A bountiful crop of peas

Organic Vegetables M-Z

Listed below is the second half of Organic Vegetable growing tips.

Melons:

The cultural techniques are the same as cucumber, feed and feed and water! However, these are best grown on the ground because of the weight of the melon. When the melon fruit sets put a handful of bark under the fruit. This stops the caterpillars and other chewing insects from eating the skin and allowing fungal diseases to start in the wound. Corn and melons are great companions so interplant one with the other. Melons are ready to pick when they sound hollow when tapped.

Parsley:

Strictly a Herb but every Organic Vegetable Garden should have some planted. They are great companions for most vegetables especially Tomatoes. Keep picking the sprigs to maintain a constant supply all season. Add to soups and stews to increase your Iron content.

Peas:

My favourite, there is nothing better than peas straight off the vine and into your Tum. Peas seem to do really well on Cow manure, dig a trench where you are going to sow your seed and add a layer of cow manure water well and then cover up. There are several different varieties, early late, tall, compact, you choose. The best for my money is WF Massey, a tall later variety that produces a heap of Peas for a long time. Most are grown up mesh fencing, the taller types get to 1.5m, avoid watering overhead as they are prone to Powdery Mildew if the foliage gets wet. Normally pest free.

Peppers:

Capsicums are slow to produce any fruit but are relatively easy to grow a crop. Remove the first flower as this tends to become dominant over the rest of the crop. They don’t need a lot of manure but keep them topped up through the season to ensure they produce well into Autumn. Larger varieties should be staked as they are a bit top heavy when laden with fruit. Californian Wonder is a good reliable type that has nice solid fruit all be it a little slow to turn Red. Capsicums come in Orange and Yellow as their final colour now for something different. The Orange coloured fruit is quite tasty, it has a bit of bite to its flavour.

Potato:

This vegetable is easy to grow and mostly trouble free. No Dig potatoes are covered in another part of this site. I prefer this method as it is easy and saves the hard work of digging over your soil. However, if you want to grow your Potatoes in the ground ensure you work the ground over well prior to planting (rotary hoeing is best). Incorporate plenty of compost and either cow or sheep manure, never chicken manure as this will encourage your potatoes to bolt and produce very little in the way of tubers. When you plant the seed potato lay them in a trench about 200mm deep and place approximately 100mm of soil back on top. When there are 200mm of new shoots above the soil level hill them up (rake the soil around the new growth) this ensures plenty of Potatoes are waiting for you at harvest time. When they have finished flowering they can be harvested from that point on however they will continue to size up until the tops have died. Add some Skim Milk Powder at planting as a bit extra natural fertiliser. Watch out for blight if you get a run of wet weather during the growing season, if you cop a dose use Baking Soda at 5ml / L this should stop it its tracks.

Pumpkin:

Pumpkin and Squash are both great plants for roughing it. If you have a corner of your garden that doesn’t grow much or is just full of weeds etc then these two are for you. Clear an area a metre wide and dig a hole 300-400mm deep and fill with compost any manure you have got and a couple of handfuls of Lime to boot. Fill the hole back in, incorporate some extra compost and manure at the top of the hole. Just sow the seed into this and stand back and watch the crop grow. Lay some newspaper/cardboard and mulch around the newly germinated plants to keep them weed free and water regularly during dry spells. Keep an eye out for Powdery Mildew during wet weather, you may need to give them a spray of Baking Soda at 5ml/L to stop its progress. There is a list of Organic Fungicides in another part of this of this site. Harvest the pumpkins when the stalks have dried and store in a well ventilated dark spot. Generally, they are not troubled by any pests.

Radish:

Another of my favourites, they are great companions for most crops in your garden so have a few here and a few there to keep the harvest constant and aid the growth of your other vegetables.

Spread a layer of compost on top of the ground, sow Radish seed on that and then cover with some more compost and water. In a month’s time, you will start to enjoy juicy crunchy radishes.  They grow too fast for any pest to be of great concern to them. Occasionally you may get a few holes in their leaves but it’s not worth worrying about.

Tomato:

These are covered in Organic Tomato.

Zucchini:

Zucchini or Courgettes as they are sometimes called are another vegetables that will produce a lot of fruit for very little effort. Treat in a similar fashion to pumpkins, dig a hole and fill with any manner of manure and compost and sow a couple of seeds on top. Thin out to one plant and then water well and give them the odd feed of liquid fertiliser. Pick them regularly and they will produce right up to the first frost. Again they can be prone to a little Powdery Mildew but treat in the usual way. They are yummy on the barbeque. 

Be Happy,

Barry.

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