Thoughts really are now starting to turn to next year’s growing and if you are planning to cover down your beds for the winter (which will keep the worst of the bad weather off them, suppress weeds and prevent the rain from leaching nutrients from the soil ), you need to get working on it.
It’s also a good time to prepare new ground for spring. Be sure to buy yourself a good spade!
Alternatively try cutting back the grass, then cover the area with about five layers of newspaper and then a layer of compost. Next Spring you should be able to dig straight into this new patch and prepare it for planting. Exciting times are coming, start investigating seed catalogues for next year.
Sowing Seeds And Planting Out
As per last month’s calendar you can sow broad beans outside now for an early crop next spring. It’s important to use over-winter varieties such as Aquadulce.
To avoid broad beans seeds rotting before germination, make small newspaper cups and germinate them indoors first.
The polytunnel/greenhouse has its own microclimate – continue to sow carrots, red cabbage, rocket, mixed salad leaves, lambs lettuce, perpetual spinach.
Next summer’s garlic does best if it’s planted before Christmas – plant outdoors in well prepared soil in a sunny spot.
Some varieties of onion seeds and sets can over-winter and will be ready to harvest in early summer. Again choose a well drained soil, otherwise they will rot. Keep an eye on them for frost heave.
Harvesting – What’s In Season?
Early frosts can kill off tender vegetables but you can continue to harvest perpetual spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, potatoes, swede, parsnips, apples, pears.
Start harvesting leeks, at GROW HQ our Head Grower Richard has moved on to harvesting mature leeks this month, as it’s mainly been baby leeks up until now (both of which are very tasty if cut finely and sautéed in butter ).
You can continue to harvest winter cabbage, kale, artichokes and Brussels sprouts.
But it may be time to lift carrots and turnips or at least cover them with a good layer of straw to keep them warm!
Vegetable Of The Month - Carrots
For you beginner growers out there - look away now! Carrots aren’t for the faint hearted, as they’re quite difficult to grow, requiring deep, light, stone-free, fertile soil to do well. However, if you’re lucky enough, and your soil is right, you will be rewarded in abundance with a crunchy, sweet and flavoursome crop to be proud of.
Common Problems
Keep an eye on the pesky carrot root fly, this menace will lay eggs in the soil around your carrots, with little maggots rotting the root. Delaying sowing until late May will help!
Carrots hate competition from weeds. Keep their bed weed-free, use a hoe along the rows and hand-weed around the carrots.
Lift maincrop carrots in October and store in sand. They can be vulnerable to slugs if left in the soil for too long.
GIY Recommended Varieties:
Amsterdam Forcing
Chantenay Red
Autumn King
