From September you can sow and plant cabbage, garlic, lettuce, onions and more with Elisabeth Arter
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| Sow and plant baby leaves from September
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'I always aim to group together those crops that will be harvested around the same time, so that blocks of ground become vacant rather than odd bits here and there.'
Autumn planting at a glance
BABY LEAVES including lettuce: Sow September to October; plant September to November under glass or polythene; use from October onwards.
BROAD BEANS 'Aquadulce Claudia' or 'Super Aquadulce': Sow early November; use late May to June.
CABBAGE 'Duncan', 'Excel', 'Peter', 'Spring Hero': Put in plants late September to October; use April to June.
GARLIC 'Elephant', 'Purple Wight' or 'Solent Wight': Plant cloves from September; use from July.
LETTUCE 'Arctic King', 'Valdor', 'Winter Density': Sow seed in September; plant October; use April to May.
ONION SETS 'Radar' or 'Swift': Plant sets in September or early October; use May to July.
SALAD ONION 'Winter Hardy', 'White Lisbon': Sow seed in September; use March to May.
SPRING GREENS 'Duncan', 'Excel' or 'Peter': Put in plants late September to October; use March to April.
The holidays are over, summer crops are coming to an end and days are shorter and cooler. It's a lovely time for working in the kitchen garden and filling vacant spaces with new things to enjoy through the cold months and into next summer.
I always aim to group together those crops that will be harvested around the same time, so that blocks of ground become vacant rather than odd bits here and there. The top three on my autumn planting list will all be ready for use in late spring and early summer, and so I like to plant them side by side. All are good choices for planting after maincrop potatoes have been dug, leaving soil that needs very little attention before the next crop goes in.
Broad beans
I find that autumn-sown broad beans give me bumper crops, occupying land that would otherwise be empty and scarcely ever being troubled by the blackfly that can be a pest with spring sowings. I like to sow 'Super Aquadulce', or 'Aquadulce Claudia' as near as possible to 5 November, and can usually start picking for the end-of-May spring bank holiday, at just the time when there are few new season's vegetables. There can be losses in a very hard winter or a cold district, but plants stand quite a bit of frost and can be given a layer of fleece if very low temperatures are forecast.
Cabbages
I raise my own spring-cropping cabbage plants for autumn planting from a sowing at the end of July or early August, but you can buy them by mail order or, if you are lucky, from a local allotment society – or perhaps a keen vegetable grower with a surplus to dispense with.
I like to grow two types: one with smaller pointed heads that mature earlier, such as 'Duncan', 'Excel' or 'Peter', and then also 'Spring Hero' which makes large round heads that mature a few weeks later. I put the plants in towards the end of September, or early in October, with just 23cm (9in) between plants. In early spring alternate ones can be used to fill any gaps due to winter losses, or cut for use as unhearted 'spring greens'. The main risk to the plants is not winter cold, but wood pigeons that can strip any brassicas very quickly. If I see any sign of their attack, I cover the row loosely with netting.
Garlic
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| Plant cloves from September
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Little room is needed for this very useful herb and, although it can be planted up until early March, I find best results come from planting in September to October. It will be late July to August next year before most of these bulbs grown from cloves planted in autumn are ready to be harvested and stored.
Before I hang ripe bulbs from my crop in bunches to store in the garage, I select some of the biggest and best, then split them up and reserve their largest individual cloves for planting. If you buy bulbs you must, of course, also divide them into individual cloves before planting. This year for the first time I have also grown the new 'Elephant' garlic, which is much larger, of a milder, sweeter flavour and is actually closely related to leeks rather than being a true garlic. I'd advise anyone keen to try it to grow both jumbos and traditional kinds in order to compare the two.
Lettuce
There doesn't seem to be so much interest in sowing lettuce in early autumn for spring cutting as in my young days, when nearly every gardener grew a row of 'Winter Density' (that's like a larger 'Little Gem') – and my grandfather always grew the butterhead variety 'Arctic King' as well because it was extra hardy. You can buy both today, but the butterhead variety 'Valdor' is my favourite.
This spring I had a wonderful crop from a sowing in a pot in the cold greenhouse on 19 September that gave seedlings to prick out a week later into modules. I grew some of the resulting plants in my big polytunnel, but by far the best were planted in mid-October and grown in the open under environmesh, supported by simple wire cloche hoops.
Onions
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| Plant sets in September or early October
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Most onions these days are grown from spring-planted sets. These should store through to the following spring, but then there's a longish gap before the new harvest – and this comes at just the time when onions are in demand for cooking to serve with dishes at midsummer barbecues.
Plant autumn onion sets in late September to early October and you can have large firm new bulbs to use from late May. One of the best varieties is 'Radar', with round bulbs that keep well into autumn. Incidentally, these overwintered onions can make super-sized bulbs for those keen on exhibiting at summer horticultural shows. 'Swift' has flattish bulbs that are ready a little earlier, but don't keep so well. You can also buy small onion plants for putting in during September, but I'd always advise growing from sets.
Salad onions
Sow winter-hardy 'White Lisbon' onion seed in September and you will be able to pull salad onions next spring well ahead of those from a sowing next year. I sow a bit thicker than in spring, to allow for some winter losses, and find that the biggest problem with caring for the row is keeping it weed-free.
Salad leaves
The recent enthusiasm for baby salad leaves has made it so much easier to keep the salad bowl filled through the colder months and they are high on my list for September sowing and planting.
Plants of the same kinds put in the ground just a few inches apart, or in a growing bag, large pot, under glass or polythene, can be picked over for baby leaves many times in the coming months. You can also grow any lettuce seeds left over from this year's sowings, any loose-leaf lettuce, or one of the special mixes sold for baby leaf production. A mix of different colours and leaf shapes, such as 'Lettuce Leaves' from Mr Fothergill's looks pretty in a mixed salad.
You can sow direct in the ground, in a container, or as I find most successful, in a small pot. Prick out into modules and then plant out where they are to grow on until harvest. Among the numerous seeds offered for baby leaf salads, three of my favourites from last September's sowing were corn salad that makes rosettes of shiny green leaves, tatsoi with mild spoon-shaped leaves and mizuna with feathery green leaves.
* Before ordering bulbs or plants by mail order, check last order dates and availability via supplier websites or catalogues.
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