Landshare

August and September are traditionally the months when your patch will be pumping out the produce in pretty convincing fashion, but after a wet July you may find a few harvests taking their time to come to full readiness. Relax. It will stop raining, it will be warm again, and chances are most things will catch up.

It’s also a time to keep your eyes a little higher, to look to the cooler months ahead and lay the foundations for a few wintery feasts. And if you're new to your plot, these are things you can get started with.

Many people treat their veg patch like their tent – out it comes in April, and away it goes again in September. This is perfectly fine, but don’t find yourself in that position accidentally – make a decision. Will you grow some food over the winter or not?

I’d really recommend you give it a go, and use what I’m sure will be a good August to get some of your crops off to a start. Lettuces and salad leaves are joined by the warmth of the oriental leaves and the bitterness of endive and chicory as salad bowl fillers to keep you going through autumn and winter. Start them off undercover (in modules or guttering), sow some direct (asap) or spread you chances and harvest times by doing both.

If you’re unfamiliar with oriental leaves I’d really urge you to investigate them. They may taste a little similar at first – peppery and even some getting up to outright hot, but persevere a little and their individual characters begin to shine through. In the same way that on first listening to jazz it can seem samey, a jumble of notes unrelated to its neighbours – within a few mouthfuls green in snow’s lettucey warmth appears as different to mibuna’s brassicas-ness as Miles Davis is from Duke Ellington. And you’ll have the added bonus of exclusivity: none are found on the supermarket shelves. Green in snow, mibuna, mizuna, kamotsuna, mustard red frills, giant indian mustard are highly recommended for sowing right now.

Lettuces will also grow perfectly merrily through the autumn and winter, they just grow more slowly – so if you want to keep eating them, sow more than you might in the spring and summer and you should have a steady harvest. The secret is in the varieties: Marvel of Four Seasons, Winter Density and Rouge d’Hiver are three of my favourites. And don’t forget to sow plenty of wild rocket in August, followed by a sowing a month later – the plants will give you cut and come again leaves right into Spring next year.

It’s also an excellent time to get leafy greens underway. Spinach, chard and kale are all perfect to be sown right now – they prefer the cooler nights – and if you sow plenty you’ll have the chance to take some leaves small for salads or brief steaming, while letting some grow on to see you through the heart of winter and into spring. Cavalo nero, red bor and red russian are all kales, but entirely different to each other. Each is well worth growing, and for saving at least some for winter eating but try some of the red russian for small salad leaves in autumn. Spinach is much less likely to bolt if sown at this time of year – to my mind, Dominant and Bordeaux are the best varieties for this time of year. Add to this Bright Lights and White Silver spinach and you’ll have a leafy selection to join the dots between your salads and the more robust brassicas to keep you going until Spring.

And don’t forget to plant out any brassicas seedlings you’ve started undercover already – it’s the perfect time.

If you’ve forgotten or slugs have rampaged through earlier sowings you can still play catch up. Buying in seedlings is a great way to ensure you’ll have brassicas and salads in the run up to Christmas and beyond. Delfland Nurseries www.organicplants.co.uk supply organic seedlings of quite remarkable quality all year round. Throughout August and September you can order seedlings either by individual varieties or as collections. They arrive healthy and happy by post (usually the next day) and all you have to do is plant them out using the enclosed instructions. Perfect.