Preparing plants for the winter
Looking after crops now should set me up nicely for the next growing season
One of my favourite veg to grow in the Kitchen Garden has to be the jumbo (or should it be Dumbo) sized elephant garlic! These huge bulbs are milder than regular types and make the best garlic bread if you roast the cloves before spreading on a crusty loaf. I’m planting them around 30cm apart and 10cm deep; I’ve found they still form big bulbs when planted closer together, as long as you can get a hoe between them to weed. One thing to remember is they take a lot longer to sprout and show signs of life compared with regular garlic, so don’t panic if you think they’re slow. Remember that allium leaf miner is active until November, so it’s best to cover any bed with Enviromesh to keep them out.
Another veg to get going is autumn-sown peas, with ‘Meteor’ and ‘Douce Provence’ being among the best. I like to sow peas thickly in a terracotta seed pan, then when they’re around 10cm tall I’ll pull them apart into single plants before planting them out in the beds. Sowing this way helps save space and there’s no detriment to the plants.
For those who are growing brassicas, it’s surprising how quickly plants can begin to rot if they have dead leaves on them or are damaged, so it’s worth checking inside cages each week, clearing detritus and removing any leaves touching the soil. This should keep your plants in better health for longer.
Late varieties of apples and pears should be removed now before the first frosts damage the fruit. The perfect ones can be stored while those with any damage need using up quickly. When picking fruit, it’s worth checking the trees for damage as I’ve had a branch snap on one of my apples from the weight of the fruit. Pruning the damage out will prevent infection.
It’s time to cut back and prepare any chilli plants you want to overwinter. Rocoto types seem to be the easiest for this, but I managed to keep jalapeños and other varieties by removing the fruit and cutting the main stem back to 15cm tall. You also want to reduce the remaining branches to 5cm long, then the plants need keeping somewhere above 8-9C. I usually put them in the lean-to
with the citrus plants. You only need to water them lightly as they won’t grow for the next few months, but they can’t be bone dry. You’ll always lose some plants to the cold, so overwinter as many as you can to account for losses.
Szechuan peppers are ready to harvest, with the shell of the seed being the part you want to dry and use in Oriental cooking – the black seed is inedible. To go with this, I’m also harvesting a little of my ginger plant
I grew in the greenhouse. All you do is separate a piece off and remove it from the plant. The rest will go back in and stay in the pot for a few more weeks before it can be fully harvested.