Expand your harvest and grow the season

THE hot colours of dahlias and crocosmia are some of the best things in the garden in late August, along with the tomatoes and cucumbers ripening in the greenhouse.

At this time of the year there’s such an abundance of fruit, fresh vegetables and flowers that it’s hard to believe that it will ever run out.

It will but, thankfully, there are things you can do now to keep up a supply of good things to eat in the months ahead, from sowing salad leaves to planting out brassicas, either raised from seed at home or bought as young plants, ready to go into the soil.

A greenhouse or polytunnel is useful for extending the season, but cloches will work just as well, including plastic bottles with the ends cut off that can be popped over individual plants, providing them with extra warmth and wind protection when the days get colder, and also helping to keep slugs and snails at bay.

Chard is one of my favourite cold-weather crops and the rainbowcoloured varieties add a splash of colour to the vegetable patch.

Sown now it will be ready to eat in early spring. I also love all kinds of kale, from Italian cavolo nero, to the curly varieties that crisp up deliciously when fried in a little olive oil.

Early season leeks will be ready to lift soon and, if you’ve sown a mixture of varieties, then they’ll provide you with a harvest right through until February.

Getting them out of the soil when there’s a frost can be tricky, but laying fleece over them or planting through black polythene will help to keep the ground workable.

To make the most of your vegetable garden in winter you have to plan ahead. Many late crops, such as broccoli, have to be sown in spring to give them the long season they need to mature, but there are a number of oriental vegetables, including Pak Choi, that can be sown now and harvested in October.

Pak choi, along with bok choi, is amongst those vegetables that actively dislikes hot weather and will most likely bolt if grown during the summer months, but which is useful for producing fast crops in spring and autumn.

There is still enough time to sow late lettuces like ‘Salad Bowl’. Aim to sow quite a few and then just pick the outer leaves and they should continue to give you fresh greens for around three months. They’ll do better under a cloche or a length of fleece and, if your garden is anything like mine, then you may want to patrol them 24 hours a day to keep the rabbits at bay.

Alternatively, grow them under cover, but make sure they don’t ‘cook’ on sunny days. The thin leaves of lettuces wilt quickly in the heat and they’ll bolt just as quickly in the greenhouse as they would on a hot summer’s day in the garden.