Selfsufficientish.com

Hi All

Just wondering what other people are sowing now for winter produce or over wintering for an early crop next year.

I have just sown about 700 onions. Mostly Sturon but a few Paris earlies, Australian yellowleaf lettuce, Red Ursa Russian kale and some Wizard field beans.

I am a bit later than usual sowing my onion seed this year but they should be OK

paul

What do you do with the field beans, mamos? We grew some heirloom field beans, from the RHS, a few years back and threw the entire crop away. I couldn't figure out a way of making them edible! The skin was so tough that it didn't matter how long I cooked them I just couldn't chew them. I wondered if they were grown for feeding livestock rather than humans.

(I'm not noted for a particularly weak jaw )

As for sowing stuff, I can't see us getting much done in the next few weeks. We're in the middle of some major renovations - new kitchen, drylining another, previously unlined room etc and we're woefully unfit for the task. Although I have to say it's coming along beautifully if rather slowly. I just hope I live to see it finished - I'm completely knackered.

So maybe I'm growing a couple of new rooms and a kitchen - how does that sound?

Were the Field beans productive?

Not hugely, but more than we could eat - one was more than we could eat.

I have eaten field beans and they were really nice, but I know some sorts are mainly used for animals food, I keep meaning to grow some, really more as a green manure. I have another sowing of oriental saladini to make and some winter density lettuce and some of the cos and red leaved types which seem to do better for me. I have sent for autumn onion sets and some seeds of Amsterdam forcing carrots, going to sow some in the tunnel and see what happens, got garlic going in soon. Is this a good time to sow onion seeds? I usually buy sets but I was thinking of sowing seeds as there is more choice than with sets

I normally sow onions in mid August for overwintering but life took over this year and I have only just got them in now. It is pretty mild down here in Cornwall with few frosts plus now we have the dome I have a lot more under cover area for them.

Last year I sowed them in modules 3 or 4 to a cell and then planted them out in the spring as you would sets.(except in clumps of 3-4) This year I think I am going to prepare beds in the tunnel and dome and transplant them when they are big enough so they have more room to grow and more nutrients. Then hopefully I will be planting out much bigger sets in the spring.

I would like to add that I don't really know what I am doing and all my growing tends to be a bit of an experiment.

This is what The Real Seed Company has to say about Wizard Field beans.

Wizard' Field Bean

Field beans are smaller and more robust relatives of Broad Beans. The beans themselves are about 2/3 the size of a normal broad bean, and the plants are full size, bearing huge numbers of pods with 3 or 4 seed packed closely together in them. The overall effect is often a higher yield of beans from the same size plot.

'Wizard' is a modern pale-skinned variety which has been bred for table use and is very cold hardy, surviving over harsh winters when others die off.

It has particularly good flavour even when the seeds get mature, and does very well for us in our home garden, cropping over a longer period than our broad beans.

Tasty.Very hardy. Good for an autumn sowing in October.

Paul

They sound interesting. Ours were a brown, heirloom variety and tough as old boots. Having said that I find the skins on broad beans horrid too, so maybe it's just me.

i might sow some as a competitor to maro peas for the pigs

mamos wrote:I normally sow onions in mid August for overwintering

I have had mixed success with onions, mainly storing them over winter without rotting or shooting.
The last couple of years though I seem to have cracked it. I multiple sow in cells in the greenhouse during the first week of January and plant out when things warm up a bit. Then I give them a few doses of liquid fertiliser (the stuff that's black and smells like Marmite) in early summer when the bulbs start to swell.
So far it's worked for me and I get useful sized bulbs about 2"-3" in diameter with just a few smaller ones for pickling.

Sets never worked for me somehow, very often half of them bolted or made huge bulbs or didn't grow at all, and then didn't keep because they were all thick necked.

Noticed that the coriander in the tunnel that was left to it's own devices has started to self seed, so gave the area a good raking and a water, and am ,looking forward to some free corriander

Just on another forum and someone asked this question, what can I sow in an unheated greenhouse now and people have come back with things like, parsnips, beetroots and coriander, I can't believe these things would work too well at this time of year, surely the ground temp is getting too low? whadyer think

Well parsnips are renowned for germinating at low temperatures, but why would you want to sow them now?
Sown now they would grow to a really monster size and get well and truly attacked by canker.

I'm just about to start sowing in the tunnel, so it's not a "What are you sowing ATM", more of a "What I will be sowing later in the week once I've cleared the ground, dug it over, spread compost and forked it all in" type of post.

I will be planting garlic and shallots, sowing a row of early peas (Douce Provence) and broad beans (Sutton)
In a trough I'll be sowing carrots. The reason for the trough is, if I sow them in the ground they will immediately get browsed off by woodlice as soon as they germinate. Plus as they are in a trough I can bring them indoors if/when it gets really cold.

I'd give (and have sort of) coriander a go for winter flavor, but a large patch to offset low yields

Is it too late for winter salad crops?

I have a patch of coriander, but I sowed it a while ago and I have had it stand the winter in freezing temps, I have my hot bed as well, so I am going to try and sow some in there and get it going a bit. I don't think it is too late to sown salads yet, especially in a polytunnel, the ground is still warm enough, the orientals are a good bet for this time of year as well, I have some more saladini to sow, I guess it can only fail if things aren't right

Things like the mustards seem to grow in any and all seasons doofa. They do here anyway. Some of them are a bit spicy for salads when they get bigger but are great when small and you can use larger leaves in stir-fries. They do seed prolifically (which is how I know they'll grow all year round - we haven't sown any for about three years now, I think, yet still they keep coming. Good job we like them.
Some of the cut and come again blends will do nicely on a windowsill too.