Growing too soon for your eating needs

[Primrose]

We've talked previously on here about sowing too early in the season but I wonder if anybody else has my dilemma in terms of growing crops which seem to be at their best cropping stage at the height of summer but are never really eaten much until winter. I think specifically of things like Cavalo Nero, Swiss Chard, etc. which we tend to eat more of in winter in heavier cooked meals, concentrating our summer eating more on salad leaves. Consequently some of of what I grow gets wasted. I seem psychologically incapable of leaving some bare patches until later in the season for sowing and planting such vegetables and like to see everything growing together. Should I join an early sowers therapy group?

[glallotments]

We have some bare patches now where peas and beans have been, onions lifeted and potatoes dug etc. up which we can use for winter crops. So we get everything filled up as you like but then refill for winter.

I'm not sure how late you can leave sowing but we will be planting winter cabbage plants etc. later

[Westi]

Sign me up Primrose - I am the same.

Don't like bare earth so always sowing something to fill the gaps and
that is generally any seed that is opened and near the use by. Sometimes I am lucky and get another harvest, sometimes I am generally surprised - it really is hard to read the print on the inner packets when snails have nibbled the paper, and at worst it goes on the compost when
frosted so generally a win - win. And it is kind of nice getting the first
of something much earlier than expected.

Westi

[Chantal]

I'm sure we're all the same Primrose, but I have to say my Cavalo Nero and Swiss chard go right the way through until next summer. I only threw out the last Cavalo Nero around a month ago and it was still cropping!

[Johnboy]

Hi Primrose,
Of course you a perfectly correct in what you say and we are all, to a degree, guilty of bad planning.
The whole idea of growing is to give yourself the maximum output through all the seasons.
Quite a while back I proffered an idea to prevent gluts and to maximise the output through a very strict sowing regime. This was poo-pooed because for some unknown reason people enjoyed having gluts.
Take as an example, people buy-in plants or over sow and plant out 15 Broccoli all the same variety this is far too many for the normal family needs and it means that the land usage is wasted. (I do grow over 20 plants but I feed the entire village which is another thing altogether.) I suspect that cooperation between growers on allotments could solve this by different people growing different varieties thus extending the picking seasons and then sharing. It would appear that sharing is something that people shy away from but small cooperatives is one way to get the best out of all seasons and increase the range of vegetables grown.
Now I am aware that you garden at home but you must have some gardening friends which you could inveigle to share grow with. By share growing a wider range of plants can be grown over the entire seasons.
I throw this open to debate and would like to know what other contributors think.
JB.

[Mike Vogel]

The idea of cooperating with neighbours is great, JB. The trouble is that you need to meet often enough to work things out; my fellow allotment growers don't seem to be around when I am and a lot of them don't have English as their first language. Rotation could be managed on a large scale between 4 or more growers.

But I'm amazed that you are getting Cavolo Nero now. Mine is about 6 inches high if that. Sown at the end of May. Should I have done that sooner?

Our gluts are of what comes in season, if they do well: runner beans, spuds [most of what I've dug up so far are "keepers"], strawberries in June and, of course, cougettes and squashes. But we freeze these or make soup bases from what we don't give away, so I've grown 3 kinds of broccoli this year and we will have a glut of that next spring, but it gets given away or frozen. We find that by the time the next year's produce is ready, we are out of the previous year's.

[glallotments]

We share sort of informally amongst a group of friendly plotters. When we have gluts we give stuff away to one another as most of us have stuff ready at different times or different things - except courgettes which are difficult to give away as most people grow their own.

We also share in we have plants or seeds left over.

[Johnboy]

Hi Glallotments and Mike,
Thank you for your replies. The point that I am really trying to make is that if you all grow the same thing and you all have gluts at the same time then a wastage of growing space has occurred.
I think that time should be made not when you are all on the plot because that time is too valuable. A discussion over a glass of wine or a beer in the Pub is more what I envisage.
I am at a disadvantage becuse I am not an allotmenteer and also have more ground that I can easily manage so several (and if truth to tell most of them) of my plots are covered with HD black polythene.
JB.

[WestHamRon]

Hi Glallotments and Mike,
Thank you for your replies. The point that I am really trying to make is that if you all grow the same thing and you all have gluts at the same time then a wastage of growing space has occurred.
I think that time should be made not when you are all on the plot because that time is too valuable. A discussion over a glass of wine or a beer in the Pub is more what I envisage.
I am at a disadvantage becuse I am not an allotmenteer and also have more ground that I can easily manage so several (and if truth to tell most of them) of my plots are covered with HD black polythene.
JB.

Have you thought about renting them out, Johnboy?

[Johnboy]

Hi Ron,
For several years I have tried to get people to have an allotment where I live but sadly I live exceedingly rurally and most people hereabouts who have the slightest interest in growing already have masses of land by comparison to an allotment. The thing that we lack most here is people! There is a very good interchange of produce between us all. I grow Broccoli and have it on the menu most of the year, since the introduction of the summer varieties, but I do not grow summer cabbages and this year no outdoor Tomatoes yet I have or will have a plentiful supply of both in the fullness of time. I make many sowings of Swiss Chard and it is pulled young as well as mature plants for autumn and winter use. These sowings keep the villagers going who either swap something or buy from me. I have a late sowing of Dwarf French Beans of far too many for my needs and these are growing in portable containers and as the weather gets colder will be transported into one of the tunnels and produce long after anything outside will have been killed off by the frost. I wonder how many people have a greenhouse that is underused and could be doing the same.
JB.

[glallotments]

Hi JB,
I don't think people would want to operate in the sort of way you describe on our site. They are too interested in growing a variety of things and choosing their own varieties etc. and to some extent being independent and doing their own thing. Also is we worked in a formalised co-operative way just think of the pressure if you had a crop failure and let other people down or didn't grow enough to go round..

To be honest it seems to work well on the sort of informal way that I described. We never have any problems giving excess away to either other plot holders or friends and family. And if we don't have any cauliflowers there is always someone who has plenty and comes and gives us one of theirs.

[Johnboy]

Hi Glallotments,
So what it boils down to is that you manage your gluts and enjoy them.
This means that opinion has not changed. You swap in an informal way but to make any commitment would not be favourable.
This is one of those things that works out in theory but when it comes to it, falls flat! Back to the drawing board!
JB.

[glallotments]

I regularly go back to my drawing board!!!

It's a bit like car sharing - works for some but causes falling out for others. I remember at one time giving lifts to a colleague (not really car sharing). The trouble was he kept me hanging around waiting for him which was really annoying and didn't take any of my open hints.