Growing up, getting out

Perhaps it is no accident that growers cultivate seedlings in a ‘nursery’, where horticultural babies are protected and cosseted under glass. Like a child starting school, the young plants then need to be acclimatised gently to the real world, with a cold frame or fleece to give them some protection outdoors- the ‘kindergarten’ stage, perhaps. Most nerve racking, though, is the planting out which Bev and her team have been doing this week, where the plantlets have to be put out to take their chances in the open ground. Tiny parsley plants in neat uniform rows on the huge field look as lost as a newcomer to the corridors of secondary school.

We’ve done our best to make the process easier for the runner bean plants, by lining the planting trenches with used potato sacks, to retain moisture, as well as lots of composting vegetable matter. That should give them something to get their toes into, so they are not so much at the mercy of the elements. Pea plants also need to establish a good root structure, so we sowed the seeds in toilet-roll middles instead of plastic pots. That gave them a good long root run, and means we can plant them out, roll and all, without undue trauma. For all that, their tendrils do wave wistfully before they can grasp their supporting poles. No doubt they’ll get a grip.