Seeds to sow in the summer

Over the last fortnight, I've been asked to produce lists of what can be sown now. 

These questions have originated from the community gardens I support and Twitter.  Its a good question to ask just as we are on the brink of the glut season.  Times will be good for the next 6 weeks or so, but if we don't plan now there won't be much to eat from the garden come early autumn. 

I've also heard it mentioned that we Brits are very good at sowing seeds in spring but don't tend to keep the habit up through out the year!

So here are my suggestions:

Brassicas:
Pak Choi
Kohl Rabi
Komatsuna
Red Russian Kale
Turnips (for autumn crop)
Winter Radish

Salad:
All types of salad can still be sown, especially with the wet weather we've been experiencing
Corn Salad (for winter crop)
Sorrel
Mustard
Pea shoots (for summer salad crop) - in a week or two you will start to get shoots big enough to add to your salad

Solanaceae:
Spuds - quite like the idea of eating some home grown spuds with my Christmas dinner.  Home grown roasties...yumm!

Beets:
Chard
Beetroot

Roots:
Carrots (there are many more colours than the orange variety we find in the shops - I'm trying Pennard Plants rainbow carrots this year)

Real Seeds have also prepared a selection for summer sowing.  Here's their Summer Sowing Ideas

Happy sowing!

Home Grown Salad Potatoes

This spring I decided to try growing salad potatoes for the first time.  I grew them in a potato sack, and as per the instructions I found on the internet, half filled the bag with compost, placed my chitted potatoes in the bag and liberally covered them with a chunk more compost.  As the shoots started to come through, as per the instructions, I kept covering them with more compost until I reached the top level of the bag.

Potatoes are in the solanaceae family and as a general rule that family likes lots of sun, lots of water and lots of feed, so I basically treated them a bit like tomatoes but with out the removal of side shoots and no need for supports.

I waited until all the top shoots were flowering and then checked if any potatoes were there...

And it really paid off!

This is it....  I will be growing potatoes every spring from now on.  Even in a small container garden you get a really good crop.  I harvested 900g of salad potatoes from the potato growing sack in the picture above.  It really was like digging for treasure!

Salad potatoes are usually pretty pricey so this is a great crop to grow at home.  And don't they look perfect? 

They were so crisp to cut.  I get an enormous pleasure chopping food I've grown myself.  Its a mixture of pride, having earnt the privelege through nurturing and watering and now getting the reward from all that hard work.  Lots of emotions!

What did I do with my new found bounty? you might ask...  I made the most wonderful potato salad.  The potatoes were so crisp to cut through, only needed a light brushing to remove the earth so I par-boiled them and promptly made some homemade mayonnaise to go with and a few chopped salad onions to garnish (also from the garden).  It really was very yummy!

Here's a link to my Potato Salad recipe