Intercropping & Catch Cropping 3

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Scorzonera or black salsify

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Increase your harvest with intercropping and catch cropping part 3 of 3

By: Richard Bailey, Wallington, Surrey

Catch Cropping Cont.

Several short day crops that we usually sow after the end of June, Chinese cabbage and Florence fennel for example, can also be sown early under cold glass (or on a window sill). If they are set out and harvested at the same time as the lettuce they too will leave ground clear for later crops. Sown early, while the days are still short, these crops are far less likely to run to seed than if sown in April or May. Do not, however, expect such large plants as you would get from a late summer sowing.

Outdoor sowings of chop suey greens, corn salad (lambs' lettuce) or land cress made in March will also yield a useful crop before the end of May.

Over the summer the classic examples of catch cropping are those crops that you can grow between rows of trench celery or blanch leeks (grown for the kitchen not for show!). If you plant them out at the same time as the celery or leeks you can take a crop of dwarf French beans from plants started in pots. Plant them alongside in the soil you will use for earthing up. Salad plants such as radishes or salad onions can be sown in situ while lettuce, kohl rabi or calabrese can be set out as good sized plants from pots. Catch crops can also be grown between rows of runner or climbing French beans - to be harvested before the beans cast too much shade.

In the autumn there are several useful examples of catch crops to use ground before it becomes frozen.

I always sow a few of the small, round summer radishes in early September to crop in late October. They fill space from which I have cleared summer brassicas or potatoes. Often they are joined by various oriental greens - pak choi and red mustard for cutting as very small plants (try them stir fried whole) or mibuna which I gather leaf by leaf. Spinach, spinach beet and orache can also be sown then, again for cutting as small plants. And corn salad to last through the winter will be sown at the same time.

For both intercropping and catch cropping the possibilities are legion. As new, quick maturing, crops are introduced, especially the increasingly popular oriental vegetables, the possibilities increase every year. And we should always keep a look out as we travel. In northern Portugal last summer I saw climbing beans grown up sweet corn with squashes trailing all through the mixed crop. But I need not have travelled so far. When I got home I saw exactly the same on an allotment in Wandsworth. And, surprise, surprise, the tenant was Portuguese! It was too late for me to try it last year, but I am thinking of doing so this summer.

Intensive cropping, by any mode, will seldom win you a red ticket on the show bench - but it will usually save on the housekeeping.

This is part two of three:

Increase your harvest with intercropping and catch cropping part 1

Increase your harvest with intercropping and catch cropping part 2

Increase your harvest with intercropping and catch cropping part 3

This article originally appeared in the Members Bulletin, the journal of the National Vegetable Society, which is sent quarterly to members. You can Join the National Vegetable Society here

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