What can I plant in Sept / Oct in readiness for next year

[steveadlem]

Hi

What can I plant now in Sept / Oct in readiness for next year and can I have comments on best varieties.

I believe I can sow onion sets and broad beans so they have a head start? but anything else?

Thanks
Steve

[Scarlet]

Garlic and giant garlic. I'm trying early purple wight.
Its a bit late to sow spring cabbage (I grow early Durham, sown in Aug) you may be lucky and get some plug plants of spring cabbage from the GC.

There are a few other threads going with what to sow in Autumn but in my experience as soon as the clocks go back, things slow right down and apart from onions garlic and broad beans (aqua dulce ) there's not much else

[Kristen]

Not many crops that are worth attempting now, apart from Garlic and [the right variety of] Broad Beans.

Cover the rest of the plot with Green Manure to improve the structure ready for next Spring.

Real manure would do just fine too

[Jay22]

Would like to plant some onions and garlic but looking online they come in huge packs - I only have a small area to plant them in - just wondered if anyone had seen them in small packs anywhere?

[Scarlet]

They're only a couple of quid for a bag of 50 in Wilkos. What you don't use swap with another gardener?

[Jay22]

Thanks yet again Scarlet! Appreciated.

[Bill HH]

garlic comes in packs of 2, probably about 20 cloves when split. i got mine from marshals.

If you can find plants in a GC try some cauliflowers. i grew a lot of my radar oinon sets and garlic in containers, they did very well.

[maytreefrannie]

Would like to plant some onions and garlic but looking online they come in huge packs - I only have a small area to plant them in - just wondered if anyone had seen them in small packs anywhere?

I believe you can keep the leftover cloves to plant another year. Or give some to friends who might like to try planting them. Usually I buy a few bulbs in a vegetable store (I use French or Spanish for preference) and plant the cloves. Well, this year they were all very small I have to say, so it may be that buying bulbs being sold for planting would be a better option.

[Jay22]

Thanks guys, will buy them and plant some in containers Bill, wasn't sure if they would grow. Just googled whether I could grow garlic from shop bought MTF...if you say they turn out small I won't bother, will buy the proper bulbs. Thanks again everyone. I have learned a lot this year through the forum, here's hoping for a more productive year next year.

[Kristen]

Just googled whether I could grow garlic from shop bought

Risk is that they are a Mediterranean variety, unsuited to UK climate.

[Jay22]

Yes, thanks Kristen...I'm just going to buy them from the GC!

[Kristen]

So long as they are not diseased you can re-plant from your own harvested bulbs (Garlic I mean) in following years. On that basis you might want to buy, say, 10-15% more than you would need just for the kitchen, so you have enough spares for re-planting (and assuming you have enough plot space available)

[Jonnyt]

My proper seed garlic bulbs didn't split last winter and were also small so I don't think it's anything to do with the source of the bulbs but more to do with the winter being too warm


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[Kristen]

My proper seed garlic bulbs didn't split last winter and were also small so I don't think it's anything to do with the source of the bulbs but more to do with the winter being too warm

If you don't need the space / crop rotation? then best to just leave them in situ, they should make a grand clump next year

[Jay22]

Thanks again for the advice. Yet another question, has anyone purchased from Crocus...their onions, garlic etc seem a lot cheaper that anywhere else, but I'm a little sceptical as to why.