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Hello and welcome

Hello and welcome Richard.

For toms/cucs/peppers etc, you're best off with a greenhouse. They can all be grown outdoors but you'll be limited to a lot less varieties. Worth loking at Freecycle and your local small ads before investing in a new one though!

You can plant garlic right now (a few cloves from any old supermarket bulb will usually produce a crop) but you're right that most things are best sown in spring.

I'd go for planting what you really like to eat over 'easy' to grow though (and given good weather and enough time, most things are 'easy' anyway!).

Hello Richard

I'd repeat everything they said!! If you want to grow your own plants from seed, then early next year is the time to start them off, windowsills are always very full places in my house from February onwards! But now is the ideal time to start looking at what you want to grow, planning where you're going to grow it and getting the preparations done eg dog proofing! And of course keeping us up to date with your progress on the Vine!

Happy growing and welcome.

garlic/peppers/carrotts/toms/cucumber etc

Garlic can planted about now or wait until late winter / early spring.

Peppers, either sow seeds in late winter / early spring or buy young plants in mid/late spring. If you don't have space indoors (or in a greenhouse) these will be difficult to grow from seed as they need to be warm to get started, and you must start them early if you want a crop, they are very slow growing! You can grow them outside (I have) and still have success.

Carrots - these aren't necessarily the easilest thing in the world to grow if you want long straight ones. They need deep soil free of clods or stones without much nitrogen in, and pretty free draining. Otherwise you get alien carrots with very rude protuberances.... Or grow in containers But you can grow stumpy or round carrots even in rubbish ground e.g. Chantenay or Parmex. Sow any time up to mid/late summer. If you sow a few at a time, every few weeks, then you will have a succession of mature carrots rather than a million carrots all at the same time.

Toms - similar to peppers, although I think you can afford to sow a little later as they don't need quite such a long growing season. Sow Jan-Apr.

Cucumber - if you are growing outside you need to make sure you have the right variety as certain types must be grown in a greenhouse. I grew Konsa this year (got the seeds from Lidl, very cheap!) which did well until the weather did for them in the form of powdery mildew. Marketmore are another popular outdoor variety. Sow April / May.

Etc - whatever you fancy! There are some specialist things that really do need to be in a greenhouse e.g. Okra, but most common veg will grow outdoors if you have sutiable varieties and sow at the right time.

Enjoy! (And welcome to the vine)

i've only been growing this year, and found the easiest things to grow have been alien carrots with very rude protuberances, turnips, broccoli(though wasn't too impressed, so will try calabrese next year, hopefully more head, kohl rabi were very easy, and pumpkins squash and courgettes all went mad .... the pumpkin plants were huge. and peas

Welcome to the Vine River Cottage. You've come to the right place.
You can plant some garlic now. Supermarket stuff will do just now and you might want to go for a specialised variety next year.
Break the bulb into cloves and plant them 2" deep and 6" apart and leave them to it.
As for the rest, you've got all winter to plan what to do. Good luck.

Winter sowing.......

Hi,

Many thanks for all your suggestions.
A greenhouse is out of the question.
My next question is want can I sow / plant now for spring produce ??
I have bought two garlic bulbs to plant.

Regards
Richard

Hi River Cottage and welcome to the madhouse

It's been my first year and my best advice is don't plant too many courgettes (I ended up with 25 plants that took over and produced between 10 and 20 fuit each Needless to say I still have 10 marrows to get through

Garlic needs free draining soil, I'm on clay so planting my garlic (when the blasted stuff arrives) in a big polystyrene box of compost mixed with horticultural sand. Any that don't fit will go into buckets or trugs.

Peas - winterhardy like Feltham First or Meteor can be sown and also Broad beans for early harvest especially Aquadulce Claudia. My onion sets have gone in but I don't know what the latest is for those - someone who knows what they are talking about will advise

Hi River Cottage - I've been learning from the posts here on your thread - in fact I've learned a lot since I joined this site.

Good wishes with your gardening.

Not much now. Spring cabbage, broccoli etc should've gone in in August.

You can sow Aquedulce broad beans now, for a May harvest

I've just sown some broad beans (Aquadulce) and early peas (Meteor) - might get something out of them but not guaranteed.

I've also just started off some All The Year Round caulis - it says sow October for a May harvest (or wait until spring for a later harvest).

You can also put onion sets in now, just about, for a harvest in late spring / early summer (depending on variety, weather etc).