Plant potatoes now for a tasty festive treat...and protect those sprouts from the wind
There’s still time to plant potatoes if you fancy eating home-grown spuds for Christmas dinner. Nurseries and garden centres are currently stocking varieties that are ideal for growing now and you don’t need many. Just a few tubers, placed in a large sack or tub, should be enough to dish up a festive treat.
The only difference between growing potatoes now and planting them in spring is that a Christmas crop needs to be grown under cover to protect it from frost, so use a cool conservatory, bright porch or greenhouse to give the potatoes the protection that they need.
If you are growing them in the conservatory, you might want to fill the bottom of the container with home-made compost rather than the manure, which potatoes love but which can be a bit pungent, especially on days when there is a lot of sunshine.
Keep earthing up the shoots as they grow, feed regularly with liquid plant food and remove the stalks when they turn yellow and die down, but you can leave the potatoes in the pots or sacks until it is time to harvest them.
Meanwhile, if you are growing that other festive stalwart, Brussels sprouts, then create a mound of soil around the base of the stalk this month to prevent them being rocked by the wind. If the roots of sprouts are loosened in this way, then the sprouts themselves have a tendency to open, whereas the aim is to produce tight buds.
If Christmas still seems a very long way off, then plant a few rows of radish now for a quick crop and start sowing peas with the aim of harvesting tasty shoots instead of pods.
For an ongoing supply of herbs, pot up some parsley and mint and bring these under cover. And collect nasturtium seeds and pickle them as a substitute for capers.
If there are any plums left on the tree, then pick these now and if you have too many to eat then you can make them into jam or freeze them. You may need to support the branches of heavy-cropping plum trees to prevent limbs from breaking off. Avoid pruning plum trees in the winter as this can increase the risk of infection by silver leaf disease. Instead, remove dead or crossing branches in mid-summer while the tree is in full growth.