What to grow at end of Summer season

CharlieBilly

I am sure I am not alone in wondering what use that bit of land we used to grow summer crops or pots/raised beds

So what can we grow from say September until Spring on the land/pots/raised beds we have


Can anyone share there ideas?

What about garlic for instance

markandkate

You can plant some broad beans and spring onions shortly and also over wintering cauliflower

babyshoes

Garlic is traditionally planted on the shortest day of the year - 21st Nov, if I recall correctly. It is then traditionally harvested on the longest!

Lettuce and radishes grow well now!

A._Badger

Kale is a pretty good choice and you should be able to find kale plants now - indeed, lots of other overwintering brassicas, too.

Be a little wary of plants that stay in the ground too long, however. Come next Spring you are going to be itching to sow seeds and plant new plants - awkward if the ground is still filled with last year's plants. On a non-veggie note, it's one reason why Sweet Williams can be a problem.

Zazen999

babyshoes wrote: »

Garlic is traditionally planted on the shortest day of the year - 21st Nov, if I recall correctly. It is then traditionally harvested on the longest!

Lettuce and radishes grow well now!

that would be the 21st December.

Although garlic can be planted out anytime from Sept to Dec - the earlier the better as you get a bigger crop a little earlier.

Onions from sets, shallots, garlic [as above], winter lettuces, brassicas [would have needed to be sown a while back though, so get some seedlings], leeks, and you could still get a crop of beetroot and radish in now if you did it soon.

kippers

I've just sown spring cabbage and swiss chard

PasseySam

babyshoes - I think you are thinking of shallots that are traditionally planted on the shortest day and harvested on the longest, although I could be mistaken :-s

We have certainly planted garlic over the winter and I think we did that in september and harvested about may/june. We also had perpetual spinach and chard that seemed to withstand the winter quite well, although the any new leaves that grow do not grow as large as the weather gets colder so I think you have to be a bit careful about not harvesting too much once the weather turns to help the plants survive. We have never had much luck with onions/shallots but maybe we didn't do it right... You can also grow some fast growing things like chinese greens (pak choi and the like) if the weather is OK, we got a mixed pack containing 4 different types from one of the seed places (suttons or similar) - also overwintering radishes too.

I have also heard that you can plant an early potato variety now to get new potatoes in winter, but haven't tried it yet (hoping to soon!)

We're hoping to move into a house with a garden and veggie patch in a couple of weeks and were wondering the same thing about what we can plant soon as we're so excited to have room in the garden to grow veg! So this thread is useful, will keep my eyes peeled for growing ideas :-)

CharlieBilly

Yes you can plant potatoes I got a flyer from Suttons the other week as I got some spuds from them in April

I just harvested my spuds yesterday along with onions which didnt do too well I think I over did the planting in a raised bed

irishwexford

We have parsnips, sprouts, cabbages and squashes still growing for winter but as we have so much to do (moving fences etc) we are planting green manure in all the empty beds this year. Sweetcorn is now ready for picking and freezing so that will be the last empty bed to cover. We took on allotment next door this year so lots of planning and moving things around.