2025 starting the vegetable garden

Spring pictures 2025

Early Season Progress & Techniques

Home Made Cloche with sweet pea seedling and hazel canes

First crops are well on the way, especially quick growing vegetables, with protection from home made cloches

Slots cut in home made cloches to harden off seedlings

Seedlings inside Cloche

• Homemade cloches have been particularly effective for:
  • Starting beetroot, chard, salad leaves and carrots
  • Improving early growth conditions
  • Gaining a 3–4 week head start on harvests
• Hardening off seedlings as weather warms:
  • The outer skins of homemade cloches are now being ripped open slightly
  • This allows seedlings to gradually adjust to outdoor conditions

Succession Planting Strategy

• GardenAdvice members are now sowing continuously every 2 to 4 weeks to produce a steady flow of vegetables through the season and autumn, this includes

Pea & Sweet Pea Support Systems

Hazel Twigs over pea seedings to add support and protection as peas grow

• Hazel sticks (pea sticks) used as natural supports:
  • Sourced from hazel stems with twiggy tops
  • Ideal for peas and sweet peas
  • Can substitute with bamboo canes if needed
• Sweet peas:
  • Planted at the base of the supports
  • Now shooting and climbing
  • Gardeners are starting to add string between supports to assist climbing
• Peas:
  • Germinated well – once germinated cover with pea stick  add support and protection from pigeons
  • Covered with finer twiggy hazel tops for support
  • After harvest, sticks and pea plants will be composted

Potatoes – Two Approaches

Potatoes in containers in a cold glasshouse earthed up

• In containers (unheated greenhouse):
  • Planted halfway down the container
  • Now growing above the top – time to earth up to cover the stems
  • Earthing up produces more early potatoes along the stem
• In beds outdoors (unprotected):
• In plastic-covered beds:
  • Potatoes are beginning to shoot
  • Important to ensure shoots align with holes in plastic
  • Gently pull shoots through the holes in the plastic  if needed
  • Soil beneath will be perfect for autumn crops post-harvest once the potatoes removed

Potatoes growing through plastic sheeting – cut holes in the sheeting for potato shoots to grow through

Garlic Update Planted in cloches and directly into beds

• Two methods used:
  • Direct planting into open beds
  • Planted under cloches for a quick root start

Runner & French Beans

• Runner beans and French beans:
  • Started and now almost ready to be trained onto canes
  • Growing strongly in preparation for summer production

Calendula (Companion Planting)

• Calendula seeds planted in the corners of:
  • Raised beds
  • Traditional beds
• Benefits include:
  • Attracting beneficial insects like bees and lacewings
  • Repelling pests such as aphids