Just wondering how you use your undercover areas (that's the GH & PT, you norty minds) through the winter months.
What do you grow or do you empty it out, clean it up and close it down for spring?
I’ve got ‘All year round’ and Arctic king lettuce that I’ve recently sown in modules to go in the GH border once my Toms have finished.
Then carrots, land cress, mixed lettuce in troughs and buckets.
I did intend to plant a few potatoes but never did get around to it.
Looking forward to seeing what others are growing
I'm trying something different this year, only thought of it today!!
Some of the tomatoes are finished or unlikely to produce any new fruit this year, so I've been pulling them up. My plan is to leave their pots and canes in situ but plant some Bijou mangetout with a few DFBs in each empty pot. I'll top up the pots with fresh compost and some chicken manure pellets before sowing the seeds.
The self-seeded lettuce are germinating around the pots as usual.
The gutter gardens will need fresh seeds/seedlings and I've learnt now, not to sow too thickly.
I'll have a few pots of carrots and sow some more direct into the beds.
I have my winter potatoes in already, Pentland Javelins and also some roosters. I have short stubby carrots that I pulled for the first time today and they were lovely, I’ve just sowed another bed of them. I will also start some white onion seeds and cabbage plants for spring sowing. I’m fed up growing lettuce, nobody is eating it in quantity so I’ll probably grow a few cut and come heads. My herbs parsley thyme lemon thyme and rosemary will continue to grow. I plan to grow some garlic in the PT as an experiment also thinking about ginger.
Hopefully in the greenhouse border and pots we'll have some spring onions, spinach, tatsoi, pak choi, mizuna, chard, wild rocket and baby kale. In some large trays we'll have lettuce, lamb's lettuce and winter purslane. All these have already been sown according to the timings this chart -
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/growers-libr...chart.html
Then overwintering in pots maybe some Candissa cabbages, cauliflower and perennial flowers. Also the carrots currently outside in pots will go into the greenhouse and we'll pick them as needed.
Thanks TMTT for the link to that chart. I haven't seen that before.. Now to find out when my last 10 hour day is.
................25th October
I’m thinking about adding some power out in the largest greenhouse, I don’t want to heat it electrically but wouldn’t mind adding some additional lights in there. Maybe pop them on a timer to trick what’s in there to continue growing. I’ll have the means to cloche the beds to double insulate them, I could even add some manure as a natural heat source below them. I think it will all depend on getting the light right, and that’s new ground for me.
Undecided what I will be putting in greenhouse over winter but it will definitely be used.
If I have the energy and it isn't too major a job I would like to lift the paving flags along one side of the greenhouse and be able to utilise the bed soil. I have no idea what is under the paving flags so may need to replace the soil completely.
I ave grown dwarf broad beans, cabbage and garlic over winter in greenhouse before so we shall see what I come up with this year.
It would be such a shame not to utilise a micro climate over winter.
I've never bothered with winter crops, either indoors or outdoors, except for leaving swiss chard in the ground in the hope it might revitalize in spring. Experiments with brasssicas in the past failed miserably. Last year used the GH to overwinter fuschia with some sucess. This year's halfhearted plan is to have something growing but I'm not sure what. I've some arctic king in the border soil, which got munched by caterpillars, but as we don't eat many, I wasn't too heartbroken. Some carrots in pots, some chard modules. I find if the weather is grotty I tend to neglect the GH. Time will tell whether I shall succeed this coming winter. My last 10 hour day day is 24th October, about 12 weeks away, so there's a reasonable choice of things to sow.
Come on, JJB!! A new GH and you're not inspired to use it over winter. Its not an ornament!!
I grow more in my GHs than I do outdoors as its so easy - and dry and warmer in there -for the plants and me.