What to plant over winter

homeOwner

We recently moved to a house with empty raised beds with what looks like good quality compost. I have no idea where to start and apart from removing the weeds which have grown since we moved in. I googled about planting and some sites recommend putting plastic over the beds in winter. Not sure why. Is there anything I can grow over the coming months? I was thinking of lettuce because I eat a lot of it and would love to grow my own.

Basically any advice is appreciated, from what to grow in the next few weeks to where to buy the seeds (presumably tesco is not a good place to start!). Or should I forget about winter and just prepare the beds for spring? I have never successfully grown anything, I even managed to kill those herb pots from the supermarket.

macraignil

No surprise when supermarket bought herbs don't survive. There is a big difference between the shop and outdoor conditions so the shock is too much for most plants. A garden centre where the plants are growing outdoors makes a much easier transition for the plants going into a garden.

I have grown lettuce in winter but they need to be well established before they are planted out. They are still very likely to be killed by hard frost or eaten by slugs or pigeons.

Covering the compost in winter should help lower the amount of soluble nutrients washed out by rain. I do not like the idea of using plastic for this as it forms a great breeding ground for slugs.

If you can get established broccoli plants they will grow through winter and give an early crop next year. There are a number of crops that if well established will remain ready for harvest right through the winter eg. Chard. Starting at this late stage your best bet might be to grow a green manure crop ie. one that is grown simply to dig in early in spring to give extra nutrient for next years crops. eg. clover.

livinsane

Winter is a great time for planting. I find it a much more exciting time than summer when it comes to vegetable gardening.

The staple crops for planting are broad beans, onions and garlic. They store well too (all can be dried and beans can easily be frozen). Look for specific autumn planted varieties of the beans and onions. They wont need to be covered but they wont be ready until summer. Garlic is grown from cloves but you are better off buying proper seed garlic than planting supermarket stuff. It can seem pricey (I paid a tenner for four heads of four different varieties of garlic, but you could grow fifty heads from that).

Echoing the previous post, brassicas like broccoli and brussels sprouts are great winter crops but they should have been planted back in spring, unless you can find well established plants. They start producing around December. I've a purple sprouting brocolli in its second year and it is producing again, so it is an excellent plant to have.

Salad leaves are also good for planting now, as many prefer cooler weather. I recently planted winter purslane and lambs lettuce in containers outside and they germinated quickly so fingers crossed. You could sow pak choi and spinach but under cover, so yes the plastic over the beds would be helpful.

For buying seeds, your local garden centre is one option. Online, I like Brown Envelope Seeds as they are based in West Cork and breed their own seed. Seedaholic is another great online shop for a huge variety of seeds and again are Irish. Quickcrop.ie are good for garlic and onions.

zagmund

Onions and garlic are sure fire options. Stick them in the ground, wait, you're done. We lashed a load of them into some of the raised beds last winter and they didn't disappoint. We also had loads of lettuce - so much that even though we ate it continuously, we ended up pulling it up as Summer arrived to make room for things we had been growing in the green house. The trick is to pull leaves rather than the entire head - it just keeps producing.

I agree that there's nothing to beat winter for vegetables. There's nothing like going out into the garden on a bright, clear winters Saturday afternoon, doing a bit of pottering and then coming back in with hearty ingredients for dinner. Also, slugs tend to be less of an issue in the winter.

It was mentioned above, but (other than onions and garlic) many things will need to have been grown somewhat before planting in the ground for Winter. You *can* plant directly, but it means the plant spends a lot longer establishing itself and you will generally get poorer results.

z

homeOwner

Brilliant advice there, thanks so much. How long do garlic and onions take to grow? If I plant now will it be spring before I see any results?

What about potatoes and sweet potatoes?

zagmund

Onions take as much time as you give them. If you pull them sooner you get small onions, if you pull them later you get big ones. In general though, you will be waiting until spring (i.e. some time in 2016) to get them. In terms of flavour though, once they have started to flesh out you can always pull them, slice them and throw them into whatever you are cooking and you will be getting onion flavour, just maybe not a lot of volume.

You could put potatos in, but *I think* you may be running out of time to get them started. Ours went in a few weeks back and are a couple of inches above ground now.

z

gsi300024v

great thread good advice, saved me asking. Cheers.