More Or Less? The Growers Conundrum with Wesley Burton

Laters potatoes, mañana bananas, tomorrow tomatoes, and indeed, Tuesday-week chillies. Sometimes it really does pay to put off until tomorrow what you could do today. True, such thinking lacks the breathless motivational zeal with which we’ve become synonymous. But, when growing, there’s often method in the mellowness, as chill-convert Wesley Burton can testify.

The Wes of yesteryear (2022) was wilfully-wild, whimsically-wayward, wonderful-whilst-willy-nilly. His ferocious approach to gardening yielded sensational results by dint of his sheer energy. But having started his ’22 season seriously early and with crops developing simultaneously he left himself a vast amount to do, all at the same time, with distracting issues aplenty. 

Although delighted with 2022’s huge and diverse AutoPot-grown haul, Wes felt he could’ve done better. For 2023 he’s changed tack and is keen to share the revelation of a gradual, staggered, spaced approach. 

This year, rather than hitting the ground with 80+ varieties of tomatoes at the same time as figs, marigolds, garlic, and chillies, Wesley has set himself the goal of absolute quality with a narrower set of plants. In his own words, ‘Last year saw me very keen to grow everything all at once and I’ve certainly learnt from that mistake. For 2023 I’m starting my plants later and refining what it is I’m growing. Although it’s early days things are certainly more manageable this time around.’ Planning a staggered start to the season can be a challenge for those with limited time or space to devote to gardening, but the rewards are potentially immense.

By only starting each plant when the time is right Wes can avoid having to take climatic or nutritional detours that may affect the progress of other plants in the growing space. As a result all his crops can develop more rapidly, directly, and healthily towards harvest. Improvements in crop development have been further enhanced by Wesley’s debut year experience of plant counts and spacing with AutoPot.

When adopting a watering system for fruit and veg growing it can be hard at first to appreciate just how big plants can get with a ready, responsive means of feeding and irrigation available to them. Reducing plant count to get more from your growing space might seem counterintuitive but, as Wesley has found, it can really work. As well as allowing far better access to maintain your plants, reducing the count allows the plants that you do have to develop bigger, bushier canopies. Such canopies transpire more and help ensure humidity nudges closer to the sweet spot of 65-70%. Not only does this help improve growth but it can also help reduce climatic management to gentle air circulation through the opening of doors, panels, or flaps. 

Producing plant structures that are conducive to better growth, regardless of their ‘sex appeal’, was another takeaway from last season, as Wes freely admits. ‘The biggest thing that I suffered for last year was wanting the plants to look all pretty, so I took to ripping off vital leaves which stunted growth, especially with the heat that was produced in the tent.’ This year his dozen or so tomato varieties will be left much more to their own devices in their 1Pot modules. 

Also entrusted to AutoPot modules this year are Wes’ cherished mature fig trees. This is quite the compliment as figs are very much Wes’ speciality and his cultivation project with the trees has been a long-term labour of love. The figs have over-wintered in Wes’ polytunnel in 25L / 6.6 gal AutoPot XL modules with intermittent watering. For now they’re looking somewhat spindly and eerie but we’ve no doubt they’ll be back to their bountiful best come late summer / autumn. Figs, as they say, can only get better. 

Joining Wesley’s regimented roster are (what began as) a focussed range of chillies grown with the Source. Reasonably enough Wes started out with Chocolate Reaper, Moruga Chocolate, and Primo Yellow plants, cultivated from seed in a small grow tent, progressing from propagator, to 3L / 0.8 gal pots, and into 15L / 3.9 gal 1Pot modules. He had started these rather early; ‘some weeks ago’ (early December!). Then something funny happened and another twenty or so varieties from @hot_dunstable crashed the soiree, including Biquinto, Aji Mochero, 7 Pot Bubblegum, Yellow Fatalii, Peach Ghost, Orange Drop, Orange Habanero, 7Pot Infinity, and BBG X Tobasco. Oh Wes!

The Source is, by all accounts, playing a blinder with the plants, the systems, and Wes’ grow economics. Used in Mills Ultimate with cork, the fertiliser has proved to be remarkably productive with only minimal quantities used from a complete range Starter Pack. ‘Following the feed soil/coir charts provided within the box to the letter means the nutrient goes a long, long way. The chillies are coming along nicely and will soon be hooked up to the 100L (25 gal) FlexiTank then fed on a sticked programme.’ Elsewhere there is garlic and ginger on the go. 

‘Keen to have a go at crop rotation I took the AutoPot XL modules complete with the grow media from last years tomatoes back to my house. The garlic cloves were set so that they could over-winter and will be pulled prior to planting out the new tomatoes. This means the modules are in use 365 days of the year.’ Reusing grow media and rotating crops reduces costs but it doesn’t eliminate them altogether. So commendable are Wes’ efforts that we’re more than happy to put out a call to any grow media suppliers who might be happy to lend sponsorship to Wes’ plots. If you feel you might be able to assist please get in touch via DM @marijesusbtinternet-com_grows_81 where you can follow all Wes’ progress.