Ideas for when the summer glut is over

[Andy Hamilton]

Been a bit slack this year with my winter vegetables. I have about 8 or nine purple sprouting brocolli plants at the top of the plot a bed of burpees golden beetroot that have not come up and that is about it. Well I guess there is the chard and beet spinach that should last me through.

Any suggestions of what I should do now? Should I plant green manure over the whole plot after everything has been harvested? Then leave it to rest over the winter, perhaps getting some beans in later this year?

What would you do? My soil is only clay about a two foot or more in places down so it does not need breaking down.

I have thought of covering it over with cardboard after I have dug in a green manure just to keep the weeds down until spring next year.

[Chickpea]

It depends. If you have:

a) been growing crops on it pretty intensively
b) it was nutrient-poor to begin with
c) it is showing signs of losing nutrients now (your yellow courgette leaves could be a sign of this but I'm not sure)

Then you might want to rest it, and a green manure would be a good idea.

But if it seems to be holding up pretty well you could just dig in some organic material and bung in a few more crops. You can still sow more beet, carrots, lettuce (late ones might need sheltering under a coke-bottle cloche as it gets cold), spring cabbage, corn salad, onions, turnips, French beans, winter radish and spinach.

If you are sticking to a strict crop rotation and that leaves some earth bare (e.g. an expired brassica bed you want to keep open for your potatoes next spring) then green manure will fill the gap. It'll stop weeds invading an empty space, stop nutrient leaching away when bare earth is rained on in the winter, stop soil erosion if your soil is prone to that, and put some goodness back into the soil.

[alicej]

If you're going to put cardboard down, weigh it down with some carpet, or something else that will cover a large area of it. I put loads of cardboard down last winter and it was great, but I just put stones on the corners and of course when it's wet it tears around the stones and when it's dry it blows all over the place - mine ended up all over the entire site!

If you're on a council site you could try asking them to deliver woodchip when they cut hedges (after birds have finished nesting). We get as much as we want for free, and that'd weigh down the cardboard and you could sweep it all onto the paths when you're ready to use the beds again.

On clay soil I found that cardboard really helped to keep it diggable too, I've used it all summer in-between crops so it doesn't all dry out and bake hard in the sun.

I also use lots of shredded paper which I get free from work - anywhere they keep confidential documents will have loads, and it's great for composting, mulching and starting off fires!

Alice

[Shirley]

Good advice there alice... I think we might do that here - we've got plenty of cardboard boxes from our move... and most are not worth freecycling.

[Cheezy]

Couple of ideas
Now:
Chard
Florence fennel
Bok Choy

Next month
Japanise onions
Garlic

Here's a bit more from the good ol' RHS

http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/months/august.asp

Down the page is stuff to do with the veg/friut

Back link to follow tips for the whole year, and there's links on that page about green manure.

[hedgewizard]

Andy, get the library to get you a copy of [img]Planning%20the%20Organic%20Vegetable%20Garden%20by%20Dick%20Kitto[/img](Thorsons, 1986). It's hard going but you'll never need to wonder what to do with fallow land because there isn't any.

[supersprout]

Hi andy, have you come across this (rather clunky) guide - you can set your postcode and it gives you what to sow/plant/do when!
http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_veg ... lanner.asp

Oo, like hedgewizard I hate to see soil that's bare or not growing something. So I mulch overwinter with any organic stuff to keep the worms busy - between overwintering crops as in previous posts, and on any crops like leeks, Jerusalem artichokes and parsnips so I can prise them out when it's frosty

[gunners71uk]

cheers sprouty for info i set it up for nr where i live taaaaaaaa

[Andy Hamilton]

yep good find cheers,

[Wombat]

Andy, get the library to get you a copy of [img]Planning%20the%20Organic%20Vegetable%20Garden%20by%20Dick%20Kitto[/img](Thorsons, 1986). It's hard going but you'll never need to wonder what to do with fallow land because there isn't any.

I've got a copy Hedgie! not bad, but does not allow for the permacuture ideas of "plant everything everywhere". It is an intersting book though!

Nev

[hedgewizard]

Quite right Nev - I use his system (more or less) for my annual veg beds, but I'm setting up a forest garden for the mini-orchard and an edible hedge for the boundary with the grassy top part of the garden.

[misscorinthian]

The Japanese onions and garlic are good ideas, if you don't mind them taking up the space in the soil until next summer.

For something just for the winter, you could try new potatoes. The idea is you plant them in October, and you should have spuds for your Christmas dinner. I did it last year, and it did work (although the yield wasn't particularly high) but I had problems digging them up because the ground was so wet- It was all clumpy and I just couldn't see the darn things.

Green manure is a great idea though. I love the stuff. Keeps the weeds down as well

[hedgewizard]

What Missy said. Expect to lift two plants for every one you would lift normally. But so what? This is a bonus, considering you're probably going to use a handful of runty "chats" that would have been no good for the pot. New potatoes at Yule. Mmmm.

Green manure - yes but - the slugs and snails LOVED to hide in the clover and then pop out to eat my brassicas. Why does everything eat my brassicas? It's like some hideous Disney movie!