Crops to harvest in June
Asparagus
The spears start appearing at the end of April and it keeps cropping until June. Picking should stop by the 21st to allow enough shoots to be left to unfurl and maintain the crown. Asparagus is an easy crop to grow and look after, so don’t be put off by having to wait a couple of years before you can start harvesting. Once in, it’s surprising how fast those short years pass, you will be picking asparagus for many years to come.
Broad beans and peas
You can sow some broad bean and hardy pea varieties in the autumn for an extra early crop the following year, or sow in early spring for summer harvests. Home-grown peas are sweet and delicious and a great crop to sow in succession, but remember that as soon as you pick a pod, the peas inside will start losing sweetness, as their sugars turn to starch. This happens with sweetcorn too, so if you are cooking them, they need to go straight from plot to pot. Once harvested, leave the base of leguminous plants in the ground and the nitrogen-fixing nodules in the roots will help feed the next crop.
Roots and tubers
Unearthing roots is a bit like digging for buried treasure, except that it’s easy to slice through or prong them on your fork as you lift potatoes, so go carefully
New potatoes – the first of the potatoes are the earlies; these have a waxy texture, hold their shape well when boiled and are the tastiest for salads. Varieties like International Kidney (also known as Jersey Royals), Arran pilot have an almost un-buyable flavour
Short carrots – small and stubby, but full of flavour and easy to grow, these quick to mature carrots are great if you find that the longer varieties fork and fang in your soil (it’s a common and very frustrating problem with carrots). They are great to grow in containers too. Try Chantenay, Early Nantes, or ‘Romeo’, a small round variety about the size of a radish.
Baby beetroot – you can be harvesting baby beets in 12-14 weeks of sowing, so this is another crop that can be sown a few times in the year. Beetroot doesn’t have to be red either – there are yellow varieties and a very pretty one called Chioggia with candy striped flesh that will look amazing sliced into a salad bowl.
Radishes – another quick ‘catch’ crop that can be sown in-between the rows of slower growing vegetables, such as leeks and parsnips, as the radishes will be long gone before the slow crop starts needing the room.
Khol rabi – grow, like radishes between other crops, as these are amazingly quick too. You eat the swollen stem of this plant, which swells like a golf ball halfway down the stalk. It tastes like a broccoli stalk (the part that many children leave on their plates). Slice it into stir-fries or serve in a cheese sauce if broccoli stalks aren’t your thing…
Leafy crops
As temperatures rise and the soil starts to dry out, many leafy crops panic and rush into flower. Known as bolting, this is an annoying habit and hard to prevent. There are ‘bolt resistant’ (boldly claimed on seed packets) varieties of some crops available, but the best thing to do is to avoid growing cool season plants like spinach, rocket, mustard and coriander at vulnerable times of the year. Make an early sowing of these, so that they are ready to harvest just before the hot, dry weather starts and then you can sow another batch in July and August to harvest in the autumn and first part of the winter.
Spinach – bolt resistant types are available, but try sowing several lots for baby leaves, then a perpetual variety later on in the year, which has bigger leaves (a bit like chard) and will last for a long time, possibly through the winter if cloched during the coldest days.
Rocket – if you grow wild rocket and it runs to seed, just leave it to self-sow and you will have a continual crop of peppery leaves to harvest for many months.
Mustards – many mustards self-sow too and these are great leaves to add to both salads and stir-fries
Lettuce and salad leaves – harvest any lettuces before they bolt in hot weather and sow some more in a shadier part of the plot. The most resistant salad leaves are loose-leaved lettuces like ‘Salad Bowl’ and ‘Lollo Rosso’. You can keep picking these and new leaves will grow in a ‘cut and come again’ way.
Herbs
Coriander is notorious for running to seed almost as soon as the first leaves appear, but there is a variety called ‘Cilantro’, or leaf coriander, which will just about manage to contain its enthusiasm and withstand a few harvests.
Thyme, marjoram and mint should be picked while young, before they start to flower – apparently the flavour is strongest then. After flowering the sap may be slightly less concentrated. You can freeze chopped leaves in ice-cube trays.
Parsley is a biennial, so last year’s plants will be giving up about now. Sow some more or leave your old plants to set seed and sow themselves around the place.
Second spring
Gaps will be appearing now that you have harvested some of the crops, or if you are late to the plot, or have only just decided to grow a few vegetables this year. There are plenty of seeds to sow and plants to grow to give you a harvest in the autumn and winter, possibly even into the early part of next year.
It might be too late to sow leeks, tomatoes, squash and to plant potatoes, but nearly everything else is worth a try. In fact, bulb fennel should be sown after the Solstice. Growth may slow after the 21st June and yields may be smaller, but you will get a decent harvest and perhaps at a more convenient time – it is annoying to be on holiday just when all your hard earned work is beginning to bear vegetables. Most of the leafy crops can be sown again now, in fact the bolters (rocket, pak choi, spinach and beetroot and some lettuces) may be better from a late sowing, providing you keep them well watered in hot, dry weather.
Whatever the weather, whatever you have grown, are growing, or might get round to growing, it is a heartening time of the year to be outside and never too late to start; in fact now could be the perfect time…
Contact Jo on 01233 861149 hornbrookmanor.co.uk for details of courses and workshops
