Beginner alert! Help needed

[vitty]

Hi all,

I just moved into a house with a garden and want to get started growing veg.

My only previous experience is growing lettuce in a trough in the front yard of my last home during this spring/summer and that was a success.

At the moment I'm focussing on de-weeding my garden ahead of next spring when I can start growing lots of stuff.

In the meantime, can you recommend anything to plant now? It's September in the UK...still fairly warm (17c today) and will drop to about 13c in October, 7c in November and then will be about 5c through until February.

[rustylady]

Hello Vitty. Welcome to the Vine. Whereabouts are you? It would help if you add your location (nearest town) to your profile then it will show up on your posts. Climate varies hugely in different parts of the UK.

[rpt]

I'm also a beginner but over winter I am growing Japanese onions, garlic, kale, spring cabbage, spinach, pak choi, tatsoi and lettuce. It isn't too late to grow garlic (these are from cloves not seeds) and I'm pretty sure you can still sow the others although I think it may be too late for kale and maybe spring cabbage. Some of these I'm going to cover with fleece to keep the worst of the weather off.

I'm also going to sow broad beans and peas in modules in a cold frame and then plant these out early next year.

No doubt an expert will be along soon to advise on the wisdom of all this...

[JetSetPhil]

Theres lots of winter veg that you can sow at this time of the year. You can grow winter lettuce, spring onions, spinach, oriental veg ( such as pak choi and mizuna) and if you want to plant some flowers there are plenty of hardy annuals that can be sown this time of year that will add colour to your garden. The advantage of sowing annuals now is that during winter they will grow their roots and then they will flower faster than those planted in the spring.

[kathyd]

You'll soon be able to sow some over-wintering broad beans too, and I think the round peas (not the wrinkly ones) - I'm sure it's around Oct/Nov, but probably someone with more experience than me can advise better. Seed companies are also selling autumn-sown onion sets and garlic and shallots now, for despatch from mid-September.

[Andromeda]

Durham Earlies (cabbages) for next spring can be sown now (start in modules if you like).

If you don't mind putting some plants in (as opposed to seeds) I noticed homebase had winter cauli's in and also some yound leek plants.

[vitty]

Hello Vitty. Welcome to the Vine. Whereabouts are you? It would help if you add your location (nearest town) to your profile then it will show up on your posts. Climate varies hugely in different parts of the UK.

Thanks, Rusty - I'm in Chorley, Lancs, and have updated my profile as you suggested

[vitty]

I'm also a beginner but over winter I am growing Japanese onions, garlic, kale, spring cabbage, spinach, pak choi, tatsoi and lettuce. It isn't too late to grow garlic (these are from cloves not seeds) and I'm pretty sure you can still sow the others although I think it may be too late for kale and maybe spring cabbage. Some of these I'm going to cover with fleece to keep the worst of the weather off.

I'm also going to sow broad beans and peas in modules in a cold frame and then plant these out early next year.

No doubt an expert will be along soon to advise on the wisdom of all this...

Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

I'm going to try a few of these and give it a go.

I started off by growing parsnips two days ago...no idea whether or not they will survive the winter, but we'll see.

[Linnea]

Hi Vitty

Parsnips are winter hardy but it's probably a bit late to get a reasonable size root unless we have a very long warm autumn

[rustylady]

Vitty, you really need to look at the suggested sowing dates on your seed packets. Parsnips have a long growing season and really need to be sown in Spring.

If you want to sow things now then go for quick maturing crops such as radish, lettuce etc. Also it will soon be time to plant overwintering onion sets and garlic.

[Florence Fennel]

Welcome to the Vine Vitty As others have said, it's not too late for spring cabbage and winter lettuce. There's also time to sow kale (there are loads of varieties) and turnips for tops. I'm afraid you've missed the boat with parsnips, sow seed in the spring for that. I couldn't get any to germinate, so I'm without this year.

[vitty]

Thanks for your advice. I'll probably replace the parsnips with lettuce.

Would protecting the parsnips with fleece help or is it simply down to it being the wrong time of year?

[rustylady]

Totally the wrong time of year. They need long hours of daylight (preferably sunshine) to grow.

[vitty]

So I spent a lot of Saturday clearing weeds from the garden, pruning trees that were shading a large part of the garden and spraying weed killer on all the parts of the garden with weeds.

I've put nutrient-rich compost in plant pots and a trough and planted broad beans in them.

The packet says To do do in October - will the time difference matter?

If so, what would you recommend doing with the trough/plant pots?

Once I've got rid of all the weeds I'm going to prepare the compost in the garden before planting something else.

[kentishgal]

Im planting up my beds at the moment with onions, garlic and spinach. Also did some chinese radishes and mooli in tubs a few weeks ago.
Another way to go is to sow green manure. Just scatter sow some rye, clover, etc in your beds and leave it to grow then cut down and dig next year. Its a nice cheap way to fertilise your beds and Ive done it with one of mine this year.