Growing Winter Vegetables

Hi, I am new to vegetable growing and am ok with planting seeds for Summer vegetables. Now I am thinking about planting vegetables for the winter and wondered if you could advise me when I would sow the seeds and which vegetables are best.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards Gail  

Dear Gail

In reply to your Email regarding winter vegetables.  We are growing several winter vegetables this year in Stephanie’s Kitchen Garden namely Sprouting Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Kale, Leeks, various types of cabbages, cauliflower & parsnips.  I think the best approach for you is to grow what you like to eat and grow what you have space for.  Winter vegetables do tend to take up space in the ground for quite some time so it’s best to grow in modules and plant out when you have harvested your summer vegetables.  

You have to be quite organised for growing winter vegetables and get sowing early – you will have missed the window for this as seeds should be sown from March-June depending on type of vegetable you are growing. 

If you want to grow winter vegetables this year I think your only option is to buy plug plants, it  may be too late to buy from garden centres but vegetable plug plants are still available online.  I can recommend the Organic Plants website.

You may want to read up on the RHS website, they have a useful link for growing winter vegetables with lots of advice.

Don’t forget pest control too.  You will need to net your brassicas to protect against the cabbage white butterfly laying eggs – they will devour young plants very quickly. Harrod Horticultural offer a variety of netting choices to protect against all number of pests

Good luck with your winter vegetables, if there is anything we can help you with on the netting side please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Kind Regards

Lynn Burton