To do on your plot in December

Harvest

Usually December means hard frosts and it’s time to harvest winter cabbages and cauliflowers. The Brussels sprouts should be starting.

Leeks should be about ready, just take what you need and leave the rest to stand until required.

Lift celery, parsnips and swedes although parsnips and swedes are very hardy and may be left if the ground is not needed.

It’s worth checking any vegetables you have in store and removing anything that has started to rot before it spreads. Potatoes especially need to be checked and watch out for slugs that have emerged from a potato to go and damage another one.

Other crops you may have for harvest:

Perpetual spinach, celeriac, chicory (non-forcing and forcing varieties), endive, kale, kohl rabi, lettuce, winter radish, spinach, turnips.

General Jobs in the Garden

Digging can continue, when weather allows. Particularly with clay soils, digging when the soil is wet and sticky can do more harm than good.

As with October & November, as ground becomes vacant, you can dig it over and spread manure over the surface. Leave the soil roughly dug in large clumps and the worms will break these up as they get the manure. The freezing and thawing of water in the soil will cause the soil to break up finely so becoming easier to handle in the spring.

Winter is a good time to undertake double digging, incorporating manure into the bottom of the trench and deepening your topsoil.

Ensure compost bins are covered to prevent excess rain leaching the nutrients and to keep some of the heat of decomposition in.

Try and keep things tidy to avoid providing winter homes for pests waiting for the spring.

Take hardwood cuttings of soft fruit. Gooseberries, red, white and black currants, worcesterberries, jostaberries and vines can all be propagated by cuttings inserted in the open ground now. Choose sturdy well ripened shoots of this year’s growth cutting them just below a bud and trimming to just above a bud. For black currants take them about 8-10 inches (200-250 mm) long, 12-15 inches (300-380 mm) for the other fruits. Insert them into the soil to about half their length.

Sowing, Planting and Cultivating

You can still plant your garlic cloves now. They actually benefit from a period of cold, which prompts growth later.

Fruit

You can plant bare rooted fruit trees and bushes in December and prune apple and pear trees. Now is a good time to plant rhubarb crowns which will benefit from being left out to be frosted before planting.

Check any young trees are well supported with stakes and ties. Stakes can tend to work loose, which means they won’t be doing their job of preventing wind rock loosening the roots.

You can prune your apple and pear trees now.

Seed Order

December is the traditional month to go through the seed catalogues, decide what you want to grow and make a list.

 

To do on your plot in November

Harvest

Usually November means the hard frosts have started and it’s time to harvest winter cabbages and cauliflowers. The Brussels sprouts should be starting.

Leeks should be about ready, just take what you need and leave the rest to stand until required. You could still be harvesting celery and celeriac, kale and kohl rabi as well as turnips, swedes and spinach.

The carrots should come up for storage now, either in peat or sand or even a traditional clamp.

Parsnips will stay in the ground but if the weather turns really cold, you need to cover them or you will not be able to take them from frozen ground.

It’s worth checking any vegetables you have in store and removing anything that has started to rot before it spreads. Potatoes especially need to be checked and watch out for slugs that have emerged from a potato to go and damage another one.

General Jobs on plot

Digging can continue, when weather allows. Particularly with clay soils, digging when the soil is wet and sticky can do more harm than good. It’s also more hard work.

As with October, as ground becomes vacant, you can dig it over and spread manure over the surface. Leave the soil roughly dug in large clumps and the worms will break these up as they get the manure. The freezing and thawing of water in the soil will cause the soil to break up finely so becoming easier to handle in the spring.

October and November are good months to undertake double digging, incorporating manure into the bottom of the trench and deepening your topsoil.

Ensure compost bins are covered to prevent excess rain leaching the nutrients and to keep some of the heat of decomposition in.

Sowing, Planting and Cultivating

Time to plant your garlic cloves now. They actually benefit from a period of cold, which prompts growth later.

Fruit

Apples and pears can still be available as are autumn fruiting raspberries. As with October, November is a good month to attend to the raspberries, blackberries etc. It’s also a good time to plant new canes.

Check any young trees are well supported with stakes and ties.

You can prune your apple and pear trees now.

To do on your plot in October

Harvest

By now the maincrop potatoes should be ready. As the foliage dies back you can cut this off and leave the potatoes for a couple of weeks. This will prevent any stray blight spores from infecting your crop. Wait for a sunny dry day and dig up the potatoes, brushing off excess soil and letting them dry before storing in hessian or paper sacks in a frost free, dark shed.

The last of the beans should be picked now, compost the foliage but leave the roots with their nitrogen full nodules in the soil as a fertiliser.

Cabbages should come up now too,

Any green tomatoes on outdoor plants may as well come in now before the frost gets them.

General Jobs on plot

As ground becomes vacant you can dig it over and spread manure over the surface. Leave the soil roughly dug in large clumps, the freezing and thawing of water in the soil will cause the soil to break up finely so becoming easier to handle in the spring.

October and November are good months to undertake double digging, incorporating manure into the bottom of the trench and deepening your topsoil.

Dig in any green manure crops such as mustard that you planted earlier in the year.

Your compost bins will be filling up as the last of the crops come in so now is a good time to give them a turn to help even decomposition and cover them to keep them warm and damp rather than soaking wet.

Sowing, Planting and Cultivating

You can plant your garlic now although this job will hold over into November easily. If you have time and the weather is fine.

Remove any yellowing leaves from over-wintering brassicas, they are of no use to the plant and will encourage botrytis to develop.

Fruit

When the strawberries have finished tidy up the bed, cut off the tops, remove dead leaves, rotting berries you missed under the foliage and remove self-planted runners.

Fruit bushes such as black and red currants should be pruned, as should the gooseberries. Now and November are good months to attend to the raspberries, blackberries etc. It’s also a good time to plant new canes.

To do on your plot in September

Harvest

The maincrop potatoes should be ready now.

You may well have reasonably sized parsnips now but they will stay perfectly happy in the ground and do taste better after they have had a frost on them.

The runner beans and French beans will be continuing to produce and the last of the peas should be coming in. Compost the foliage of the peas but leave the roots in the ground as the nodules on them contain nitrogen.

Harvest:

  • Beetroot
  • Cabbage
  • Carrots
  • Cauliflowers
  • Courgettes
  • Cucumbers
  • Globe Artichokes
  • Kale
  • Kohlrabi
  • Lettuce
  • Leeks
  • Marrows
  • Onions
  • Pumpkins
  • Radishes
  • Spring Onions
  • Spinach
  • Sweetcorn
  • Tomatoes
  • Turnips

From the greenhouse you should be picking aubergines, chilli and sweet peppers as well as cucumbers and tomatoes.

If you grow fruit then the picking should be in full swing there as well:

Apples, pears, plums, peaches from the trees, blackberries and raspberries from the canes and strawberries from the bed.

Sowing, Planting and Cultivating

Sowing

There’s not a great deal to sow now but surprisingly it’s the right time to sow winter lettuces.

The other salad crop is the winter hardy spring onion.

Planting Out

Your spring cabbage plants can be planted out now and over wintering (Japanese) onion sets can go in for an early onion harvest.

You can plant out garlic as well although I prefer to plant it out later in the year.

Cultivating

Keep feeding your tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. It’s not really worthwhile feeding other plants at this time of year as they are nearly finished and the nutrients are best saved for the spring. Keep the side shoots in check on the tomatoes.

Fruit

Tidy up the summer fruiting raspberries, cutting off the canes that have fruited and tying in the new shoots that will bear next year.

The summer fruiting strawberries can be attended to now as well. Cut off the foliage about 1″ from the ground, clearing and weeding as you go. Any runners can be planted up to replace 3 year old plants that are best replaced now.

General Tasks

Keep an eye on your brassicas for butterfly eggs and caterpillars, these will most probably be under the leaves.