The gardening week (November - Week 4, 2024)
Winding down for winter
Not just gardening
Up until my east coast hiking break I’ve been fairly busy in the garden but now gardening has slowed to a crawl. We still have plenty to eat, so harvest day is still busy, but there’s very little actual tending of the garden to do. This would usually be a time for projects, but I did most of those last year, so this year I’m planning to enjoy a relaxing break for the next 3 months.
I’m taking advantage of this freedom, to do a lot of reading and research, but also to get out hiking and cycling whenever the weather and my legs allow. This week I’ve been staying close to home, enjoying walking in the dune system that borders our beach.
In the morning, if I’m lucky I get to watch the sunrise at this time of year, which is a rare treat.
In the late afternoon we’ve been taking afternoon walks to watch the sunset and evening walks to admire the promenade hotels, all decorated for Christmas.
I’ve also finally decided to try and loose the ‘lockdown weight’ that so many of us seemed to acquire and I have struggled to loose. At my age I can’t afford to diet aggressively and loose muscle as well as fat, because adding muscle back after 60 is incredibly hard work. Unfortunately although it’s hard to gain muscle it’s ridiculously easy to loose it when dieting. What to do? I’m trying to loose no more than 1lb a week, hopefully more like 1/2lb and to combine that gentle weight loss with a high protein diet as well as a mix of strength training, high intensity exercise and lots of brisk walking and cycling too.
The exercise means plenty of stimulus to the muscles to hold onto their mass and just possibly built a bit more, the protein means plenty of materials available to rebuild any damage done by all of the exercise. The gentle weight loss - hopefully - means that I will be able to keep the weight off for the long term. I’m hoping to be finished dieting by mid-spring, after I’ve lost about a stone. Food quality is important too, so that means lots of fruit and veg, which fortunately isn’t that difficult for me!
Oh and we’ve had our first decent string of frosty nights, so the veg is tasting wonderful, especially the carrots and I managed to get the yacon into the store before it was damaged by a frost too.
Gardening problems this week
I’ve hardly been to the allotment this week, but last time I checked there were no new problems. On a positive note the whitefly on the kalettes has almost all gone now, so I’m able to bring the over-wintered brassicas back from the polytunnel and into the greenhouse. They don’t mind a light frost, but it’s best to protect them from the possibility of a severe one.
The thermostat on my greenhouse heater has decided to become unreliable, it does eventually switch on and off but not within a narrow range. This means in practice that rather than keeping the greenhouse frost free - which is cheap - I’d need to keep it at 5c, which is expensive. I’ve bought an external thermostat plug, that includes an energy monitor and monitoring over WIFI, so we will see how that fares.
Old new stuff
Here’s a few reminders of things that are already in the database/book, but that anyone who’s started to follow me recently might not know about.
I’m always being asked what trays and pots I use and where to get them from, so I added these details to my database, including how I rate them, you can find the full details here.
8 Steps to Self-sufficiency
I’ve a chapter in my ebook that describes the steps I took and still recommend, to get to self-sufficiency, you can find it here: 8 step programme for getting to self-sufficiency in my ebook. To get you started here’s a short summary of the steps. Getting to self-sufficient vegetable growing is a fun and rewarding adventure, but it takes a bit of planning and dedication but it might be worth it, it was for me:
Start Small and Practice: Don’t dive in headfirst—start with a few seasons of trial and error. It’s the best way to learn what works (and what definitely doesn’t). I recommend starting with trying to be self-sufficient in a few high value crops first, like salad greens, spinach/chard and kale and then adding a couple of extra veggies a season.
Weigh the Pros and Cons: Growing your own veggies means fresh, delicious produce and saving money, but it’s also a big commitment. You’ll need time, patience, and a sense of humour for when things don’t go as planned (looking at you, slugs and hailstorms). It’s best to be honest with yourself about the pros and cons early on, the dream rarely matches up to reality. Instagram gardeners don’t help either, pretending that it’s all easy and beautiful, that’s why I don’t use Instagram for gardening, I find it too depressing or annoying.
Practice Growing Under Cover: A greenhouse or polytunnel is a wonderful addition to your growing space and for you too, but you do need to get the hang of how to make the best of covers and how to avoid problems caused by pests, poor ventilation or too much heat.
Space and Time: It takes time to figure out how much space you need? How much time can you spare? How to plan and how to avoid planning too much, so you don’t end up with a jungle of unharvested veggies—or worse, not enough to make dinner!
Go with the Seasons: Eating seasonally can be a joy, once you get the hang of it, but it can also be boring. Sure, no fresh tomatoes in winter, but there’s something special about eating what’s fresh and in season. For me though the biggest benefit is the anticipation of those first harvests, all through the year and we do allow ourselves to indulge in supermarket fruit too, right now it’s cherries! I don’t believe that growing my own food year round should be about depriving myself of the best quality diet.
Commit to the Lifestyle: This isn’t just a weekend hobby; it’s a way of life. The payoff can be worth it: delicious, homegrown food and the pride of knowing you did it yourself, but lets not kid ourselves, there are moments …. Making a commitment makes it easier to deal with those moments - like all of our onions going to seed in 2022 - and it makes it a fun challenge too. After 8 years of challenging ourselves we now choose a few things that we allow ourselves to buy, like cauliflowers in mid-winter.
Make It Fun and Worthwhile: Keep your eye on the prize—healthier eating, a lower food bill, and the sheer joy of pulling a perfect carrot out of the ground. Plus, it’s a great way to stay active and get some fresh air. If you have enough space to grow a surplus, sharing with friends and family is the icing on the cake.
Be Ready for the Ups and Downs: Things won’t always go smoothly—pests, bad weather, or plants that just don’t cooperate, did I mention the onions! But every failure is a lesson, and every success tastes amazing (literally).
Ah, but wait, I’m being honest here, not everything tastes (literally) amazing, just because it’s home grown. The world wide fruit and vegetable supply chain knows a fair bit about delivering tasty fruit and veg to supermarkets all year round and I for one can’t ALWAYS do a better job than they can, every week of the year, for the hundreds of different fruits and veggies that I grow!
At the end of the day, self-sufficiency is about more than just tasty food—it’s a chance to connect with nature, be part of a community, eat better, challenge yourself, move about a lot, save a bit of money and have a lot of fun along the way.
First harvests of 2024
It’s quite sad now looking at this list and seeing how few new additions there are each week, it’s not something I was so aware of until I started this newsletter. It’s motivating me to do better!
This week I pulled the first Oca plants, the ones that were on the drive, underneath scaffolding boards. They grew a lot of leaves, but not many tubers! Unlike the yacon, which grew in the same place, oca obviously doesn’t like shade! I do have three plants still to harvest, which grew in sun, so fingers crossed for those! I’m also starting to pick some Claytonia, it’s much earlier than usual due to the mild autumn, but it should regrow by late winter.
This is a long list now, so I’ve chopped it off, you can find the full list here.
Last harvests of 2024
I’ve finished harvesting the autumn lettuces now, but I have plenty of winter lettuces available and we continue to process apples, I’ve now finished harvesting the greenhouse strawberries. I am pleased to report that after some good frosts the carrots are lovely and sweet again.
Click the link for the complete list of Last harvests
Autumn growing overview
You can now browse my seasonal guides for each type of growing environment that you have, you can find those here.
Sowings for the week
This is my last sowing for November. I did have more veggies scheduled, but when I walked the plot growth was so strong in all the beds that I realised I wasn’t going oto have any space coming free now until next year.
This last batch of spinach is into deep trays, which will germinate in the house and grow on under grow lights in the conservatory, eventually making it outside into the greenhouse, for a harvest in late winter. We have plenty of spinach in the ground for cooking leaves, but these trays should provide higher quality leaves for salads.
Here’s everything sown to date, in more detail.
Not germinated yet
The elephant garlic bed under the trees has all Brocken surface now, but the bed that I planted a few weeks ago is still busy putting down roots.
Germinated this week
Nothing new this week. However it’s worth noting that the last batch of carrots has now finishing germinating and germination was excellent, I have only a couple of failed stations.
Pricked out
I pricked out two trays of lettuce. These are probably the last lettuces to be sown this year and most of them are destined for one of my low tunnels, probably the one currently full of radicchio.
Potted on this week
Nothing this week, but I have a lot to do next week, if all goes to plan.
Greenhouse progress
After weeks of very low light levels, we now have a bit of sunshine and the lettuces have definitely noticed, growth has really picked up. I need to be patient though, keen as I am to see growth I don’t actually want to start harvesting the greenhouse lettuces, Asian greens and beet leaves until late December, so there’s plenty of time.
Now that the weather has turned and we have frost and snow, I’ve moved the last of my red cabbages into the greenhouse, this extends their life, otherwise they soon go rotten.
The greenhouse Sun Gold tomatoes are still looking good and providing a great harvest, but the Tumblers are looking very sorry for themselves. I will soon harvest the last fruits and ripen them inside. I can leave the Sun gold for a few weeks, unless my failed thermostat didn’t quite keep them frost free last night.
Polytunnel progress
We had another light frost in the polytunnel this week. Growth is good, but the leaves are a bit ‘weak’ due to low light levels. I harvested some for this weeks salads and even though they were weak, they were still sweet, tender and had a little crispness to them, so they were lovely.
I’m now at the point where I need to do some careful planning to make sure I can get through winter.
Allotment and garden progress
Nothing much to report on the allotment or garden, everything is stable now, plants are in the ground and are healthy, so for the next 8 weeks it’s just about harvesting. I did give the lawn it’s last cut before winter and the whitefly are no longer a problem.
Planted this week
Nothing this week.
Here’s everything planted this year so far.
Waiting to be planted out
Just a few spare Asian greens, that might need to go into containers or the compost bin now.
You can see all of my planting details here, note the links to growing guides have been added.
Sowing’s for next week
As previously mentioned I’ve decided that I’ve no available space for planting now until well into next year, which means - disappointingly - no more sowing until December.
Growing guides for November
This link takes you to all of my monthly guides, where you can find a lot more than just my sowing guides. I particularly like the list of videos produced in the relevant month in years gone by. Click here for November’s guides.
Because I’m always experimenting you might find me sowing a few things that are not on this list, but you can always look those up from the complete list of guides, which you can find here.
Downloadable resources for November
These provide a convenient way to print my sowing guide, or two extract information into your own spreadsheet:
Sowing Guide for November
Here’s a link to the details.
Sowings for December
Coming soon!
Weekly Harvest
It was a modest harvest this week, I cut back a bit due to the holiday (yes, we are on holiday again this weekend) but harvest volumes will decline a little now.
Useful links!
Top level links
The website associated with this newsletter
My free eBook - Outgrow : The Art and Practice of Self-sufficiency
My complete gardening database real time access to everything!
My Amazon shop, which lists the gardening products I use, with comments
If you can afford it, you can buy me a cake or some seeds
The most useful lower level links
The reference info section of my eBook, lists what I actually sowed, planted, harvested each month, plus all of the tours and guide videos for that month
Monthly growing guides (what to sow, harvest fresh and eat from the store room each month)
Comprehensive growing guides to every type of veg that I grow
The section of my eBook that covers the basic tools and techniques of gardening (sowing, planting, pests, weeds etc)
The section of my eBook that covers the more advanced tools and techniques of gardening ( extending the season, successional plantings, spacing)
Using grow lights and alternatives to extend the season
Introduction to growing under cover with fleece, low tunnels, polytunnels etc
The chapter of my eBook that covers conservatory gardening
The chapter of my eBook that covers greenhouse gardening
The chapter of my eBook that covers polytunnel gardening
The chapter of my eBook that covers cold frames and low tunnel gardening
The chapter of my eBook that covers extending the season with fleece
The chapter of my eBook that covers outdoor gardening
A guide to my database, how to use it and how to take a copy of it
Useful database links
The types of veg that I grow, roughly ranked in my order of priority
The varieties of herbs, fruit and veg that I’m growing this year
Overview of all of the successions for year round gardening (I don’t grow/recommend all of them) main crops successions are the most reliable
What I’ve sowed so far this year
What I’ve planted to far this year
What I’ve harvested so far this year
First harvest dates for key successions
The pots and trays that I use with my comments and ratings
The nets and other covers that I use with my comments and ratings
Information on root depth for each type of veg
Information on germination temperature for each type of veg
Information on pesticide use for each type of fruit and veg
List of fruits and veggies that benefit from Mycorrhizal associations
How long seeds last for each type of veg
Which types of veg are heavy, medium and light feeders
Great pictures of sea and sky, we have been mostly gloomy here with very little clear sky, day or night. Agree with your comments about becoming more able to grow your own veg and not feeling too disappointed when some veg needs to come from the shops.
Does the 15 cell module have the same individual cell volume as your preferred 40 cell module? 40 is to many for the 2 of us.
Thanks for a great update.