Shirley Lanigan says that although the growing season is almost over, there are still a few vegetables that can succeed at this time of year. Neither is it time to let your garden turn wild and tatty, after all the work you did over the summer
While the harvesting season gradually and slowly winds down and we cut, eat, freeze and store the various different crops we grew this year, there are still some planting and cultivating jobs that can be seen to in the vegetable garden. Keeping up the work now will see to it that there is more on the way and in the pipeline.
In late August/early September, growth is still in swing – if not full swing, particularly in the strawberry patch. Strawberry plants are largely finished cropping and at this time, they are sending out long runners, on the end of which are tiny new strawberry plants. As these touch the ground, they take root and begin to grow.
Taken in hand, these little babies will become new strawberry plants, producing fruits next year and the year after that. What should be remembered about strawberry plants is that they have a fairly short productive life. After about two or three years, they tend to lose strength, producing a reducing number of smaller fruit. So they need replacement every two or three years.
If you have not been growing strawberries already, you can of course head to the garden centre and buy new plants to start the ball rolling for 2010. But if you already have plants, this is not the only way. Look at the old plants. The most inexpensive way to get a new fresh patch of strawberries going is to propagate runners from the existing stock.
Runners
These runners can be left to take root in the ground, but tend to be more successful if grown in good compost. Stand small pots of compost beside the existing plants.
Tuck them a little way into the soil for stability. Next, layer the little runner onto the top of the compost and use a U-shaped pin made from a 15cm length of wire coat-hanger to hold it down, so that it keeps contact with the compost and takes proper root.
In the meantime, prepare a new bed for the young strawberry plants. Dig out any weeds and add in a large quantity of compost. In about three weeks’ time, the little plants can be cut free of their mother plants and transplanted into the new bed. The stage is then set for next years’ crop of strawberries.
One of the great aspects of vegetable gardening is that when you are busy eating one load of vegetables, there is nearly always something else you can be in the process of sowing and bringing on. So there is generally a new treat to which you can look forward.
Right now, there are several crops that can be sown: spring cabbages are perfect for sowing now. Netting draped over the bed will protect the seedlings from cabbage white butterflies and other pests coming to lay their eggs on and devour the new plants.
Look out for the presence of cabbage white eggs on already maturing cabbages. The eggs are laid on the underside of the leaves. These eggs are very recognisable by the way they are laid in beautiful patterns. Rub them off the plant before the resulting caterpillars get a chance to cause trouble. Draping the plants with netting will protect from further batches being laid.
There are also onions that can be sown now. Japanese clumping onions are perfect for this. Spring onions like ‘White Lisbon’ can also be started off. If you are going to be around to keep an eye on them, starting them in seed trays is a good idea. The little plants can then be planted out at the end of next month. If you are not going to be around to keep them watered, plant the seed straight into the ground.
Just make sure to sow in a weed-free nursery bed in straight lines, to make it easier to distinguish between the seedlings and any weedlings that will most certainly emerge at the same time. Marking the seed with a line of sand will help distinguish the wanted from unwanted crops.
Japanese onions are well suited to winter growth. They need to be planted in a bed already used for another crop and not fertilised or fed afterwards.
Too fertile a bed will encourage soft growth, which is not desirable. The varieties to try include ‘Swift’ and ‘Senshyu’. There is also still time to sow winter lettuce. ‘Winter Density’ and ‘Brune d’hiver’ are two that do well outside in Ireland when we have milder winters.
If the winter is cold, plastic or glass cloches will deliver an extra bit of protection, which will allow them to continue slow growth. Even a few leaves to add to a meal as the nights draw in give it a slightly special feel, so it is well worth growing winter lettuce.
Winter purslane is a great salad crop, a little like lamb’s lettuce. It has ‘fat’ juicy leaves that are extremely versatile and it grows well outside at this time of year.
From now until mid-September, spinach can be sown regularly at two-week intervals. The reason for this is that spinach can be a bit tricky to germinate. Too warm and dry and it will go wrong, too wet and it will go wrong.
Sowings
It does not take too much for spinach to bolt and go to seed. So making several sowings give multiple chances to get a line of plants going before the weather gets too cold.
Even if they all take, spinach cooks down to nothing, so you are unlikely to be unable to eat it all anyway. In any case, it makes sense to use up the spare seed at the end of the year. Actually, if you are feeling like a bit of an experiment, look around the shed and hunt out all left-over vegetable seeds. Pull them all out, from carrots to swede, parsnips, turnips, beetroot, Swiss chard, the salad crops and really everything apart from the warm-weather crops like tomatoes and courgettes.
Unless stored very carefully in the perfect conditions, seed loses viability. Kept until next year, when you plant it at the perfect time, it could be fairly useless and the work done at that perfect planting time will have been wasted. It is best to start each season off with new fresh seed for best results.
However, it feels terribly wasteful dumping the leftovers of this year’s seed. If it was going out to the compost heap anyway, why not try planting it now when the chances of success are not so good? Our autumns and winters are so unpredictable and the weather just might be clement over the next two or three months – a phenomenon not unknown in the same way that a wet and soggy June and July are not unknown.
Success
If you have the seed to spare, you never know what success might meet you. Any resulting vegetables will feel like food for free and they will accordingly taste all the better for it.
Remember that if you want to do this, give those against-the-odds vegetables the best site you can afford them. The most sheltered and sunniest spot in the garden is where they should be sown. Forget about tucking them away in a damp, cold, windy and shaded spot. If that is the plan, you might as well just put them in the compost heap.
Once planted, see how things go over winter. If we have a good warm autumn and a mild winter, you could be pleasantly surprised.
With regard to protection, some of these vegetables will certainly want protection as the season marches on. Beetroot, carrots and winter lettuce will benefit from cover as the days get colder, so prepare for that situation now.
Have miniature plastic or fleece tunnels ready to pull out at short notice. Failing to do this now while the days are still mild could see you hunt in vain for tunnels when the weather is cold and the garden centres have replaced such items with Christmas decorations!
Apart from the anticipation of vegetables to come, there are other good reasons to get out to the garden now. If you tip away gently, carrying out this small task and that little job, the work will be enjoyable and satisfying and the place will look good even as the duller end of the year beckons.
An ordered-looking garden invites you out to do a bit of work. A place where all has been left to its own wild devices, just because you are finished the bulk of the harvesting, becomes wild and tatty very quickly. So keep up the good work.
About Greg Baxter
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