Stuck on what to Grow for Winter? Try a Vegetable Seed Collection

Posted on 07. Aug, 2011 by Tracey in How To Grow Veg

If it’s your first year thinking about whether or not to sow any seeds for the autumn/winter, you’ll probably be stuck for where to start and if it’s your second or more years growing winter veg, you may have run out of ideas for what to sow.

So why not make it easy on yourself by buying an Autumn/Winter Vegetable Seed Collection and let someone else choose the best varieties for you, then all you’ll need to do is the sowing. Now you just have one question to answer – which one do I choose?

The Best Autumn Sowing Veg Collection

White Silver Chard

From: Sarah Raven’s Kitchen & Garden
Price: £10.50 + £2.50 P&P
Sow: Between August and October

This seed collection is a good starter mix of autumn and winter vegetables with enough leafy greens to get you through the winter just in time for your broad beans and peas which will be ready to harvest in the springtime. Full sowing instructions supplied for each seed variety.

What you get:

Chard ‘White Silver’ 175 seeds,
Broad Bean ‘Stereo’ 35 seeds
Broad Bean ‘Super Aquadulce’ 35 seeds
Pea ‘Serge’ 150 seeds
Kale ‘Red Russian’ 125 seeds
Spinach ‘Dominant’ 100 seeds
Spinach ‘Bordeaux’ 100 seeds

Sow Autumn Collection

SowSeeds.co.uk Sow Autumn

From: SowSeeds.co.uk
Price: £13.95 + P&P
Sow: Between July and October

This autumn vegetable seed collection has an excellent range of vegetables and varieties which can be sown from August onwards, sow spring onion, pak choi, lettuce and carrot over the next few weeks and broad beans, cabbage and pea’s can be sown in October (under cloches) for overwintering as well as the extra bonus of some sweet peas.

What you get:

Broad Bean ‘Aquadulce’
Broad Bean ‘Sutton Dwarf’
Pea ‘Douce Provence’
Salad Onion ‘White Lisbon’
Pak Choi ‘Yuushou’
Carrot ‘Chantenay 2 Red Cored’
Cabbage ‘Duncan’
Lettuce ‘Charita’
Lettuce ‘Maserati’
Sweet Pea ‘Galaxy Mixed’

Autumn Sow Seed Collection

Cauliflower and Calabrese

By: DT Brown Seeds
Price: £9.95 + Free P&P

This autumn vegetable seed collection adds a few more vegetable favourites like cauliflower and calabrese to the mix as well as green manure seeds to sow to keep your soil fertile for the next crop.

It also includes reliable and tasty vegetable faithfuls like spring onion lisbon, cabbage spring hero and lettuce winter density.

What you get:

Spring Onion – White Lisbon Winter Hardy,
Cauliflower – Mayflower,
Cabbage – Spring Hero,
Calabrese – Aquiles,
Pea – Excellenz,
Broad Bean – Super Aquadulce,
Lettuce – Winter Density,
Green Manure – Phacelia tanacetifolia.

Mini Autumn Veg Patch

Autumn Salads Seed

By: The Seed Pantry
Price: £8.85 + Free P&P

If you are looking to grow winter salads in small spaces (pots, windowsills, balconies, roof terraces) then this is the collection for you. This lovely presented mini package comes with a growing advice booklet. The Seed Pantry also have a larger Autumn Veg Seeds Starter Pack which includes the same seeds plus pots, seed tray, compost disks and plant labels.

What you get:

Spicy Leaves – Rocket, Mizuna, Mustards, Sorrel (250 seeds),
Salad Onion – White Lisbon (600 seeds),
Chard – Rainbow (100 seeds),
Pak Choi – Canton Dwarf (125 seeds),
Lettuce – Marvel of 4 Seasons (550 seeds).

Winter Harvest Ready Plot

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

By: Wiggly Wigglers
Price: £30.25 for 50 Mixed Plug Plants.
Availability: Plants available now until Late August only.

This is a bumper autumn/winter plug plant selection which should give you a good harvest from Christmas to Spring. There’s plenty of vegetable mixes here for many hearty casseroles and winter stews. These Plug plants are only available until Late August but are easy to grow. It is also a good size collection for allotments, schools and community projects to get growing with.

What you get: