The gardening week (October - Week 1, 2024)
The transition really begins
Not just gardening
It’s been another mostly glorious week, with a good day of hiking, and a day looking around garden centres, but I’m finally busy in the my own garden and the allotment again, which I’ve relished.
In fact these transition weeks are perhaps my favourite weeks of the year, because they’re so full of activity, especially bed prep and planting, which I love, but also planting in autumn holds so much promise of leisurely winter and spring harvests to come.
I also like how much potential there is to improve at autumn, winter and spring gardening. Summer gardening is so well understood, it’s hard to find much to write or make videos about, without just endlessly repeating what thousands have already said. Cool weather gardening is however very much an emerging discipline and it varies considerably from place to place.
Just recently for example I watched a beautifully put together video guide on what to sow in October and almost without exception, everything that it mentioned would not work in most of the UK, it would either fail to grow, go to seed before it was harvested or give such a small harvest as not to be worth the effort. It transpired that - as the creator later told me - that “i do live in a freeky micro climate, we barely see a frost and my tunnel is very insulated and gets sun light non stop” if only the rest of the UK enjoyed such conditions!
I also saw a sowing guide from a seed company that included successional sowings through autumn and winter, that were basically a cut and paste from spring and summer, as if that’s going to work!
Anyway I mention these two examples only to illustrate my point, there’s still lots to learn about cool weather gardening, which makes my life more interesting.
Gardening problems this week
As mentioned last week I noticed club root on a couple of the red cabbages in the kitchen garden. I always pull up the red cabbages in autumn, roots and all and transplant them into containers, because I have lots of containers empty at this time of year and I need the bed space. Once in containers they stay fresh much longer than if they’d been harvested and I can move them under cover too, which stops them rotting.
So I harvested them this week and sure enough most of them had club root. Some of them were meant to be club root resistant - Red Lodero - too, but I didn’t label them individually, so I didn’t get to verify that the few that were ok were that variety.
I must admit to being a bit shocked that this whole bed now has club root as I created it last year specifically to be one of my main brassica beds going forward and I’ve not had any club root in the kitchen garden before, nor have I bought any contaminated soil from the allotment, so I’m at a loss as to how it’s happened. It’s quite possible that it’s spread on my shoes and if that’s the case I suppose it was inevitably going to happen, because I’m definitely not disciplined enough to achieve that level of isolation between plot and garden.
Although the approach that I describe in full in my eBook, allows me to to happily grow brassicas in autumn, winter and spring, it’s looking quite likely that summer grown brassicas are going to gradually fade from my harvest table.
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.
Nothing this week I’m afraid, I ran out of time.
Pests of the month
After last year’s devastating problems with slugs and snails, I’ve taken it upon myself to work all through summer to reduce their numbers, so that hopefully I have a much more manageable autumn, winter and spring. I’ve also been using Strulch in the pepper, melon and potato bed this year and it’s been great for weed control and reducing watering. I’d hoped for good results with slugs and now, after clearing 4 beds and finding about five slugs and one snail in total I can declare it a definite success. I’ve made a video on the topic and you can see an early preview of that here:
I’ve now replanted all of those beds and I’m not seeing any evidence of slug damage at all. I’m also wondering how well a 1-2” layer of Strulch will work as a way of preventing cutworms and cabbage root fly as in theory the eggs will get laid on the straw and will soon dry out, does anyone have any experience of this?
I wish I could say the same for whitefly in the kitchen garden, but at least the allotments have quite low levels this year.
For more on pests see my growing guides and this chapter of my eBook.
First and Last harvests of 2024
If you have any first harvests earlier than mine, or in addition to mine, I’d love to hear about them, the varieties, timings and growing conditions, but only if you are in the UK! I can’t ‘compete’ with California and Texas, for example! Now’s also the time to start getting interested in late, last harvests, so I will be adding a new section next month!
Only a few first harvests now, especially the apples and pears are all starting to arrive, as well as the last succession of calabrese for the year and the first and last of the winter squash. I’ve also harvested the first turnips of autumn and the first red cabbages from a February/March sowing, all of the red cabbages we’ve been eating through summer have been from a September sowing.
We are now starting to have a lot of last harvests, most notably the last of the polytunnel tomatoes and the outdoor tomatoes in the kitchen garden, as well as the last courgettes and cucumbers. Don’t feel too sorry for us though, because we now have loads of immature squash ready, seven months supply of winter squash curing and lots of tomatoes just starting to ripen in the greenhouse. After eating about 200 cucumbers since we started harvesting in May, I’m quite pleased they’ve finished now!
Click the link for the complete list of Last harvests
Autumn growing overview
As mentioned above, 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
No sowings this week and it’s nice to have a break during this busy week. I will start sowing again on the 5th, so after this newsletter is posted.
Here’s everything sown to date, in more detail.
Not germinated yet
Everything has germinated, phew!
Germinated this week
I know I’m repeating myself, but it’s such a relief when these late (or early depending on how you look at it) sowings germinate, because weeks matter a lot in autumn.
Pricked out
Nothing this week thank goodness, I don’t have space!
Potted on this week
When I went to the garden centre this week I actually bought some plants, which is a very rare event for me. I bought a tray of 6 curly kale and 6 red cabbages. The kale I bought because most of my savoy cabbages got club root and so I’m probably going to be a bit short of brassica leaves in winter, these extra 6 kales should help fix that.
The red cabbages I bought because they were about 2 months old, much older than I’ve ever tried growing over winter before, so I thought it was a worthwhile experiment to see if I can get them to heart up in spring, rather than early summer. I’m not very confident, but that’s why it’s an experiment.
I potted all of these up, because I don’t currently have any space.
Greenhouse progress
I took all of the outdoor tomatoes out this week, so that I could get my green garlic planted and I’m also taking my polytunnel tomatoes out. So right on queue my July sown hanging basket tomatoes in the greenhouse are now just starting to ripen, I love it when a plan comes together.
Everything else in the greenhouse is looking good, the Sun Gold tomatoes are still cropping well, the strawberries continue to give us a few fruits, the peppers should ripen just as the last allotment beds are cleared and the baby beet leaves are gorgeous in salads, especially the golden beetroot!
I will soon be taking out my pots of chili peppers, because now we’ve made all of the chili jam we need and that will make space for the early peas.
Polytunnel progress
It’s all change in the polytunnel as I rapidly transition. This week I’m clearing beds, rehydrating them and reconditioning them, next week I’m replanting. At the time of writing I’ve cleared half of the tunnel and I sprayed the polythene - inside and out - with Algon to kill off any algae, I’ve also sprayed the low tunnels.
The tunnel will look horribly empty and sterile next week, but it soon comes back to life.
Allotment and garden progress
If all goes to plan I will spend two days (8 hours in total) on the allotment this week, which is a lot more than usual. I’ve already spent 4 of those hours and cleared half of the polytunnel, but I’ve also cleared the storage beetroot bed and stored the beets in damp pine shavings, they are tucked away under the greenhouse bench. The bed is reconditioned, ready for field beans and then Brussels in spring.
I’ve also cleared one of my three pepper beds and reconditioned that ready for planting lettuce next week.
I harvested 25 litres of peppers, about half of them should ripen and this is the bed, all ready for planting.
I have one pepper bed a week now to clear and re-plant and then I’m essentially done on the allotment, although I’m never truly done because as I finish harvesting, for example, autumn carrots or yacon I will be replanting those beds.
I’ve seen lots of ways for storing beetroot, but none compares to this technique, using damp pine shavings!
Planted this week
Nothing this week, my focus has been on clearing beds, while the sun’s been shining, planting is quicker and most of it’s in the polytunnel, so I will be ok in the rain.
Here’s everything planted this year so far.
Waiting to be planted out
Nothing, I’m doing very well this autumn, keeping up with my plantings and that’s mainly because I’m on top of harvesting and bed reconditioning. Thanks to Strulch beds are weed free, moist and almost slug and snail free, which makes reconditioning them very quick and easy.
You can see all of my planting details here, note the links to growing guides have been added.
Sowing’s for next week
I will be planting the last succession of cauliflowers, no point sowing any later than this, as February sown plants flower at almost the same time. I have at least one more succession of calabrese though, which is a bit faster to flower. The spinach is to take over from Giant Winter, which will go to seed in spring and the broad beans are just for the polytunnel. There’s no point doing more than a half dozen plants, because outdoor grown plants are ready only a few weeks later.
Growing guides for September
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 September’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
These provide a convenient way to print my sowing guide, or two extract information into your own spreadsheet:
Sowing Guide for October
Here’s a link to the details.
Weekly Harvest
We did a lovely harvest last week, here’s a couple of photos. It’s always tricky for me at this time of year, trying to make the most of the warm weather harvests, especially the fruits, while also trying to make we have a varied harvest to eat now and that we don’t go short in winter. The result is often the odd lean week for a few veggies and this week we were a little short of lettuce and only had enough spinach for salads.
There’s a video this week too:
We’ve also been busy making sauces and chili jam, making apple sauce for winter as well as drying herbs.
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