Growing Vegetables Undercover in Autumn and Winter

Posted on 25. Sep, 2011 by Tracey in How To Grow Veg

Don’t give up growing vegetables this autumn and winter, this is one of the best times of the year to sow vegetables to keep your supply of salads, leaves and greens going. If you are stuck on what to grow, try my selection of Autumn Veg Seed Collections for more ideas and there’s 10% off at Sarah Raven’s Kitchen and Garden until 30th September when you click the banner below and use the checkout code.

And its even better if you own a greenhouse, polytunnel, coldframe or one of those plastic mini greenhouses that you spend more time trying to keep down with paving slabs than growing anything (yes, I’ve been there, lost trays of seedlings when the wind caught it and got the T-Shirt!).

This is the time of year until March where undercover growing rules! You can grow a continuous supply of salads in pots, growbags or seed trays, start off seedlings in pots and plant out in the new year and even have a place to shelter frost prone plants like christmas potatoes in pots. These undercover environments (even unheated) are perfect protection for overwintering vegetables, its amazing how much you can grow at this time of the year.

Vegetables To Grow Undercover September to March

For Harvesting before Christmas:

Oriental Vegetables like Pak Choi, Spicy Leaves, Mizuna,
Winter Lettuce and Spinach,
Kale (for baby leaves)
Chard
Endive
Mustard Greens
Baby Turnips

For Slow-Growing Vegetables to Harvest in the New Year, try:

Winter Spring Onions,
Onions (from Seed and Sets)
Garlic in Pots
Winter Radish
Carrots
Broad Beans (Plant out in Nov or March)
Peas (in Pea guttering as they don’t like being too disturbed when transplanted)
Sugar Snap Peas (Sow now or in February)
Tomatoes (Sow in December for early crop, keep seedlings frost free)
Sweet Peppers (Sow in December)
Leeks – Start sowing in March

For more advice on what to grow try my Winter Vegetable Guides and Veg Seeds To Sow Now. Find out what other people are growing this Autumn in my Autumn Veg Competition.

Horticultural Fleece

Greenhouse Frost Protection

Vegetables in an unheated greenhouse can be sown up until mid to the end of October (depending on where you are in the UK) but after that there will be a risk of frost. Frost can occur even in a unheated greenhouse as cold air can seep into windows, cracks and even come up through the paving slabs.
There’s a few things you can do to protect your seedlings in a greenhouse, they are:

Tape up any ventilation windows to stop the cold air getting in,
Check for broken, chipped glass or plastic panels and gaps down the sides of the frames
If you haven’t got a thermometer, they are useful to see the temperature inside the greenhouse so you can monitor frost risk,
Raise your plants up off the floor on benches or staging so the frost cannot penetrate through the base of the greenhouse,
Use insulated planters to raise vegetables off the ground and add frost fleece protection to drape over the plants,
There are cheap methods of insulating greenhouse, try Bubble Insulation, sold in rolls or by the metre and clips or tape to hold it in place.
Invest in a fleece insulating cover for your mini greenhouse, you can pick them up fairly cheap from poundstretchers or Selections here for £7.99 for a 4-Tier cover.