Our Carol's green 'finger'-tips!

Growing your own, even on a small scale, has benefits for the environment. If you are bitten by the green bug you don’t have to wait until spring to begin. There are plenty of things you can sow in a pot or in a small space in your garden right now.

It is possible to have your own leaves for salad right through the winter, things that are not available in the shops, or come at a price, especially if they are organic. Sow Japanese leaves like mizuna, mibuna, pak choi, or old fashioned leaves like corn salad (also called lamb’s lettuce) American land cress, winter purslane or rocket. These latter vegetables were the staple health giving winter leaves of Olde Englande. Now they are the staples of fancy restaurants.

Other salad veg like radishes, spinach and swiss chard will also mature if you sow them now. Swiss chard leaves are the ones that add colour to bags of mixed leaves in supermarkets, but they can be left to grow bigger and cooked. A very pretty variety of these which looks fab in the garden is ‘Bright Lights’.

Japanese over-wintering onions will provide very early spring onions and, if left to get bigger, will provide sweet tasting salad onions in May before the ordinary onions are ready. Red varieties do well and are decorative too. The sets are in garden centres now, along with garlic which can be planted in November. Cover it with a sheet of glass propped on bricks to keep it from the winter wet. Remove in March and harvest in May to June. You can easily be self-sufficient in garlic.

You can also sow more ambitious veg like peas, cauliflower and broad beans. The secret with peas is protection . A lot of creatures like them so they need protection from mice (chicken wire buried over the row) slugs (clean unused cat litter sprinkled around the row) and birds (old CDs on string or fluttering carrier bags) Broad beans are not quite so vulnerable but mice and birds like them too. They will be harvested early next year. Once you have tried your own fresh-picked peas or broad beans, there is no going back. Look for varieties which recommend autumn sowing. A lot of these can be grown in large pots or gro-bags if you only have a yard or balcony. But don’t forget to use peat-free compost! And water a lot.

Once you have eaten your own veg you might start looking around for an allotment or begin digging up the decking. However, you can grow a lot of salad in one square metre. Try it!


Tips by Carol Savage!