Gadenin日本語Get the appKeep the water even and the growth unbroken
This crop is almost entirely water and leaf, and it grows fast in a short season. Any check to that growth shows up in the finished plant as a smaller rosette and stringier stalks, and unlike a fruiting crop there is no later stage in which it can catch up. The aim is soil that never dries below two inches (5 cm) from sowing until the day you cut.
In practice that is about an inch (25 mm) of water a week while the weather is still warm, dropping to half that once nights are cool and the plants are growing more slowly. Deliver it in one or two long soakings rather than daily sprinkling. A soaking that wets the top eight inches (20 cm) draws the taproot down; a daily splash keeps the roots in the top inch where the next warm afternoon punishes them.
Watch the plants at midday in the first few weeks. Slight wilting in the afternoon that recovers by evening is normal in warm weather and not a signal to water. Leaves that are still limp at dawn mean the bed is genuinely dry, and the plant has already lost growth. Mulching with an inch or two (2 to 5 cm) of compost once thinning is done removes most of this guesswork, and it also keeps the lowest leaves off bare soil, which matters later when they get big and start lying down.
| Stage | Water | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Germination to first true leaf | Light daily to keep the surface damp | Crusting; flea beetle holes on the seed leaves |
| Seedling to 6 in (15 cm) | 1 in (25 mm) per week, one soaking | Afternoon wilt that fails to recover by dawn |
| Rapid leaf growth | 1 to 1.5 in (25 to 38 mm) per week | Pale color, slowing growth, crowding |
| Cold weather, near full size | 0.5 in (12 mm) per week or rainfall only | Wet crowns, rotting lower leaves |
Feed early, and stop feeding before the cold
All the growth happens in a compressed autumn window, so the fertility has to be waiting in the ground rather than arriving late. Work three inches (8 cm) of well-rotted compost into the bed before sowing. On soil that has not grown a well-fed crop recently, add a balanced granular feed at the rate on the pack at the same time, raked into the top few inches.
Give one liquid feed high in nitrogen when the plants have five or six true leaves, which is usually two to three weeks after the final thinning. Give a second three weeks later only if the plants look pale or the growth has clearly slowed. That is the whole feeding program. Two feeds in the right fortnight do more than five spread across the season.
Stop feeding at least a month before your first hard frost. Soft nitrogen-driven growth going into a freeze is exactly the growth that collapses and rots at the crown, and a plant carrying rot in the center is not worth cutting. Hardened plants that stopped being pushed a month earlier take frost without visible damage.
Resist the temptation to overfeed for size. Excess nitrogen makes huge pale floppy leaves with soft stalks and poor keeping quality, and this family stores nitrate in the leaf when overfed under the low light of late autumn. A slightly hungry plant makes better eating than a stuffed one.
Give it room and keep the base clean
At full size the leaves of neighboring plants overlap and the ground beneath them stays permanently damp and dark. That is where the problems of the crop live. Slugs shelter there through the day, downy mildew starts there in still weather, and the lowest leaves yellow, lie flat and begin to rot against the soil.
Once a fortnight, lift the outer leaves of each plant and look underneath. Snap off any leaf that has yellowed or gone slimy, take it out of the bed rather than dropping it between the rows, and clear away fallen debris. Five minutes per row keeps the base of the plants airy and removes the slug hotel at the same time.
If your rows are closer than eighteen inches (45 cm) and the canopy has closed completely, take out every other plant and use it. A smaller number of well-aired plants gives more usable weight than a crowded row that turns yellow from the inside in the first wet spell.
- Leave the mesh on as long as you can Fine mesh over hoops keeps out flea beetles and cabbage white butterflies at the same time, and this crop needs no pollination, so there is no reason to take it off. Lift it to weed and thin, and leave it until the plants press against it.
- Weed with a hoe only while plants are small Run a hoe between rows until the leaves start to meet, then stop. Late hoeing damages the surface roots that a big rosette depends on, and the closed canopy suppresses weeds by itself.
- Note when the canopy closes The date the leaves of neighboring plants first touch is a useful marker. Compare it with your sowing date across seasons and it tells you whether your spacing and your sowing window are matched.
A container crop is possible but it must be a big container. One plant needs a pot at least twelve inches (30 cm) across and ten inches (25 cm) deep, and it will need water almost daily in warm weather. Two plants in one large trough do better than two in separate small pots.
Cold weather care
Once frosts begin, care becomes mostly a matter of leaving the plants alone. They are hardy and will take repeated frost down to about 20F (minus 7C) unprotected, and the cold does the crop a favor rather than damage. Stop feeding, cut watering back to whatever the rain provides, and keep clearing dead lower leaves.
A low tunnel or a double layer of row cover over the row extends usable condition considerably in a hard winter, and more importantly it keeps the leaves clean and dry so they are pleasant to handle. Support it on hoops so the cover does not lie on the leaves, because a wet cover frozen against a leaf marks it.
Do not handle frozen plants. Leaves at 25F (minus 4C) are brittle and bruise into mush where you touch them, and the bruising shows up as brown patches once they thaw. Wait until the middle of the day when the plant has softened, then work.