What Veg You Are Planting...

I have noticed over the past couple of years veg gardening is becoming more of an all year round thing so I thought I would start this one off now so that we can compare notes, if people are experimenting we can see what works or what is a waste of time...

Don't forget to allow for the differing times of year as we are multi-national...

Today I planted some:

Shallotts
Garlic
Spring onions

for overwintering.

I put them in a very large planter that I built a couple of years ago & I have covered them with some conservatory roofing off cuts that I was given from next door...

Hoping to do those after tutorial today, weather allowing.. I've also got to clear the bed first, I think...

I'll also be bunging in some winter caulis too, tomorrow is earmarked for them bad boys, they were fantastic last season

If I have time, I'll also bung in me autumn broad beans, why can't days be 30 hours?

Have planted some cauliflowers (Serac, I think) which are supposed to overwinter. Will let you know.....
Have also planted up a trough of salad leaves to put in the little greenhousy thing, and am poised to sow some cabbages (Grow your Own magazine suggested a variety called Duncan, which I haven't got, so will try Hispi which seem to be fairly obliging). After last winter I will keep some brassicas in modules so if we have any ridiculous winter weather I can bring them in to the loft where it's light, cold but doesn't freeze. The rest can take a chance in the raised beds with some fleece over.

Today I planted my garlic - Albigensian Wight, Iberian Wight and Purple Moldovan. Also sowed Broad beans Aquadulche. Having got all the autumn planting in before the Bedfordshire clay gets too unworkable, I can now have a bit of a break from the garden and sort out the workshop ....

Chilli-head wrote:Today I planted my garlic - Albigensian Wight, Iberian Wight I can now have a bit of a break from the garden and sort out the workshop ....

Wonder where they originated from then...

On Oct 3rd I posted:

Today I planted some:
Shallotts
Garlic
Spring onions
for overwintering.
I put them in a very large planter that I built a couple of years ago & I have covered them with some conservatory roofing off cuts that I was given from next door...

They have all now come through...

so I have planted 20 broad beans (the Sutton), a row of carrots (early Nantes 5) & a row of Spring Cabbages (BIIRWTW) with the roofing off cuts from before on top...

also planted 4 rows of onion sets,

& replanted Rhubarb into a 2 tyre stack...
Oh & also replanted a clump of chives into an old toilet cistern.

BTW old toilet cisterns make very good planters, I think I have 5 now!!! All herb planters...

That's made me think - I have some roofing offcuts from the shed which I could cover my caulis with.
BTW, don't you think 'The Sutton' sounds like a really posh hotel? And how do you use it correctly in a sentence - 'I'm going to plant some 'The Sutton' in the spring' doesn't sound right. (But indeed I am going to plant some 'The Sutton' in the spring!)

I'm only just starting to experiment with winter type stuff. Planted garlic last weekend, and spring onion seeds (so I might actually have some spring onions rather than late summer ones). Also trying for the first time some mixed salad leaves in the greenhouse. It is unheated, but have put them up on the bench so they should get a little sun from time to time. A constant battle though to keep anything in the ground. Foxes dig things up, and we are rife with slugs and snails. I have to start virtually everything in pots, until I think they can hold their own

I have been planning for ages to make a solar collector for the greenhouse - just a simple affair to warm air, using thermal convection to deliver it. Have only just realised that at this time of year, even in the middle of the day, the sun isn't showing above a humungeous weeping willow, flanked by two equally humungeous conifers two gardens away. The bench just gets some sun, but no lower, where I would need to put the solar collector. Hey ho, back to the drawing board.

Quite right Spar, all my garlic are IOW Garlic farm introductions - they all seem to do just fine in Bedfordshire clay. Mrs C-H is a garlic fan, and we had to make the pilgrimage to the garlic farm when we visited the Isle of Wight a couple of years ago. Very nice lunch they do too ...

Now, greenhouse heating. I've looked at lots of thermal storage systems, including the INEBG crushed glass and fan contraption (which, incidentally, is much the same as a design in Kitchen Garden magazine a year or two before the INEBG series). There seem to be a couple of problems - one is that, as you noticed freebird, in winter there is not much heat available to store, and the other is that you need a huge bulk of something to hold a meaningful amount of heat with only a few degrees of temperature difference between day/night. What I have settled on is much simpler than most, and is just a black plastic 100L loft storage type tank, set under the bench on the sunny side of the greenhouse. It will only extend the season by a little at the ends, only warms stuff on the bench above it, and is not much use in mid winter (when I usually drain it and scrub it out). But, because the heat is stored in water, it has a higher heat capacity than most readily available materials, has a big latent heat of fusion so offers a good degree of frost protection. Finally you can use it as a supply of warmed water for plant watering.

I have some salad leaves in seed trays and some peas grown in pots for their shoots on the bench at the moment. The pea shoots are a great idea, I think, they taste good and grow much quicker than other saladings at this time of year.

Warming stuff on the bench was all I had in mind. I have considered the water tank option, but it would have to sit right under the bench, not being easy to move when full of water, thus blocking even more of the (non-existant, I now realise) sun. So I had been considering something more portable, that I could move aside when I needed to access the crops.

I have always realised that trying to keep the whole greenhouse even just frost-free, without additional power, isn't going to happen. I've been mulling over how to raise the temperature in a small, insulated capsule within the greenhouse for ages and ages now. However, any sort of solar collector, whether air convection, water or anything else, is going to have to sit ON the bench if it is to stand any chance of working.

I've not given up on it yet.

I am still trying to ponder on using something to collect the heat from a compost bin, using a black painted radiator, or a coil of hose or pipe, & a small tank of water in the greenhouse but haven't got much further than putting in the foundations for the fixed compost bins next to the greenhouse yet...

I will get there some day, although I'm sure somebody else will have taken on my basic idea & come up with something relatively simple that works & I will loose the fortune that I could have gained by patenting the idea then building & selling the kits...

So that I could retire & spend more time "playing" in the garden...

Sparhawk - your thoughts on trying to harness the heat from your compost heap put me in mind of early pineapple cultivation. Having just read a bit about it, the idea of oak bark sounds feasible:
"Henry Telende’s method of pineapple cultivation was published in Richard Bradley’s A General Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening in 1721. Telende grew the young plants, called ‘succession plants’, in large cold frames called tan pits. The fruiting plants would subsequently be moved into the stove or hothouse to benefit from the additional heat provided by the hot-air flues.

The tan pits were lined with pebbles at the bottom followed by a layer of manure and then topped with a layer of tanners’ bark into which the pots were plunged. The last of these elements was the most important. Tanners’ bark (oak bark soaked in water and used in leather tanning) fermented slowly, steadily producing a constant temperature of 25ºC-30ºC for two to three months and a further two if stirred. Manure alone was inferior, in that it heated violently at first but cooled more quickly. Stable bottom heat is essential for pineapple cultivation and tanners’ bark provided the first reliable source. It became one of the most fundamental resources for hothouse gardeners and remained in use until the end of the 19th century."

And on another subject, but still in the greenhouse, went down last night to collect something from the greenhouse. In the torchlight, there were snails, all heading straight for the late season feast I have so thoughtfully provided for them, of winter salads. Don't they ever give up?

I have so far avoided this section. Perhaps that's because I don't consider growing things in greenhouses to be "permaculture" nor do I consider vegetables that though perenniel aren't usable unless dug and planted reseparated every year. What rmeains is few and far between.

Scallions --- there are a number of perenniel onions that get used as scallions. About the easiest "standard" vegetable to grow in a perenniel patch.

Asparagas ---

Rhubarb ----- but a little goes a long way.

Horseraddish -- ditto, and like the next you want far away form everyithing else

Jerusalem artichoke --- don't have to dig every year and can treat as a wild patch. But you need room to put these far from the regular garden.

What else "standard" might be considered? I have tried to establish a number of edible native species with limited sucess. Perhaps because although native to the continent and theoretically able to survive in my climate in terms of growing season and winter low temeprature aren't native to my bioregion. Might be missing some critical climate or soil condition. Examples you be things like Clatonia (miner's lettuce).

Fruits are another matter entirely as are nuts. But while those are obvious permaculture candidates not "vegetables".

Note that although we don't intentionally grow them we do eat "ground nut" gathehred while we try to get it out of the flower garden areas (quite invasive but it's a native) and while not permaculture since needs to be dug, stored, and replanted in this climate and we're growing for flowers, not food, we do eat any dahlia tubers detached or damaged. Note that you might investigate this possibility and flower gardeners could probably tell you whether/where dahlias could be left in the ground in GB (it might be too wet for them?). In terms of food, you'd use these to substitute for "water chestnut" in Chinese cooking (not much taste but crunchy).

Mike - is your definition of permaculture that only things that are permanently in the ground should be cultivated??

This following definition is from the Permaculture Association:

"Permaculture combines three key aspects:

1. an ethical framework

2. understandings of how nature works, and

3. a design approach

This unique combination is then used to support the creation of sustainable, agriculturally productive, non-polluting and healthy settlements. In many places this means adapting our existing settlements. In other cases it can mean starting from scratch. Both offer interesting challenges and opportunities.

The word 'permaculture' comes from 'permanent agriculture' and 'permanent culture' - it is about living lightly on the planet, and making sure that we can sustain human activities for many generations to come, in harmony with nature. Permanence is not about everything staying the same. Its about stability, about deepening soils and cleaner water, thriving communities in self-reliant regions, biodiverse agriculture and social justice, peace and abundance."

I don't see that definition as being fundamentally opposed to cultivation in a greenhouse, or to crops that are sown yearly. I always try, where I can, to save seed, and adding organic matter to the soil that has been of my own making, I feel is in keeping with this ethos.

freebird wrote:Mike - is your definition of permaculture that only things that are permanently in the ground should be cultivated??

Words mean what we mean them to and what we agree them to mean.

Sorry. Apparently in this case "permaculture" is being used for another purpose. That's all well and good but then what term shall we use for what I was describing?

And no, I was not suggesting that the only plants that should be grown/utilized were those that could be more or less permanently planted (or if annuals, would restablish themselves). But again would run into problems (becuase of how you are using the term) if I said "and I would grow some things that were not "permaculture".

Mike wrote:I have so far avoided this section. Perhaps that's because I don't consider growing things in greenhouses to be "permaculture" nor do I consider vegetables that though perenniel aren't usable unless dug and planted reseparated every year. What rmeains is few and far between.

Well thanks for that Mike, but as sections are being merged, "Permaculture" is the only place where growing things or ideas on how to grow things can be put...

I could hardly put it in the "Crotchet, Knitting, Sewing & Weaving" section, BJM would have a fit!!!

If this is the case, and merging sections is the way to go, can I suggest that picking a more generic top-level title than "Permaculture" would be worth considering ? Lots of people grow their own produce; surely all methods fall within the "Homemade life" remit, not just the very few that practice "permaculture" ?

I have to say that until recently I had no idea what permaculture was about, and probably would have made the same assumption as Mike. Now having seen some examples on TV, it appears to mean "tending a rather untidy and not terribly productive garden whilst wearing a wooly hat and sandals". But perhaps there is more to it than that ?

I didn't really know what it meant, either. That's why I looked it up. Obviously the clue is in the name, but it's probably open to vastly different interpretations.

A couple of weeks ago I was browsing through the seeds at a local garden centre, and saw packs of fairly ordinary veg seeds renamed as 'microgreens'. Basically, some things that will sprout quickly, and are harvested at seedling stage like mustard and cress. I forget all that were on display, but two that struck a chord were basil (a pretty purple variety) and purple sprouting broccoli. I bought a single pack (the basil) just to try, though I reckon ridiculously expensive for such small return. And try them I did - ready to eat in 10-14 days.

So, today, I have been going through my left over seeds, looking for anything I can grow in a similar way on the kitchen windowsill. After all, there are always fifty times more seeds than I want in a packet of purple sprouting - I generally grow half a dozen plants at most. I have pulled out chard, pak choi, purple sprouting and basil, and I have planted the purple sprouting and basil. Will start the chard and pak choi next week. Seems like a good way of using up surplus seed, and adds a bit of interest to winter salads.

Good idea, there is nothing special about these seeds I'm sure, and most brassica will work (often the generic "sprouting salad" in shops is not mustard or cress, but rape, a brassica), also beetroot etc. Pea shoots are a delicious option ! Sow pea seed rather densely in a plant pot (say 1" square per seed). They don't need a lot of warmth to grow, but when they about 4-5 inches high, nip out the top couple of inches to make a nice salad garnish. You should get a couple of further flushes of shoots from the same pot if you leave them to grow.

Mmmm, I like the sound of the pea shoots. MANY years ago when I had an allotment, the lovely old couple that shared the other half of our plot used to buy supermarket dried peas to grow - reckoned it was cheaper. Might check it out when I next go shopping, as I wouldn't be wanting any particular variety to grow for sprouting.

I don't imagine variety matters a lot; I'm using up some golden mangetout peas which I didn't like much as mangetout, but the shoots are tasty - a distinct fresh pea flavour.

My Dad only ever used dried peas from the grocers, even for full size plants.

If growing full size plants, I can think of a few possible pitfalls with using dried peas from the supermarket; aside from not quite knowing what you have, they are likely to be starchy types best for drying, rather than sweet juicy ones for fresh use. And, like growing any other seed from supermarket varieties, they may well be varieties suited to commercial production - i.e., all ready to harvest at the same time, rather than spread over a large window. They may also grow best in the climate of Kenya, India or somewhere ...

But if you find a variety that works, you certainly get a lot of seed for your money. I have had good results growing sweet peppers from saves supermarket peppers; the seed are at least fresh, although if it is an F1 variety results may be variable. Seeds from dried chillies also seem to grow pretty acceptably; and for may years I maintained a line of red habanero chilli from seed out of a pepper bought in a Jamaican grocers.

I also sprout mung beans from the supermarket, they grow a treat & you get a lot for the money.