Popular salad vegetable with its crisp sweet stalks but equally delicious braised or chopped in casseroles. The older traditional types do require some hard work with trenching up but the modern self blanching varieties are much easier. However, both do need regular watering during their growth to obtain good size and flavour.
Sow the seeds on the surface of the compost in seed trays or preferably in modules in March or early April at 14 – 15 degrees centigrade. Maintain the temperature day and night. Prick off the seedlings as soon as they can be handled into individual pots or peat pots. Harden off before planting in the growing site in late May or June in blocks for self blanching types with 30cm each way.
Traditional varieties should be planted in a trench 40cm wide and 30cm deep prepared the previous autumn. Space plants 35-45cm apart gradually filling in the trench as the plants grow.