January marks the start of the gardening year and we take time to relax and plan while we wait for the cold winter air to grow warmer in the spring – and we can dream of summer vegetables for the kitchen table, along with the prospect of growing and picking our own delicious tomatoes.
Tomatoes are one reason gardeners invest in a greenhouse, and the good news is the plants usually do well even in a unpredictable British summer, given a warm sheltered spot, along with plenty of moisture and good feeding – but the seeds will need to be started indoors on a warm windowsill, in a propagator, or in a warm greenhouse.
Support the main stem of the plant with a cane and pinch the side shoots out when they appear – and then remove the top growing point once 4-5 trusses (bunches) have formed. My favourite variety is Moneymaker, a heavy cropper of tasty fruit, and for outdoor planting I use Marmande, a semi-bush beefsteak tomato.
No garden should be without cucumbers so I grow outdoor ridge Burpless Green and no salad would complete without lettuce freshly cut from the garden, and the varieties I grow are the all the year round butterhead lettuce, Little Gem – a small cos lettuce, and Webbs Wonderful, a traditional favourite with large crisp hearts.
Adding taste to salad
Radishes are the simplest and quickest vegetable to grow to give a bit of taste to your salad, the most popular variety being French Breakfast.
Growing your own strawberries is rewarding, tasting so much better than the ones you buy from the supermarket. The strawberry runners (plants) you plant in March will be bearing fruit in June / July, and Cambridge Favourite is a reliable variety producing superb flavoured fruit for eating and jam making. A strawberry that produces large bright scarlet berries is Royal Sovereign.
Image Credits: John Minter .
Some of my favourites are Cobra climbing beans, a new variety of patio tomato called Maskotka, swiss chard (which grows in the winter too), and courgettes Defender or Zucchini (although there are more compact ones if you have little space). I grow my tomatoes along a fence in surprisingly small pots–as long as you give them plenty of water and feed them they’ll give you masses of fruit, and we’re still eating tomato dishes stored in the freezer. I agree with you that Moneymaker is an excellent, easy tomato, reliably germinating even just on a windowsill with no extra help. We’re very lucky to have a mild climate here in Rye, which gives an early start to all kinds of vegetables.