From Garden to Plate

What better way to enjoy the English summer than cooking home grown produce on your BBQ? So here are a few tips to ensure that your vegetable patch is a success:

• Perhaps the most obvious tip is to make sure that your vegetables are placed in a good sunny spot.
• Make sure you protect your young plants from harsh winds by building a windbreak.
• Vegetable plants require lots of water to stay healthy and reach their potential, so you should create a watering plan and make sure that you stick to it.
• Adding a layer of mulch will also help prevent your garden beds from drying out.
• Another great tip to consider if you plan to become a successful vegetable grower is to rotate your crops between seasons. Different vegetables take different elements out of the soil, so rotating your crops can ensure that your soil remains rich and replenished.

  So, now you’ve heard the basics here’s a few perfect BBQ vegetables for you to try:

  Corn-on-the-cob
  If you fancy wowing your BBQ guests with some sweet, home grown corn then here’s a few tips. Firstly, corn thrives in loose soil with a neutral pH. Corn should be planted after all of the winter frosts have past. It’s really important to water your corn regularly and it’s beneficial to add a nitrogen fertilizer once the plants have started to produce tassels. To enable successful sweet corn growth, you should keep the area clear from other plants and weeds, which will fight for the corn’s water and food. Corn is ready for harvesting when the silky tassels turn brown. Corn should be grilled on your BBQ and served with a knob of butter. Delicious!

  Onion
  Onions make the perfect companion to barbequed burgers and sausages, and the smell of grilling onion is very hard to resist. There are many varieties of onion that you can grow in your vegetable patch, but these rules apply to most of them. Onions should be grown in a sunny site, and the soil should contain good drainage (you can improve this by adding grit to the soil bed). You should add manure to your soil several months before you plant your onion seeds because onions don’t need a great amount of fertilizer to grow. Onion seeds are resilient and should be planted in January or February. It’s important to give your onions a long season, so they have time to develop and bloom. Onions are ready to harvest when their leaves begin to yellow. As well as making the perfect burger accompaniment, barbequed onion tastes great in a chicken kebab, grilled on a hot BBQ.

  Tomatoes
  Tomatoes are a popular fruit to grow at home but many people forget that they are wonderful barbequed. Why not have a sunny morning breakfast BBQ and grill your bacon and tomatoes together outdoors? Tomatoes can be grown even in the smallest of gardens because they can be grown in pots, hanging baskets or ready-made grow bags. All you need is a couple of tomato plants and you will be rewarded with flavoursome fruit throughout the summer months.

Written by Crowders a leading supplier of Barbecues online.