So, last year I tried growing a small handful of things over autumn and winter, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. This year, I’ve been following the advice from the Rocket Gardens team and I feel like I’m a bit more in the know. So, I made sure I got my veggies planted in mid September to give them a bit of a headstart and I’m thrilled. I’ve already got harvestable salad leaves to pick, and they have incredible flavour. Mizuna, Wild Rocket and winter lettuces (the latter are in the greenhouse, which is now not very warm or sheltered as most of the windows succumbed to last Monday’s storm!) are all doing really well and I’ve been treating them as cut & come again leaves giving me lots of yummy salads at lunchtime over the past few days.
I’m really enjoying the new flavours of other things that I’ve never grown before as well….winter purslane and land cress are absolute winners! I can’t believe I never grew them before. I’ve been missing out!
Slower to grow are the kales and broccoli, although they are looking very healthy and perky considering the weather. I don’t think the kales will take much longer before I can start picking off some of the leaves, particularly the Red Russian Kale (which has beautiful purple leaves by the way – really lovely) I’m really hopeful for my pak choi as well – it’s getting quite big and so far no sign of bolting. That’s a first in my veg patch!
All in all, I have spent very little time in the veg patch apart from the odd bit of weeding at weekends and I’m amazed by my autumn crop. I’m really glad I have given it a go and I think I might just be a convert to the concept of year round growing.