Albert’ and ‘Myatt’s Victoria’ are also good forms and worth seeking out, or beg a piece of a plant with good flavour from a fellow plotholder.

Rhubarb can also easily be grown from seed, and most seed companies offer at least one variety – usually ‘Glaskin’s Perpetual’ or ‘Victoria’. Both seed-raised and newly planted rhubarb should be left until the second year before cropping, and then only take a few stems. After that, as long as they’re mulched regularly with well-rotted manure, they should crop well for many years.

KG top tips

• Snails always come top of every gardener’s hit list. Reduce numbers for next year by finding their over-wintering sites beneath ledges on sheds and greenhouses, underneath windowsills and behind plants at the base of walls. Pull them out and leave them on the patio as a welcome high-protein winter feast for thrushes.

• The depths of winter are the lull before the storm. Take advantage of this quieter time in the garden to make life easier in the frantic spring rush. Sort out last year’s canes and discard or burn any that are not fit to keep.

• Damaged longer canes can be cut down for use on shorter crops or for staking in the greenhouse. Clean the canes and order replacements where needed.

KG quickies

• There’s nothing better than a spicy dollop of creamy horseradish with roast beef – so why not grow some in the garden? It can be planted now, either from a division or bought-in plants. The top of the parsnip-like root should be planted 5cm (2in) below soil level. It does well in any soil.

• A layer of straw placed over root crops like parsnips and swedes will protect the soil from frost and make it easier to dig them up in bad weather. Don’t put it on during a frost though, or the ground will stay frozen.

• Order seeds and seed potatoes for delivery next month. Most garden centres carry a wider range than they used to, but a specialist should be able to offer upwards of 50 varieties. Catalogues will also list the best varieties for particular uses, disease resistant, and heritage potatoes like the delicious ‘Ratte’.

• Put pots or buckets over plants of seakale to force the tender white stems into growth. This unusual, but trouble-free vegetable provides a distinct change from the root crops and brassicas available at the moment. The stems can be eaten raw, or gently steamed and served with butter.

For lots more advice, see this month's issue, available to buy online!

Copyright information

© Mortons Media Group • | Subscribe | Renew | Buy current issue | Kitchen Garden offers shop