As the clocks go back at the end of this month, and night time falls a little earlier, many grow your own gardeners believe that there’s not much that they can actually grow now and prefer to cover their beds until the spring months the following year. But there are still crops that can be grown and sown now and harvested during these lean winter months.
With a little future planning in the spring and summer months, plants such as kale, winter cabbage, winter lettuces, radishes, turnips and even potatoes could all be started, ready for harvesting during the winter months. You can also get a healthy supply of selected fresh herbs. Some examples of what I have growing at the allotment at the moment are shown in the pictures that follow.
One main consideration of growing plants during the winter months is to ensure that they have adequate protection. This can easily be achieved by covering with a variety of cloches or fleece; even a layer of bubblewrap would suffice!
There are bulbs and seeds that can be sown directly in the ground this month too. Examples of these are overwintering onions, shallots and garlic as well as hardy peas and broad beans.
Some of the most winter hardy vegetables are listed below
Leeks
Kale
Brussels Sprouts
Winter Cabbages
Swish chard
Parsnips
Turnips
Broccoli
Hardy peas
Winter lettuce
Broad beans
Garlic
Onions
So lets not put our beds to bed just yet this winter. Lets find ways to tuck up a good selection of veg, underneath fleecy protection to see us through the lean months that lay ahead.
Happy diggin’
Debb
digginwivdebb 
That is a great list! I grew all of them last year with varying success, and I also grew Giant Mustard Greens. Have you tried them?
Thanks for the post. There are some ideas here I can use 🙂
Thanks for your comment. I’ve not tried growing mustard greens. Not too much if a fan.
Yes, me either, it turns out, lol! After eating several meals of the stuff I discovered on the first meal I didn’t actually LIKE, I decided not to grow it again, LOL!!! It grew really well, though!!
Lol! I’m the same with broad beans. Would love to grow them cause they look great when they are growing but I wouldn’t eat them cause I can’t stand the taste!
Debbi Love.
Hahaha! Well, broad beans I can cope with, so long as I do not let them get too ripe 😛 Another one that tastes rather ick when its over ripe is cauliflower! Yeck! Or cabbage picked too soon! You know, the ones with no heart yet? Too grassy and tough 😛 😛
Look at your soil… It is black and looks like compost I am soooo jealous. My soil is clay in the summer it is like terracotta and as hard as rock in the winter it is a quagmire. Can we please swop.
I’d love to swap for all that Italian sunshine.
lol… Listen you send me a bag of that fine soil and I will send you one glass jar full of sunshine.
Only one jar??? Come on, it’s that good I think it deserves at least 2! Lol x
We are just entering winter, I could do one of sunshine and one of Fog. I like the idea of fleecy protection. I might try it this year.
All I intend to do with the fleece is to throw it on top of the netted cloches I use. A bit like a duvet for plants.