John Markham's vegetable plot is planned with the rigour of a military campaign, writes Jane Powers.
There are vegetable gardeners, and there are vegetable zealots. The former (of which I am one) plan a little, sow a little, and are, for the most part, content with the erratic harvest of good things that issues from our patches. It might be all beans one week, courgettes the next, and lettuces coming out of our ears at various points in the season - but never mind, the main thing is that we grew them ourselves, and we're proud of that. And next year, without fail, we hope to do better.
The vegetable zealot, on the other hand, leaves nothing to chance. There is no self-pardoning wishy-washiness in his approach (he's almost always a he, by the way), and no month - or even week - when his kitchen garden isn't obediently productive.
His growing operation is planned and carried out with the rigour of a military campaign, from the first emerging thought of seed-ordering, to the final, lusty "thunk" of the spade at the end of his winter digging stint.
There is no better man (seriously) to tell you how it should be done. Whether you follow his instructions or not is up to you - but you can't say you haven't been told.
Veteran gardener and chairman of the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland, John Markham, is a vegetable zealot - and I don't think he'll mind being described as one. One of my first meetings with him involved an onion. A while previously I had written about growing giant onions - and I hadn't done too badly, I thought.
That is, until Mary, John's wife, presented me with a gleaming, white cannonball at a local garden show. Grown from seed sown in a heated propagator before Christmas, and planted out in the garden in April, this behemoth (variety: Ailsae) had spent nine months swelling to indecent proportions, dining on secret potions known only to John Markham himself. I took it home and slaughtered it, and it did the work of at least three onions over several dinners.
It would be rude to inquire too closely from a competitive grower as to how he raises his giant prize-winners, but as for the rest of the crops, it's perfectly polite to ask. In John Markham's case, he swears by getting the soil as fertile as possible, with the addition of farmyard manure and other fertilisers.
For example (and organic growers should avert their eyes now), his potatoes, he declares, would not be anywhere near as abundant without the addition of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) in a ratio of 7:6:17. And his yield this year of 20 good-sized tubers from a single plant of the Irish cultivar Druid is prodigious (I've seen the photographic evidence).
Potatoes (six kinds this year) and onions (four, including the monsters) make up just a tiny part of the cornucopia that flows from the plot at the end of the Markham garden in Greystones, Co Wicklow. Here also be brassicas (a dozen varieties), beans and peas in plenty, root crops galore, courgettes and pumpkins, and legions of leafy things - including a steady stream of lettuces.
These last, by the way, are strictly managed: "Many beginners cannot resist sowing the whole packet," admonishes John. "I sow six lettuce seedlings every two weeks. There are only two of us, and this gives us a steady supply."
In fact, everything is carefully calibrated, weighed and parcelled in John's brain before he sows a single seed - which is not surprising, as he worked for many years in the Agricultural Institute (now Teagasc) in Kinsealy, Co Dublin, as a technician and then as a statistician. "Visualise the harvest, and the number to be fed," he advises.
Vegetable growers must also be willing to give their crops a few hours a week, if they expect a decent and organised harvest. And rotation, of course, is essential if you want to avoid a build-up of pests, diseases and deficiencies in the soil.
These are just a few bits of advice on raising and training a successful army of vegetables. If you want to hear more, John Markham will be sharing some of his campaign strategies later this week. jpowers@irish-times.ie
John Markham, in association with the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland, will give an illustrated talk, Making the most of the vegetable garden, at 8pm on Wednesday, November 14th, in Wesley House, Leeson Park, Dublin 6. Admission: €7 (non-members of RHSI), €5 (students)
A GOOD READ
"We've all done something we shouldn't have. I shouldn't have eaten that whopping bit of cheese. I shouldn't have worn that dress, as I look like a sofa in it. At least a sofa is useful, unlike my cast-cement birdbath with robin perched delicately on the edge, which I shouldn't have bought in the first place."
So starts Helen Dillon's Garden Book, the latest offering from Ireland's very best gardener and garden writer. And it goes on in the same, readable and confiding style, showing that even the mighty are fallible, and - in Dillon's case - aren't afraid to tell you about it. Her writing is generous, as well as entertaining, and is full of all the things a new gardener needs to know: taking cuttings, potting plants, weeding and feeding, suggestions for fast-growing specimens, and (importantly) why soil in recently built estates is so horrendous (rampaging construction machinery is partly to blame). Experienced plantspeople will also find much inside the pages to amuse and educate, and - gardeners being gardeners - argue with too. But that's half the fun of a strong and opinionated book such as this: it invites you to nod knowingly in agreement, or shake your head vigorously (each is as satisfying as the other). The photos of the Dillon garden, mostly taken by the author herself, are first class. But that's exactly what you'd expect from such a perfectionist.
Helen Dillon's Garden Book is published by Frances Lincoln (£25 in UK)