Early autumn offers a good opportunity to plant up and keep on growing your own veggies right through winter until spring. It tends to be less effort than spring and summer planting as there are fewer pests to contend with, and less need to water so often with autumn rainfall.
Autumn planting happens in September and October. Planting in September carries the advantage of the soil still being nice and warm, and the plants being able to make most of the longer daylight hours. However, many gardeners will wait until October as then they have a little more space after harvesting summer crops. If you are planting in October, try and get them in the ground as soon as you can, so that plants can settle in before first frosts and chilly nights arrive.
There are all sorts of winter lettuces and salad leaves to grow, including Mustard Leaves, Mizuna, Land Cress, Winter Purslane and Corn Salad. Oriental leaves like Pak Choi and Tatsoi are great to plant up for stir-fries and healthy greens. There are also Winter Green Cabbages, Kale, Spinach and Chard to keep you in good supply of greens. Sprouting Broccoli, Spring Greens and Spring Onions can be planted for a spring harvest. You can also grow Turnips and Swede.
Once you’ve planted up in September or October, you won’t need to spend much time in the garden looking after your crops. We would suggest that an hour or so every weekend to begin with would be plenty, just to keep on top of weeds while things are still growing fast. After that, you can pretty much get away with just popping into the garden when you need to, to peg down netting that has blown around in strong winds, for example, or just to go and pick some veggies for your dinner.
Scroll through some of these easy-to-grow plants to find veggies that are perfect for novice autumn growers!
All our plug plants come with a free growing guide, and there is loads of information here on our website and in our Weekly Veg Out Newsletter
