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Post by Stuart@AmericaLane on Sept 24, 2015 14:10:50 GMT
Afternoon all,
I'm curious what crops people are putting in now for over winter.
I dug up my strawberry bed as I intend to buy new plants for next year. I had no idea what variety the old plants were and they very getting tired so I thought I'd take the opportunity to clear them out and get in some new ones. That freed up one of my 5m beds so I have added some compost and set it aside for the crops I am putting in for over winter.
I have some kale (cavelo nero / curly), spring onions, spring greens (durham early), cauli (ayr) and winter density lettuce all sown early august and planted out in the last couple of weeks. Plus a few rows of garlic (edendorse) onion (radar) and shallots (yellow moon).
Last year my autumn planted onions were very poor, yet the year before they were superb. I did nothing different other than a different part of the plot. I put it down to the weather. So only time will tell if this year is any better. Conversely the garlic this year was superb and the year before terrible. The garlic and onions were planted alongside each other both times. Maybe there is something to learn there.
If anyone has any autumn garlic or onion varieties they have grown reliably year on year I'd love to know what they are.
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Post by murrayc on Sept 25, 2015 8:14:43 GMT
Great post, Stuart, just the kind of discussion we all feel like as the light starts to fade and we begin to husband our resources to manage smaller crops for the winter while the rest of the plot is covered or manured. I have some leeks growing nicely, a mixture of Musselburgh and Gigante d'Inverno. I have some broccoli that has pretty much been savaged by the cabbage white larvae, but I'm hoping that it will recover. I've also brought on some Cavolo Nero and broocoli Gentleman at home, and shall be planting these out shortly, once the nasty little stripy things are out of the way. Still growing and looking good, I have fennel - Mantovano, from Franchi's Seeds of Italy - and some parsnips (Gladiator) and some celeriac. The latter was also a Franchi's seed,and I've had generally good experiences from them. Their sales pitch is that the climate in Northern Italy, where they grow their stocks, can go down to -20 over winter, so far from being Mediterranean wimps their plants are more than hardy enough to take on cold wet British winters! The issue I've had with celeriac this year is that some of them bolted very quickly in early August, despite my stripping back the shoots at the base of the plant, and by September were trying to flower. I still have 5 or 6 in and hope that they'll come to something. Last year I planted French white hard-neck Garlic from the Rhone and had an amazing crop, and intend to do the same this year. I will wait till November when the frosts are regular before planting as this seems to make them thrive more. I had a reasonable crop of over-0winter onions from some sets given to me by my near-plot neighbour John-the-yachtsman, but my summer crop of Stuttgart Stanfields and Red Barons was the poorest yet, with lots of root rot and most of the plants having to be lifted early and consequently quite small. I did have some good results from shallots (Red Sun) and will be planting these again. I'll also be rather timorously trying autumn sowing of broad beans for the first time (Aguadolce), as so many of the gardeners I speak to swear by it. One lovely chap that I've been chatting with in the member's seats at Hove cricket ground this summer told me that for years he had been planting them on November 11th "and never had a bad crop yet", so I will give it a try. I will probably cover my back by strating some off at home in February as well! The picture shows some of the fennel still standing with some other of the winter crops behind it. As you can see, I've started digging over alongside it, and in the foreground are some turnips that the fox has left me, having dug through the row to mark his own path.
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Post by Stuart@AmericaLane on Sept 25, 2015 10:17:41 GMT
Hi Murray,
I spotted your Fennel the other day. Very impressive!
I knew there was something I had forgotten to mention in my list of stuff I have just planted for winter. Well not planted but I sowed some broad beans. I had a few Sutton seeds left over from the spring sowing. I put them in a couple of weeks ago and they came through in a mater of days. So now I am thinking did i sow and plant all this stuff too early? Time will tell but as the weather is so unpredicatable who knows, it could snow next week for all we know. But if it stays warm for another month or so I might end up with my spring harvest before Christmas.
Lately I have been getting my seed from Dobies Seeds. So far they seem to be pretty reliable. I am gradually building up a list of varieties I like to grow and have yet to find one supplier that stocks all the ones I like. So I end up going to more than one place and then that adds more p&p. Nothing more annoying than buying a couple of packets of seed for a few pounds and then paying the same again to get it delivered.
I quite like the Scaynes Hill nursery that opened again this year after been closed for a while. I have yet to check their seeds out but they do pretty good range of plug plants. As much as I like growing my own from seed for stuff like sprouts for example where you only really need a few plants you can buy a tray of about 8 plants for a couple of pound, same as a packet of seed costs. I did that with my sprouts and savoy cabbage. The cabbage have been harvested and were a real success. The sprouts look healthy but the buttons are still too small. Hopefully they will be just right come Christmas.
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Post by murrayc on Oct 6, 2015 10:42:58 GMT
Not so very early Stuart, though I will hold back on sowing my broad beans for a little while. We have had some great weather recently - so good that I've been able to do almost all of my autumn digging early and a lot easier - but some crops tend to go dormant in the bitterest weather and then start growing again when the ground warms up. Others will fail completely when the air is cold, and die back to the roots. With all these things in mind I have set out my plan for the winter. There are some quite nice pieces of software, or you can just use a pencil and paper, but I have found it helpful to mark out a spreadsheet in Excel with each cell equal to 1ft x 1ft. That helps to fix the relative locations of different parts of the plot and is quite useful in the winter when there are just chunks of frosted soil, some with a few shoots poking bravely above the permafrost and/or standing water. I can go through various revisions of this as I plant more, or cover some areas with manure, and I have the previous years plans saved so that I can manage the crop rotation when I set out the Summer 2016 plan.
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Post by Stuart@AmericaLane on Oct 12, 2015 9:27:46 GMT
Nice plan. I might take a look at Excel myself. I've done mine on graph paper to date and although it takes time and is a lot more work to move things around I quite like the opportunity to get away from the computer and do some old fashioned drawing.
Update on the winter crops from my observations this weekend. New planting of Cale is romping away and I still have a bumper summer crop so whatever else fails I know we will survive the winter on Kale alone if necessary. Spring onions and winter lettuce got ravaged by the slugs. Slugs haven't been too bad for me this year so I got a little complacent I guess. Spring onions seems to be making a comeback so we may get some yet. Spring cabbage, board beans and cauli are coming along nicely. The garlic shoots are showing as are one or two shallots. Onions not showing get but a little prod suggests they are putting down some roots as they seem to be set in quite firmly now.
I wouldn't mind a bit of cold weather now to kill of the slugs and slow things down a bit.....
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