This has been the first year growing veg and we have done really well, too well, as we cant store/eat it all!
I have been given some winter spinach which is due to be sown now and picked after christmas and I have also just ordered a type of broad bean which is meant to do well over winter.
On top of this have leeks, parsnips and swede still in the ground plus my curly kale does not seem to be bothered by the frost.
Is there anything else which does well over winter? What are you growing?
No, just the ones you buy and eat. I chose the largest smoothest ones i could find on the basis that they’ll produce large smooth roots themselves - less peeling when it comes to cooking them.
Were they seed artichokes so to speak or just the ones that you could buy and eat?
I’ve just bought some ‘topinambour’ = Jerusalem Artichokes, in the local supermarket. I’m going to plant them in the garden - they make an excellent windbreak, have lovely yellow daisy flowers in October and produce copious quantities of root vegetables too!
Thanks all - I am going to check online and also my local garden centre. If I find anything good I will let you know!
I had an exchange of Tweets recently, I think it was with Phil in Normandy (@france_normandy) , about growing onions over winter (from sets) he had got his from Leclerc’s and was planting now for harvest around May. Onions ought to do well in Brittany thinking of the onion johnnies that used to visit our street in my youth! I’ve not been out to have a look for sets yet because of the fuel situation but now that things are a bit more settled I may try a mix of red and white onion over winter.
If you look for old vegetable varieties, there is a type of everlasting cabbage - its actually more like kale than a cabbage per se - that just keeps growing and you just cut bits off as and when. There are also everlasting onions which reproduce themselves like chives and end up the size of spring onions. We bought some plants from a French company a couple of years ago - can’t remember who - sorry - but I’m sure if you google old veg types, you will get somewhere.
I am also growing winter cabbage - a chinese variety a bit like pak choi, and I am going to have a go with all-year-round lettuce grown in a trough on the side of the house wall so it doesn’t get the frost.