It’s clear-up time… and time to start afresh
Mustards, winter lettuce and tiny onion bulbs are all being planted now
It’s sad to say, but it’s time to start clearing spent plants from this year’s garden and thinking about what you want to grow next year.
My greenhouse has been incredibly productive over the last few months and
I’ve been inundated with tomatoes, chillis, aubergines and cucumbers, to name a few. However, some of the plants have reached the end of the line, with some of the sweet pepper plants now having no fruit left on them, so there's no point in them being in the greenhouse.
As a greenhouse is a protected environment it can be a haven for pests. This is why I remove any plants which don’t have fruit on them straight away (it’s one less place for pests to hide).
I grow in large pots as the ground soil is solid clay and unusable, unless you want to make pottery, so when clearing plants there are two options for me. One is to remove the plant and compost it, then scatter the soil on the outside beds to add a bit more goodness to them, or I can cut the plants off at ground level and sow winter mustards and lettuce straight into this soil (after composting the plant).
It may seem strange to grow straight into soil that has already been used once in a pot, but the new plants need different and less nutrients, so will grow absolutely fine. I like to grow mustard ‘Green in Snow’ as it can be used as an autumn salad leaf, or left to grow into a mature plant through the winter and used like spinach or added (chopped up) to casseroles and soups. When it comes to winter lettuce, there are lots to choose from but I like ‘Brighton’ and ‘Vailan’ and sow a few in each pot as I start to clear the summer’s plants.
Don’t forget to reduce the watering on your remaining crops as they don’t need as much now the weather's cooling down.
Over the next few months it’s time to start thinking about next year’s onion crop and planting your autumn sets. These tiny onion bulbs should be planted just deep enough so that the straw-like tip shows from the soil, giving them a good chance to get their roots down during the autumn, ready to spring into life in the new year. These will produce bulbs around four to eight weeks
before their spring-planted counterparts. You may discover your onion sets are scattered around the bed a day or two after planting because of birds thinking the straw-like tip is a worm and yank them from the soil. The solution is to either lay a few bushy twigs around the sets or pin netting over bulbs. I lay netting down and use a few bricks to weigh it down, allowing air and rain to still get to the onions. Make sure the netting is very
fine so birds don't get their feet caught up in it.