The Easiest to Grow Vegetables and Fruit from Bealtaine Cottage
Colette O'Neill
Potatoes.Last year I grew them successfully on straw and manure spread on the ground on top of cardboard.The ground was in perfect condition afterwards for digging in a new Rhubarb bed.
Swiss Chard.A cut and come again crop. It just keeps on giving!Here it is growing outdoors during the winter.The frost may set it back but it grows again quickly from the root.Swiss Chard in the tunnel today…Ruby ChardEat young leaves as salad or cook.You can sow directly into the soil, but I prefer to start almost everything off in pots to give them some strength to resist the slugs!Dark Ruby Chard has over-wintered well in the tunnel
The stalks are marvellously coloured and can be white, as above, yellow, red, and orange, so they can look great in flower beds too!
Beetroot grows easily and stays in the ground over winter, so can be harvested without fuss.If left in the ground until the following spring, you will be able to harvest some young leaves from the plant too.Great in Juices too!Parsley…a biennial, so will over-winter perfectly and not be set back by frost if protected just a little, like above, using an old bottom-less bread tin.
Pumpkins…grow the same as Butternut Squash…the more enriched the soil, the bigger they grow…so, watch out! Pumpkin and Butternut Squash…I grew these from saved seeds from the previous year.Just make sure that the soil is enriched with lots of well rotted manure, or good compost, for they are hungry plants!Apples…invest in a few apple trees…fruit trees will never let you down! I have planted around forty fruit trees of all varieties here at Bealtaine Cottage.When in blossom, fruit trees are a wonderful source of food for the Bees…Blackcurrants…the gardens at Bealtaine are infested with them! I have grown all of my Blackcurrant bushes from seed or cuttings!I have a surplus of Blackcurrant cuttings at the moment and these are offered for sale at this link…http://bealtainecottage.com/seeds-for-sale/
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“…the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.”
― Wendell Berry
