I've just become an allotment holder for the first time and have spent a month battling inch thick brambles with massive roots. I'm hoping to get the plot fully cleared by Christmas and then covered with cardboard and woodchips ready for Spring. I find your video's most inspiring especially for the absolute novice like me. Thanks a lot :-)
Maybe clear a bit, & sow some beans or onions. Then clear the next bit. If you have some strawberries all ready there, onions can go between as companions.
As the union saying goes “Give me bread, but give me roses too.” I’ve got garlic and some flowering bulbs to plant. I just get sweet peas from the beach here in Nova Scotia. They’re wild. So are lupins.
Garlic, seed onions, peas, broad beans, winter spinach all went in outside last week - I am in zone 9 = west Wales. And 3 types of winter-planted cabbage + salad leaves + herbs - all planted in little starter pots indoors. And my first, experimental, microgreen batch is sprouting in the kitchen. I am also still picking loads of cape gooseberries which went nuts this year = they are almost as enthusiastic as borage - but with no spikes and loads of luscious fruit.. And they are still throwing up shoots - and flowering! This is my second year of growing my own and the learning curve has been (and remains) vertical! Thanks to yourself and Huw Richards, it has been far better than I expected in terms of what I got more or less right, as well. Always look forward to your videos.
Here in N.E. Spain we plant whole garlic heads in September for 'tender garlic' shoots, a bit like spring onions and great with scrambled eggs with prawns on toast. I've already harvested a few of mine over the last few weeks but they will be available most of the winter. Then in late November/December we plant the individual cloves for producing complete bulbs for late spring...
@@bmiles4131 During September, whole heads are planted and pulled up with their shoots from November to February/March for the tender shoots. The partly consumed cloves aren't of much use, although those from this month were sufficiently whole to save in olive oil. This not only conserves the peeled cloves but also flavours the oil which can then be used for cooking... Completely seperately, in November/December, individual cloves are planted to produce new whole garlic heads in Spring.
Just to say, it would be good to do a secton for disabled gardiners ; who limited movement like myself. I grow veg the best I can. I have a polytunnel, as I must not get cold or my condition gets worst. So I tend to start in polytunnel or in the conservatory and then transfre out.
I was in a past life befor medical retirement from a government as foreman of works on and Army barracks. I trained as Stonemason but to change as the autoimmune arthritis finished me off. I can use my wheelchair. I have alway garden since I was able to hold a small spade. Tony
That looked like a rook to me. Pale, bare base to the bill. Thanks for the tip for sowing peas into toilet roll centres. Must get collecting instead of giving them to my dogs to play with 😁
It always amazes me that we are both in Zone 8 - You, in Britain, and me in the North Florida Panhandle, US! Yes, I'm preparing to plant garden peas and snow peas, but I'm also planting brassicas, beets and turnips. Here in the "Deep South," we love our collards and turnip greens, and I'm praying that the weather holds so I can get lots of beets to pickle this year. Now, about those onions.....You are much farther North than we are, so I'm sure you plant a much different variety of onion than we do here. We will only get green tops and no bulbs if we plant anything but "short day" onion varieties. I started mine in 338 cell, Proptek plug trays in September, and will plant them out in double rows in mid-November. As I've said before, I plant them on buried drip tape, and, like we do with carrots, they will over-Winter until our days get long enough for them to start bulbing. We usually get a harvest sometime in May.
Yes, I think we have different types of onions. Funny how we are in the same zone I agree. Frosts may be around the same date, but our winters are probably a little bit more severe. And obviously a lot, lot cooler in the summer!
Thanks Ben, we just returned to Ca from a Euro vacay including England, Austria, Spain, Portugal and am now ready , in Late October to plant radish, beet, spinach, leeks, cauliflower, potato, and carrot now that the heat has gone. We are in Sacramento, Ca 9b. Thanks Ben.
I just had a vision of that discarded broad bean growing like Jack’s beanstalk. O dear. Losing my mind. But I did get about 100 garlic cloves in - all hardneck, and about 240 flower bulbs in my pollinator end of the old garden. I covered the garlic with clean straw and the flower bulbs with a thick layer of leaves. Fingers crossed. We are already getting freezing temps here in BC but I can still clear and prep the rest of the garden, so I’m not unhappy. Love your garden and love your videos.
THANK YOU from this Antipode (in Australia) for naming your videos in relation to the season and NOT to the month, which only corresponds to seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. 🌱👌🏼
I know mice are pests, however I find country mice extremely cute. That being said definitely going to plant broad beans again, as a beginner/container gardener they have been the most forgiving crop to successfully plant and grow these last 2 years here in the UK. :) Thank you for these videos! It helps us smaller gardeners dream big :)
I'm on the San Francisco Peninsula zone 9b; currently growing fava beans, arugula, shelling peas, snow peas, walking onions, spinach, lacinato kale, red Russian kale, tree collards, parsley, Brussels sprouts, beets, cover crop, Romaine lettuce, scallions, onion chives, Swiss chard and dill, and planted hard neck garlic but the squirrels have been digging them up so surrounded them with metal hardware cloth and keeping my fingers crossed!
Garlic is planted and up about 4 inches here in Maine. I've mulched it and have it inside a hoop house. Last year I planted 2 lbs which yielded about 12 pounds in the harvest I think. Planted 3 pounds this year. I also plant things like lettuce inside under grow lights just because it calls to me in the winter months! Haha.
Hello Maine i grew up in Portland before i joined the army. Never moved back but wish i could visit i have only a few family left there. Winter 🥶 was why i joined the army. I settled in north central Texas and now northern Arizona where we get 4 seasons but milder winters. I miss the ocean and the lobster and clams though. 😊❤
Hi Therese, winters can definitely be brutal here. I like the changing seasons but would like even better if winters were a bit milder and more predictable. Not a big fan of lobster here. I always find the hype more exciting than the actual experience of it. 🙂@@theresekirkpatrick3337
Jello lad. Ive recently ran into your channel and have been enjoying some of your vids directly or as background noise while snacking away. One thing I would love to see adressed is the lack of a garden. With the housing market being as it is more and more people find themselves locked into an apartement without a change in sight. Please do share what could be grown on the windowsill, balcony or just somewhere in one's kitchen. Keep it up!
Thanks for this reminder. I do look at container gardening from time to time, but you're right - this is something that needs looking at perhaps more often. Please do check out this playlist in the meantime: th-cam.com/play/PL3VEy0_tuFgQhuPkhdjRZKB4CpzqDGKUl.html&si=2MFvkw_bbLso6Yqw
I put most all the spring seeds in now under cover. I'm zone 7 in colorado, USA. I've discovered that most of the seeds ( lettuce, snow peas kale, onions and such) one would plant in March here will over winter just fine as long as they are covered and kept from hungry critters. My garlic is also going in now!
Just stuck my broadbeans in the raised bed as did last year. They did fine. Also stuck in some garlic just got in the supermarket which worked well last year.
Fascinating. I usually don't start peas or sweet peas til February, then pop them into ground in March. When you start in trays in November, don't the seedlings get a little tired/leggy/malnourished by the time the ground is ready in mid-Spring? It seems like a long time for them to be in their little toilet paper tubes. Any thoughts to share on why you wouldn't just wait to start them in plugs til early Spring and then plant right in the ground after that?
You could certainly just wait till spring. The advantage of sowing in November is the slightly earlier start this brings - but it won't be a massively early start, so it may be easier just to wait till spring. I guess it's really for those who are absolutely itching to just sow something now! The idea of sowing in November, though, is that the seeds germinate but then pretty much stop growing till late winter - or grow very slowly. This way they shouldn't get too leggy or nutrient starved.
Thanks for clarifying the depth of garlic planting. I always plant them deeper too contrary to what other tubers have said to let tops show, which the freeze / thaw cycle will trash them!
My wheat is coming up nicely and I think I will put down some rye. We haven't had a frost yet here in southern France so I can go with the rye. Garlic planting tomorrow and favas in a couple of weeks. My black radishes are up and doing nicely. Of course my own seed is doing better than the commercial seed. I am also doing a potato experiment in grow bags. The potatoes are poking through. Great video BTW!
Ben YOU are amazing! I've never heard of newspaper pots, but what a clever idea! IF you can find newspaper to make them. I love the toilet paper roll idea, I have plenty of those! My peas from my late summer sowing are finally producing peas, I am so excited! I wonder if my variety will overwinter. I'm going to find out. I have replanted my onions from seedlings and will cover with plastic for the winter, fingers crossed this may work.
Could you ask about newspapers on freecycle? Or buy one at the weekend? If you don't get a free one. The tv guide is the perfect size for lining a mushroom tray, & using a few pages doubled over folded in half lengthways, (bit tucked under the centre -base)- round the edges like how you line a cake tin :) You can also use kitchen roll tubes as well as toilet roll tubes cut down to the correct length, a grape punnet works well (for deeper tubes) or the shallower punnets / trays for the short 'seed tubes' to contain them. It makes moving them, watering & stacking easier. Some toilet rolls have a much bigger diameter tube than others ... I fold the tubes in half lengthways, (make a good crease!) then match the folds and crease again making a square tube, you can score a cm or so in, on one edge, & snip the crease and fold in to form a base with a hole in the base (9-14mm holes works best) then the square tubes sit neat together and support each other in the punnet / tray. You can measure it all so they all sit the same height etc, it's a nice get ahead job when the weather is rubbish, if you have no seed trays, or no idea how many you will need. (As you can see I've been completely skint ... & needed to do this as I had seeds planted in my 3 seed trays) It also doesn't waste any potting mix either & they stack. I make them up once I have enough tubes to sow what I'm going to plant next. Although always good to be ahead ... The newspaper pots go well in mushroom trays, (12 or 20) or make some seed trays from pallets. You can also use thin corrugated brown cardboard for the paper pots, like the sleeves off coffee cups.
Where I live in Oklahoma, in the U.S., the libraries have free special-interest newspapers targeted to seniors, families, vegetarians, etc., in their lobbies. You could pick up 1 or 2 copies of these and use them for making newspaper pots. Good luck!
Here in Sylacauga Alabama, the first frost (-0.55C) is in the forecast for Tuesday, followed by a freeze on Wednesday (-2.8C). My peppers won't survive it, so I'll do a clean up harvest Tuesday morning, and start chopping and dropping. This isn't the end of my garden by far. I have Turnips, assorted lettuces, Late Nagasaki Cabbage, and Pak Choi that I am harvesting, garlic starting to sprout, and a new generation of turnips that have recently sprouted. I also have kohlrabi, Yellow Heart Winter Choy, and Navone Gold Rutabagas growing. I need to move my comfrey sprouts inside my polytunnel greenhouse to over winter them for spring transplanting. My Greek Oregano may die off, but it is a perennial that will regrow in the spring. My mint, spearmint, and lemon thyme will survive the coldest temperatures in my area, zone 7B. I may have to heat my polytunnel Wednesday night to keep my winter tomato experiment going. So far, they are doing great, 3 Early Girl-bush, and 4 Tiny Tim.
@@jaytoney3007 Our first freeze here in Idaho (Boise Mountains) was in September. It's been mid September for at least 20 years that I know of. Doesn't usually last long, and then we go into indian summer for 2 weeks to a month.
@@sage0925 My first average frost date is Halloween. After that it usually alternates with a week of warm weather followed by a few days of cold. What is surprising this year is the rapid cool down. Today's high is forecasted to be 83F, with a low of 60F. Tomorrow's high is 78F, then it drops to 60F with three days of frost. I am glad to see a slight warming trend in the forecast, so I may try covering the pepper plants to get a couple more weeks out of them. If nothing else, they will feed the deer. They are already venturing into the garden. I'm using cat netting to protect my cool weather crops; it will keep them safe from deer too.
Alas that it were so. I'm in Zone 5 mountains. 14F last night. I tried a double hoop house, and of course, cold weather veggies are still doing fine in the greenhouse. I'll be checking the hoop house this morning to see if anything made it through the hard freeze. Thankfully, it will also be sunny, so I'm not despairing yet. That was a raven, btw. They kind of "quoark", and the tail is more triangular. And so far, I'm only seeing suppliers for Meteor seeds in the UK. My only issue with toilet rolls is they tend to go moldy and slimy after a bit.
Thanks for the identification of the raven. And yes, toilet rolls can sometimes go a touch slimy. I hope your veggies have made it through the hard freeze ok.
@@GrowVeg Any chance you know a supplier of Meteor seeds that ships to the States? They may be called something else here though. I've noticed that some nurseries seem to do that. Change the name so you think they have something unique, that nobody else has. Peas are so-so, but I couldn't give them a double cover, as they're on strings. Everything else made it through with flying colors. Double hoops worked fantastic. We got down to 14F, and everything else made it, with no supplemental heat. But we did have sunny days to warm them up during the day. I lifted a corner of each "bubble" to let the heat out every day.
I sowed my garlic October 20th in zone 4 Canada. They usually go in a bit earlier, around the 7th, but it was a warm autumn so I postponed it. Tonight is the first frosty night this autumn, down to -1. It's a month later than usual! Some light snow tomorrow, but it won't last. The ground isn't frozen yet.
I recently planted my first garlic bulbs in Arizona, Zone 8b. The garlic leaves have grown quite high in just a few weeks. Should I trim them down for winter? Also, how often do you water them over the winter? And how often do you water plants in the greenhouse vs. direct planted seeds outside over the winter? Thanks so much for your fun and instructional videos, which are so inspiring and helpful!
Just leave the garlic as they are - no trimming needed. For watering, just push a finger into the soil/potting mix to check soil moisture from time to time. Water if dry, leave if not. I check conditions every few days in warmer weather and maybe once a week once it gets cold. I would say plants in the greenhouse need watering more often than those outside, simply because it is warmer in the greenhouse and, of course, doesn't rain in there.
I've planted some garlic, but it's just an experiment. I have used supermarket garlic so I know it might not work. It was starting to sprout in my fridge so I thought I'd just plant it out and see whether it grows or not. I might plant some peas now too. I also use toilet rolls, they are very handy because you can put them straight in the ground with the plant in them, and not disturb the roots at all. My cauliflower plants have sprouted. I am growing some indoor Basil and Corriander. See how they do in winter. They are in a south-facing window.
Sowed 225 cloves of garlic made up of 6 varieties including rounds which started out as bulbils taken from a seed head and replanted in each of 2 years.
My newly built house will be completed sometime this winter of 2024 so that's when I'll start building wooden racks for my 5 gal buckets in which I will grow potatoes & onions & carrots & tomatoes. The house has a nice quaint cellar where I can store these veggies too !!
I'm zone 7 so I've put this video in my calendar for next October. We've already had a decent freeze here so I'm only going to scatter cover crop seeds now. Great video! I love your channel.
I wish we were in zone 8 in Colorado, 6F degrees was our low last week, killed off everything that had hung on, except the Kale! I'm planting my garlic cloves tomorrow, they'll be under a 10" deep straw mulch until April. I love your videos!
Such crazy weather this year. I'm still harvesTing strawberries and blackberries. But next week gonna be very cold overnight so they will be gone. Then I can clean up my garden for winter. I'd hoped to build me some coldfrqmes, but life.... I have beautiful males and some lettuce still. Hopefully they will be ok with some covers. I started onions with seed this year and they were great ! Usually use sets, but ran out this year. We are having a bit of a drought right now and I haven't dug out the carrots yet. Waiting for a good frost to force that sweetness into the ends. Canning apples and pumpkins now Whew, I need WI her to rest !!! Have a blessed day yaall.
Late autumn, beginning of winter. Well, here now it is late spring, early summer. I am sowing my own pumpkin seeds that grow well in my garden because there is an alkaline soil since the water is from the groundwater, it is quite alkaline. Hydrants are never blue, always pink.- Everything is very "empirical" about the edible garden, heh heh!- Your videos are very professional. Thank you!
I recently discovered your videos. I enjoy your attitude and the way you present all your knowledge. So many videos I previously watched are so long dragged out "Holy Cow get to the point videos." So I actually look forward to watching you. Thank you and Happy Holidays 🎄🎅🪴🐾🥂🎉
2:17 Hello, Enjoying your videos very much. I am in Canada, zone 4. Is there something that I should be doing to get any early start for the spring? Thank you. Karen
Zone 4 is quite fresh, so many of the things started here you may be better off waiting till spring to start off. So, to prepare for spring, I would concentrate on adding plenty of organic matter to empty beds and generally getting things in order for spring. If you're keen to get a good head start, you could start things off under grow lights indoors from late winter, ready to go out in early spring.
First time seeing your channel. Loved all of your suggestions and tips, some of which I already employ after 63yrs of gardening, but there were several new ones that I thought were brilliant. Especially if you garden in a similar climate, or have a greenhouse or cold frame. I don't have either, but as I was watching, I realized that I may have what need to start building a cold frame. That's inspiration! Thank you for sharing. Your new subscriber.
I'm planting all of that this winter. Beans and peas soon. Some self sown sweetpeas have started popping up on their own. May have even gone in with the garlic too early. The shoots are inches long already. Hopefully that's okay. 🤞 Cheers, Ben.
I sowed some peas at the end of August using dried peas from the spring crop. Didn’t expect anything but all come up. Love sweet peas and love sowing next years crop. Sown shallots from sets this year looking forward to trying them. Autumn a very busy time- I prioritise getting my dahlias and non hardy bulbs dug up, plant my bulbs. Thank you for the tip of what to do with the small rubbish cloves from garlic
@@GrowVeg I was very selective only choose pods that were full with 10 peas, and threw away the ones that weren’t full or didn’t have the right number of peas.
I really want some snacking peas next year. Whether those are shelling or snap peas I'm still not sure. Definitely leaning more towards anything I can plant once or twice and get multiple harvests out of. Ie radishes are great, but sowing more than once can be more work than I'm willing to put into them. Tomatoes did wonderful last year and cucumbers I certainly want to grow but the groundhogs ate the plants and I didn't get a single cucumber. Need to start them super early so they can be off the ground. Quickly
Hi Sherri, Our season was off to a terrible start this year but my husband was tireless in setting have a heart traps. FINALLY, the critters seemed to be gone and I was able to grow some things out of doors in the garden. Never give up! 🙂@@sherriianiro747
I can highly recommend the Japanese Shenshyu onion as an overwintering crop i grew them last year and am growing them again this year along with overwintering electric red,i planted mine out about 5 weeks ago with some net protection(150 in total on an allotment) and they are already well on there way.They also store very well i just hung mine up in an onion bag in a cool out building and am still eating the last few from this years spring crop. I'm Hardy zone 7-8 UK 6A-1 USDA
Hi Ben, I’m not sure if it’s my iPhone, but I lost audio right after you asked if the bird was a crow. I watched the entire remaining part of your video with captions on. I could barely hear your voice even after pressing the volume button to its highest point. Cheers for another great video. Ray.
Another excellent video Ben. Sure to inspire and motivate… In a few more weeks, once it is good and cold, and there is no chance of the soil warming up… It will be a good time to sow spinach and other similar greens. If you sow those into a bed and cover them with leaves, they will be one of the first greens to pop up in late winter/ early spring. I’ve had them sprout up out of the melting snows, and they are most welcome. Winter is my favorite time to garden and I love how the winter, frosts, and snows can make some greens and veggies sweet (especially brassicas). But I also grow in my tropical greenhouse and let some veggies bask in the grow lights that are there to help the tropicals. There is always plenty to do in the garden for those that know and are not afraid to get their hands dirty. Cheers.
Hi Ben. I'm still waiting to be able to plant radishes. The weather might be getting cool enough to plant them, but here in California, you just never know. 80°F plus, then down to 60's, then back up. It's hard to plant anything in zone 10a that's really cold hardy. Thank you for your videos, I absolutely love watching them! 🤗
When I planted sweet peas, the plant was so good, but I didn’t get any flowers at all, very disappointed as sweet peas are my favourite flower, the scent reminds me of my Dad. Any ideas on what I can do to make sure I get flowers next year, we move to our house in France 1st December, and my first place to be will be in my garden trying to get it ready for planting and in the green house planting up some seeds that you have shown today, hopefully it won’t be to late, I’m so excited about my new garden.
I'm not sure why they wouldn't have flowered. They can sometimes take a while to get going. They need plenty of sunshine - so if it was heavily shaded then this may have had a part to play. Hope next summer's sweet peas bloom profusely for you.
I have a new home with a very tiny garden, so I will be using containers and grow bags mostly. There is a small greenhouse so I have been researching how to use that. I have planted my spring bulbs thus weekend and have sown a few sweet pea in the greenhouse but nothing is showing yet. I definitely want sweet peas in abundance so will try starting them in the house.
So glad I stopped by for this post Ben. I wasn't going to sow at this time and instead keep tender plants in G/h. But I've just picked up autumn-sow peas (meteor) and beans...so move over plants ☺️ I had great success with peas this year but beans seem to have been affected by blight or other. Any advice to avoid this. Similar to you, Zone 8/9 in Ireland.
I think the main thing to avoid blight/mildews is good airflow between plants. Peas in the open, with plenty of air around them, will definitely help to avoid this. More on veggie diseases here: www.growveg.com/plant-diseases/us-and-canada/
As others have said, that's a rook not a carrion crow (also at 10:30). Love the tongue-in-cheek suggestion (with a smile!) to let you know in the comments, which I think was a clever rouse to engage people, knowing what the internet is like! Also amused by "...those mice will get hold of them..." [4:20] *shows footage of a vole*. You may be trolling us all for more engagement... but I come here for your great gardening tips and advice not wildlife identification! 😂Thanks for another engaging video, Ben!
An excellent video, clearly explained and informative. I too got my garlic from The Isle of Wight as super quality. Thank you. I think you should write a book...I would buy it !
OOhhh - meant to say - about that frost last December (got down to -11C in my garden at night) - the GARLIC did something really amazing. As we got into spring and the shoots grew and the scapes arrived, there were also a number of shoots that had a bump in them that was not a scape. When I finally gave in and cut one open - it was a small clove. I emailed the Garlic Farm (where I bought them) to ask about it - and they were amazed and had to ask their expert. He said it likely was a survival mechanism but he had not seen it before either. And when I got them all open, some of the cloves had a little, green shoot coming out the top. So he was right. It was a beautiful and amazing thing to discover.. And I can highly recommend winter spinach, as it survived unscathed as well - and was harvestable well into spring - when the slugs re-emerged! Onions also survived, as did coriander and parsley - which turned into a triffid - and put down some of the most industrial-sized roots I've ever seen! As big as parsnips! Do you know if they are edible..? I hated putting them in the compost.. Never planting them in a raised bed again, though.. Same with cape gooseberries. Triffids that take over and leave no room or food for anyone else. Vertical learning curve!
Lots started off there - great job! I suspect the roots of parsley are indeed edible, as they are related to parsnips and carrots anyhow. I've never tried them myself - I wonder if they'd be a bit tough. But on the other hand could be very delicious! Gardening is very much a steep learning curve, but I guess that's half the fun!
Lovely video - I'm in zone 8b (Oregon) and have sown garlic and peas already - getting ready for the broad beans! Just got another copy of my old favorite, Winter Gardening in the Maritime NW by Binda Colebrook (great name for a winter gardener as the coles are so winter hardy!) And I need to scatter some corn salad seed, as I'm in a new garden!
Feels good! I just picked up a handful of Austrian Field peas. While they are mostly used as a cover crop to fix nitrogen, their leaves and shoots can be used as tasty salad and braising greens! I sorted through my seeds and pulled out the cover crop/ winter seeds and have winter radish and both cover crop and big seeded broad beans, and have Babington Leek Sets in several pots. I had those 10 years, at my old house - just getting them started here.
😂😂 I used the goldilocks analogy the other day about weather conditions I like it not too hot and not too cold. It is sadly minus 7c at night here in SW Canada so I have fleeced them and I’ll pray 🙏. We don’t have onion sets here sadly 😢 even online. Can I grow peas in the same bed as tomatoes 🍅? Have a fab week Ben and Rosie stay warm, Ali 🥶🇨🇦
Stay warm also. Very mild this side of the pond currently, but cold weather soon to come I'm sure. Yes, you can grow peas in the same bed as tomatoes, so long as both will have enough space.
So I just check the potting mix or soil every few days initially and then maybe once a week during the winter. If it is dry, then they get a water. So important to still keep them watered over the winter
I've planted my garlic but not deep enough. I was going to mulch with straw so hopefully that will take care of that. I will do my peas, sweet peas and broad beans soon. I will do some hardy annuals and flowering green manures in a plastic box to overwinter and maybe some spring cabbage as an experiment. The ones I sowed in August literally melted in the Welsh rain. I am Attempting to grow Greek basil under lights, bad idea? How can I find out my hardiness zone? I grow near the Precelis as well as by the river teifi in St. Dogmaels. Thank you for the tip of bonemeal. I haven't used it for years as the foxes and cats love it! Thank you for the video. So informative as usual.
If it’s any help, I grow Genovese Basil under lights all winter using the very simple Kratky passive hydroponic method and they do fantastically well. They’re usually ready to start harvesting 6 weeks after sowing.
I am in the Cotswolds. So you probably have a similar climate to mine. Potentially even just a tiny touch warmer. Basil should be fine under grow lights. :-)
Wonderful information as usual :} We have those loud crows here in Colorado USA as well...they always show up in groups of five or more in our neighborhood looking for small rodents to feed on or small other animals...pesky birds I say! Have a good day!
I still have things producing in middle ga… peas eggplant tomatoes not a lot but a few at a time…. Cold snap this wk… sweet potato vine got frost bit hoping spuds r ok… never grown them before…. And my garlic implanted out 3 wks ago…. Has popped up… lol 3-4 inches high in retaining bed…. I just covered with leaves and straw and prayed lol …. We shall see in a month what potatoes I get …. But it’s so hard to cut back veg even if it’s producing slowly… to me it’s still alive …. If it’s green let it go… but I have planted cold crops… lettuces onions etc in boxes… 😊
Those crows were looking for food, probably hoping you'll share the seeds with them 😊. I have a lot of them in my garden, plus doves, magpies, sparrows and gazillion other little birdies and they are a hungry lot. I'll be sowing onions and garlic, and maybe some peas. My garden needs a bit of work so I'll be keeping the majority of the beds empty so I can work on them. I'll keep growing food to two smaller beds and the polytunnel.
@@GrowVegThank you Ben, and right back at you. I saved up for my polytunnel for more than a year and am glad I did, it makes so much difference to my growing abilities. I have two mini greenhouses in it (the cheap types you get from Aldi) which I use as propagators. They work really well at speeding up germination. The polytunnel also doubles up as a home for a stray cat. He has a little house there and a cat flap so he can go in and out as he pleases. My own cats love sleeping there too.
You say that you are in the equivalent of Zone 8 but whereabouts in the UK are you? There is a great difference in growing conditions in different parts of the UK, so that information would be very helpful
I will water from time to time, whenever the potting mix or soil is dry. I check maybe every few days in warmer weather, but then drop down to checking maybe every week or so.
Hi Ben, I’m in UK and am trying lettuce overwinter in my greenhouse. I’ve grown Merveilleuse de quatre saisons (i think that’s how it’s spelt) in the past and this time I’m going for Lobjoits, love a bit of salad in winter! Seedlings are just showing and hope they survive winter.
Thanks for the video, Ben. Also in England zone 8/8b. Have done garlic, onions and still have leeks and chard but hoping to sow as much as possible soon. Just to let you know, I’m watching this at 08.15 gmt and the sound went a couple of minutes in to just the left ear until the onions section then there’s faint background music in the right and voice in the left. No one else that I can see have mentioned it so thought I’d mention the time in case it happened only recently. The bird are Rooks, not crows 😊.
I've just become an allotment holder for the first time and have spent a month battling inch thick brambles with massive roots. I'm hoping to get the plot fully cleared by Christmas and then covered with cardboard and woodchips ready for Spring. I find your video's most inspiring especially for the absolute novice like me. Thanks a lot :-)
Maybe clear a bit, & sow some beans or onions. Then clear the next bit.
If you have some strawberries all ready there, onions can go between as companions.
You're an allotmenteer now, life will never be the same
Best of luck, I’m sure you will fall in love with it
Doing this on a bamboo field.. so many roooots
That is wonderful. The adventure begins! Very best of luck with your new allotment. And don’t forget to enjoy it. :-)
As the union saying goes “Give me bread, but give me roses too.” I’ve got garlic and some flowering bulbs to plant. I just get sweet peas from the beach here in Nova Scotia. They’re wild. So are lupins.
Do you plant garlic round your roses? I heard it helps repel aphids and each makes the others' scent stronger.
No, I just pick wild ones. Hips too. They’re everywhere @@carolineowen7846
Hey I’m first!! I miss you making videos on a regular. Please make more! I love the educational content you provide.
Thanks so much. We had dropped down to one every two weeks but are now back to a video every week. :-)
“They will nourish your soul… gardening needs to feed every single piece of you…” So encouraging and true Ben, I needed to hear that… Love from Maine❤
It really is true. Hope the Maine community is pulling together after recent events. My thoughts are with you guys.
Cheering video, thank you! My winter veg has been eaten by late cabbage white caterpillars, so this will get me going again 😂
I appreciate you getting this out while its still October.
Garlic, seed onions, peas, broad beans, winter spinach all went in outside last week - I am in zone 9 = west Wales. And 3 types of winter-planted cabbage + salad leaves + herbs - all planted in little starter pots indoors. And my first, experimental, microgreen batch is sprouting in the kitchen. I am also still picking loads of cape gooseberries which went nuts this year = they are almost as enthusiastic as borage - but with no spikes and loads of luscious fruit.. And they are still throwing up shoots - and flowering! This is my second year of growing my own and the learning curve has been (and remains) vertical! Thanks to yourself and Huw Richards, it has been far better than I expected in terms of what I got more or less right, as well. Always look forward to your videos.
I was 50/50 about starting peas this weekend but now I'm 100% doing them in the morning.
Thank you for your videos, it's a wonderful channel
That’s great to hear. :-)
Watching from Edmonton, AB, Canada where we have had snow for over a week already and winter gets to -30°, glad I have a greenhouse.
Wow, that's very fresh already!
Here in N.E. Spain we plant whole garlic heads in September for 'tender garlic' shoots, a bit like spring onions and great with scrambled eggs with prawns on toast. I've already harvested a few of mine over the last few weeks but they will be available most of the winter. Then in late November/December we plant the individual cloves for producing complete bulbs for late spring...
I would imagine in Spain you can grow veg year round, but you have the opposite problem to the UK, boiling hot summers
@@ScoreGuru123 Depends where exactly but yes, I can eat from my plot year round.
Love the idea of tender garlic suits. Totally delicious!
Do you break up the ones you planted in Sept, or plant new cloves?
@@bmiles4131 During September, whole heads are planted and pulled up with their shoots from November to February/March for the tender shoots. The partly consumed cloves aren't of much use, although those from this month were sufficiently whole to save in olive oil. This not only conserves the peeled cloves but also flavours the oil which can then be used for cooking... Completely seperately, in November/December, individual cloves are planted to produce new whole garlic heads in Spring.
Just to say, it would be good to do a secton for disabled gardiners ; who limited movement like myself. I grow veg the best I can. I have a polytunnel, as I must not get cold or my condition gets worst. So I tend to start in polytunnel or in the conservatory and then transfre out.
Thanks for the suggestion Anthony. Having a polytunnel is a great asset to have - a perfect place to potter on a chilly/wet day.
I was in a past life befor medical retirement from a government as foreman of works on and Army barracks. I trained as Stonemason but to change as the autoimmune arthritis finished me off. I can use my wheelchair. I have alway garden since I was able to hold a small spade.
Tony
That looked like a rook to me. Pale, bare base to the bill. Thanks for the tip for sowing peas into toilet roll centres. Must get collecting instead of giving them to my dogs to play with 😁
Thanks for the rook ID! :-)
It always amazes me that we are both in Zone 8 - You, in Britain, and me in the North Florida Panhandle, US! Yes, I'm preparing to plant garden peas and snow peas, but I'm also planting brassicas, beets and turnips. Here in the "Deep South," we love our collards and turnip greens, and I'm praying that the weather holds so I can get lots of beets to pickle this year. Now, about those onions.....You are much farther North than we are, so I'm sure you plant a much different variety of onion than we do here. We will only get green tops and no bulbs if we plant anything but "short day" onion varieties. I started mine in 338 cell, Proptek plug trays in September, and will plant them out in double rows in mid-November. As I've said before, I plant them on buried drip tape, and, like we do with carrots, they will over-Winter until our days get long enough for them to start bulbing. We usually get a harvest sometime in May.
Yes, I think we have different types of onions. Funny how we are in the same zone I agree. Frosts may be around the same date, but our winters are probably a little bit more severe. And obviously a lot, lot cooler in the summer!
Thanks Ben, we just returned to Ca from a Euro vacay including England, Austria, Spain, Portugal and am now ready , in Late October to plant radish, beet, spinach, leeks, cauliflower, potato, and carrot now that the heat has gone. We are in Sacramento, Ca 9b. Thanks Ben.
Lots to be sowing now it's a touch cooler. :-)
I just had a vision of that discarded broad bean growing like Jack’s beanstalk. O dear. Losing my mind. But I did get about 100 garlic cloves in - all hardneck, and about 240 flower bulbs in my pollinator end of the old garden. I covered the garlic with clean straw and the flower bulbs with a thick layer of leaves. Fingers crossed. We are already getting freezing temps here in BC but I can still clear and prep the rest of the garden, so I’m not unhappy. Love your garden and love your videos.
Wow, you have been busy! Great stuff! :-)
@@GrowVeg - thanks. I don’t know that I would have been so successful if I hadn’t watched your videos. 🇨🇦👍🥰👩🌾
I'm so jealous because it's snowing here in Denver, CO (zone 5b)! Thanks for always brightening my day with great videos and garden tips.
Thanks for watching. :-)
That's it! Garlic, onions and sweet peas, this weekend.
Brilliant stuff! :-)
THANK YOU from this Antipode (in Australia) for naming your videos in relation to the season and NOT to the month, which only corresponds to seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. 🌱👌🏼
We do both, changing them to the season name once the month is done for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere.
@@GrowVeg yes and I get your emails at the right time of year too. Very clever and helpful, thank you!
I know mice are pests, however I find country mice extremely cute. That being said definitely going to plant broad beans again, as a beginner/container gardener they have been the most forgiving crop to successfully plant and grow these last 2 years here in the UK. :) Thank you for these videos! It helps us smaller gardeners dream big :)
I know - the mice are rather adorable aren't they! :-)
I'm on the San Francisco Peninsula zone 9b; currently growing fava beans, arugula, shelling peas, snow peas, walking onions, spinach, lacinato kale, red Russian kale, tree collards, parsley, Brussels sprouts, beets, cover crop, Romaine lettuce, scallions, onion chives, Swiss chard and dill, and planted hard neck garlic but the squirrels have been digging them up so surrounded them with metal hardware cloth and keeping my fingers crossed!
Wow, that is a lot to you have started just now. Great job!
It was a Rook. Great winter sowing advice. Thanks.
Thank you. :-)
Garlic is planted and up about 4 inches here in Maine. I've mulched it and have it inside a hoop house. Last year I planted 2 lbs which yielded about 12 pounds in the harvest I think. Planted 3 pounds this year. I also plant things like lettuce inside under grow lights just because it calls to me in the winter months! Haha.
Lovely lots of garlic started there. Great stuff!
Hello Maine i grew up in Portland before i joined the army. Never moved back but wish i could visit i have only a few family left there. Winter 🥶 was why i joined the army. I settled in north central Texas and now northern Arizona where we get 4 seasons but milder winters. I miss the ocean and the lobster and clams though. 😊❤
Hi Therese, winters can definitely be brutal here. I like the changing seasons but would like even better if winters were a bit milder and more predictable. Not a big fan of lobster here. I always find the hype more exciting than the actual experience of it. 🙂@@theresekirkpatrick3337
Jello lad.
Ive recently ran into your channel and have been enjoying some of your vids directly or as background noise while snacking away.
One thing I would love to see adressed is the lack of a garden. With the housing market being as it is more and more people find themselves locked into an apartement without a change in sight. Please do share what could be grown on the windowsill, balcony or just somewhere in one's kitchen.
Keep it up!
Thanks for this reminder. I do look at container gardening from time to time, but you're right - this is something that needs looking at perhaps more often. Please do check out this playlist in the meantime: th-cam.com/play/PL3VEy0_tuFgQhuPkhdjRZKB4CpzqDGKUl.html&si=2MFvkw_bbLso6Yqw
I put most all the spring seeds in now under cover. I'm zone 7 in colorado, USA. I've discovered that most of the seeds ( lettuce, snow peas kale, onions and such) one would plant in March here will over winter just fine as long as they are covered and kept from hungry critters. My garlic is also going in now!
Super job! 😀🌱
You plant garlic in November? I'm in zone 7 and wondering what I could plant. Do you sprout them first or just plant a garlic clove?
@@carolinapatriot9651 I just put the garlic cloves in the ground.
Lots of good advice there, thank you. Your crows are in fact rooks :-) - which are also in the crow family.
Fabulous, thank you for letting me know. :-)
So inspiring Ben! Great to know how much there still is to sow. Lifts the spirits! 😊
To right Antonia! ;-)
Just stuck my broadbeans in the raised bed as did last year. They did fine.
Also stuck in some garlic just got in the supermarket which worked well last year.
Great job. :-)
Thanks for saying both Fahrenheit & Celsius, cm & inches etc 🤓🌾👍
They are rooks, crows are bigger with black shiny beaks. Great video!
Thanks for the ident! :-)
Fascinating. I usually don't start peas or sweet peas til February, then pop them into ground in March. When you start in trays in November, don't the seedlings get a little tired/leggy/malnourished by the time the ground is ready in mid-Spring? It seems like a long time for them to be in their little toilet paper tubes. Any thoughts to share on why you wouldn't just wait to start them in plugs til early Spring and then plant right in the ground after that?
You could certainly just wait till spring. The advantage of sowing in November is the slightly earlier start this brings - but it won't be a massively early start, so it may be easier just to wait till spring. I guess it's really for those who are absolutely itching to just sow something now! The idea of sowing in November, though, is that the seeds germinate but then pretty much stop growing till late winter - or grow very slowly. This way they shouldn't get too leggy or nutrient starved.
Thanks for clarifying the depth of garlic planting. I always plant them deeper too contrary to what other tubers have said to let tops show, which the freeze / thaw cycle will trash them!
Definitely worth getting them a little bit deeper for that reason. :-)
My wheat is coming up nicely and I think I will put down some rye. We haven't had a frost yet here in southern France so I can go with the rye. Garlic planting tomorrow and favas in a couple of weeks. My black radishes are up and doing nicely. Of course my own seed is doing better than the commercial seed. I am also doing a potato experiment in grow bags. The potatoes are poking through. Great video BTW!
Interesting to have potatoes growing so late. Hope you manage to get a good harvest from these. :-)
You could add to the masterclass! Uses. Baby Ginger! You can use stems in cooking much like lemongrass. You can use dried or fermented leaves as tea.
I am only planting garlic now as I’ve so many jobs to do I want to get the plot ready for spring x
Ben YOU are amazing! I've never heard of newspaper pots, but what a clever idea! IF you can find newspaper to make them. I love the toilet paper roll idea, I have plenty of those! My peas from my late summer sowing are finally producing peas, I am so excited! I wonder if my variety will overwinter. I'm going to find out. I have replanted my onions from seedlings and will cover with plastic for the winter, fingers crossed this may work.
Could you ask about newspapers on freecycle? Or buy one at the weekend? If you don't get a free one. The tv guide is the perfect size for lining a mushroom tray, & using a few pages doubled over folded in half lengthways, (bit tucked under the centre -base)- round the edges like how you line a cake tin :)
You can also use kitchen roll tubes as well as toilet roll tubes cut down to the correct length, a grape punnet works well (for deeper tubes) or the shallower punnets / trays for the short 'seed tubes' to contain them. It makes moving them, watering & stacking easier. Some toilet rolls have a much bigger diameter tube than others ...
I fold the tubes in half lengthways, (make a good crease!) then match the folds and crease again making a square tube, you can score a cm or so in, on one edge, & snip the crease and fold in to form a base with a hole in the base (9-14mm holes works best) then the square tubes sit neat together and support each other in the punnet / tray. You can measure it all so they all sit the same height etc, it's a nice get ahead job when the weather is rubbish, if you have no seed trays, or no idea how many you will need. (As you can see I've been completely skint ... & needed to do this as I had seeds planted in my 3 seed trays) It also doesn't waste any potting mix either & they stack. I make them up once I have enough tubes to sow what I'm going to plant next. Although always good to be ahead ...
The newspaper pots go well in mushroom trays, (12 or 20) or make some seed trays from pallets. You can also use thin corrugated brown cardboard for the paper pots, like the sleeves off coffee cups.
Hope your peas manage to successfully overwinter. And great suggestion about sourcing newspapers. :-)
Where I live in Oklahoma, in the U.S., the libraries have free special-interest newspapers targeted to seniors, families, vegetarians, etc., in their lobbies. You could pick up 1 or 2 copies of these and use them for making newspaper pots. Good luck!
Here in Sylacauga Alabama, the first frost (-0.55C) is in the forecast for Tuesday, followed by a freeze on Wednesday (-2.8C). My peppers won't survive it, so I'll do a clean up harvest Tuesday morning, and start chopping and dropping. This isn't the end of my garden by far. I have Turnips, assorted lettuces, Late Nagasaki Cabbage, and Pak Choi that I am harvesting, garlic starting to sprout, and a new generation of turnips that have recently sprouted. I also have kohlrabi, Yellow Heart Winter Choy, and Navone Gold Rutabagas growing. I need to move my comfrey sprouts inside my polytunnel greenhouse to over winter them for spring transplanting. My Greek Oregano may die off, but it is a perennial that will regrow in the spring. My mint, spearmint, and lemon thyme will survive the coldest temperatures in my area, zone 7B. I may have to heat my polytunnel Wednesday night to keep my winter tomato experiment going. So far, they are doing great, 3 Early Girl-bush, and 4 Tiny Tim.
@jaytoney3007. I’m in for the same first frost/freeze dates as you and I’m 870 miles north of you in Pennsylvania. That seems crazy!
@@sandram5664 Yes, it does. I would expect the frost/freeze dates to be at least two weeks earlier up north.
@@jaytoney3007 Our first freeze here in Idaho (Boise Mountains) was in September. It's been mid September for at least 20 years that I know of. Doesn't usually last long, and then we go into indian summer for 2 weeks to a month.
@@sage0925 My first average frost date is Halloween. After that it usually alternates with a week of warm weather followed by a few days of cold. What is surprising this year is the rapid cool down. Today's high is forecasted to be 83F, with a low of 60F. Tomorrow's high is 78F, then it drops to 60F with three days of frost. I am glad to see a slight warming trend in the forecast, so I may try covering the pepper plants to get a couple more weeks out of them. If nothing else, they will feed the deer. They are already venturing into the garden. I'm using cat netting to protect my cool weather crops; it will keep them safe from deer too.
Lots growing there. Great stuff! :-)
Love your positive energy. I’m planting garlic, 3 varieties and hopefully some onions.
Alas that it were so. I'm in Zone 5 mountains. 14F last night. I tried a double hoop house, and of course, cold weather veggies are still doing fine in the greenhouse. I'll be checking the hoop house this morning to see if anything made it through the hard freeze. Thankfully, it will also be sunny, so I'm not despairing yet.
That was a raven, btw. They kind of "quoark", and the tail is more triangular. And so far, I'm only seeing suppliers for Meteor seeds in the UK.
My only issue with toilet rolls is they tend to go moldy and slimy after a bit.
Thanks for the identification of the raven. And yes, toilet rolls can sometimes go a touch slimy. I hope your veggies have made it through the hard freeze ok.
@@GrowVeg Any chance you know a supplier of Meteor seeds that ships to the States? They may be called something else here though. I've noticed that some nurseries seem to do that. Change the name so you think they have something unique, that nobody else has.
Peas are so-so, but I couldn't give them a double cover, as they're on strings. Everything else made it through with flying colors. Double hoops worked fantastic. We got down to 14F, and everything else made it, with no supplemental heat. But we did have sunny days to warm them up during the day. I lifted a corner of each "bubble" to let the heat out every day.
Going for my first Garlic bed this season. I will sow this tomorrow actually! Great tip on using leaves for protection since I´m in zone 6 - Norway.
It will definitely help. :-)
Thanks Ben!! It is always a joyful time to see what you are planting ‼️‼️
Thank you so much for watching. :-)
Oh my gosh, I'd been missing and looking for your channel and, voila! here you are! Yea!!!!!
Great stuff - a warm welcome to you! :-)
I sowed my garlic October 20th in zone 4 Canada. They usually go in a bit earlier, around the 7th, but it was a warm autumn so I postponed it. Tonight is the first frosty night this autumn, down to -1. It's a month later than usual! Some light snow tomorrow, but it won't last. The ground isn't frozen yet.
Planted my garlic this afternoon!
Great job. :-)
I recently planted my first garlic bulbs in Arizona, Zone 8b. The garlic leaves have grown quite high in just a few weeks. Should I trim them down for winter? Also, how often do you water them over the winter? And how often do you water plants in the greenhouse vs. direct planted seeds outside over the winter? Thanks so much for your fun and instructional videos, which are so inspiring and helpful!
Just leave the garlic as they are - no trimming needed. For watering, just push a finger into the soil/potting mix to check soil moisture from time to time. Water if dry, leave if not. I check conditions every few days in warmer weather and maybe once a week once it gets cold. I would say plants in the greenhouse need watering more often than those outside, simply because it is warmer in the greenhouse and, of course, doesn't rain in there.
Thank you for another fantastic informative video Ben. Your the best, I feel like I'm there with you. Great experience everytime. 👌🏆
Always an inspiration. Thank you. Creating some raised beds at home in time for Christmas. Cant wait to start growing!
How exciting - the best Christmas present!
Planted garlic and French grey shallots today!!
Great job! :-)
I've planted some garlic, but it's just an experiment. I have used supermarket garlic so I know it might not work. It was starting to sprout in my fridge so I thought I'd just plant it out and see whether it grows or not.
I might plant some peas now too. I also use toilet rolls, they are very handy because you can put them straight in the ground with the plant in them, and not disturb the roots at all.
My cauliflower plants have sprouted.
I am growing some indoor Basil and Corriander. See how they do in winter. They are in a south-facing window.
I think your garlic may well do just fine. They may just be a little bit smaller that’s all.
@@GrowVeg Thank you, I hope they do. I'll be keeping my eye on them.
Sowed 225 cloves of garlic made up of 6 varieties including rounds which started out as bulbils taken from a seed head and replanted in each of 2 years.
Brilliant - that's a healthy number of garlic.
My newly built house will be completed sometime this winter of 2024 so that's when I'll start building wooden racks for my 5 gal buckets in which I will grow potatoes & onions & carrots & tomatoes.
The house has a nice quaint cellar where I can store these veggies too !!
How fab to have a proper cellar for storing veggies - that's great!
@@GrowVeg yup just very lucky !!
I'm zone 7 so I've put this video in my calendar for next October. We've already had a decent freeze here so I'm only going to scatter cover crop seeds now. Great video! I love your channel.
Thanks so much for watching. You can relax for the winter now. 😀
5:30 newspapers... those were the times, I haven't seen a newspaper in ages, maybe is different in the UK.... 🙂
I think I had to dig around to find one!
I wish we were in zone 8 in Colorado, 6F degrees was our low last week, killed off everything that had hung on, except the Kale! I'm planting my garlic cloves tomorrow, they'll be under a 10" deep straw mulch until April. I love your videos!
That’s very fresh already! Great to be getting the garlic in at least. 😀
The bird is a Rook, we have them in Sweden too 😊
I live zone 4 in what's referred as an alpine desert. You still manage to show me tricks to help my garden-spirit thrive thank you!
Alpine desert sounds rather delightful - but I'm sure it's full of it's share of challenges! :-)
Such crazy weather this year. I'm still harvesTing strawberries and blackberries. But next week gonna be very cold overnight so they will be gone. Then I can clean up my garden for winter.
I'd hoped to build me some coldfrqmes, but life....
I have beautiful males and some lettuce still. Hopefully they will be ok with some covers.
I started onions with seed this year and they were great ! Usually use sets, but ran out this year. We are having a bit of a drought right now and I haven't dug out the carrots yet. Waiting for a good frost to force that sweetness into the ends.
Canning apples and pumpkins now Whew, I need WI her to rest !!!
Have a blessed day yaall.
Sounds like you have been very busy. I love starting onions from seed also. They always produce good, reliable bulbs from seed.
Cheers Ben, brilliant as always. 🙏👍
Late autumn, beginning of winter. Well, here now it is late spring, early summer. I am sowing my own pumpkin seeds that grow well in my garden because there is an alkaline soil since the water is from the groundwater, it is quite alkaline. Hydrants are never blue, always pink.- Everything is very "empirical" about the edible garden, heh heh!- Your videos are very professional. Thank you!
Yes indeed! Hope you don’t take offence to the northern hemisphere focused titles of these videos. Obviously just add six months onto them! :-)
I love your channel with all the great information. 5hanks for sharing. 👍
Thanks for watching. :-)
Thanks Ben!
I recently discovered your videos. I enjoy your attitude and the way you present all your knowledge.
So many videos I previously watched are so long dragged out "Holy Cow get to the point videos."
So I actually look forward to watching you.
Thank you and Happy Holidays 🎄🎅🪴🐾🥂🎉
That's incredibly kind of you to say, thank you. Happy holidays to you also! :-)
2:17 Hello,
Enjoying your videos very much. I am in Canada, zone 4.
Is there something that I should be doing to get any early start for the spring?
Thank you.
Karen
Zone 4 is quite fresh, so many of the things started here you may be better off waiting till spring to start off. So, to prepare for spring, I would concentrate on adding plenty of organic matter to empty beds and generally getting things in order for spring. If you're keen to get a good head start, you could start things off under grow lights indoors from late winter, ready to go out in early spring.
First time seeing your channel.
Loved all of your suggestions and tips, some of which I already employ after 63yrs of gardening, but there were several new ones that I thought were brilliant. Especially if you garden in a similar climate, or have a greenhouse or cold frame.
I don't have either, but as I was watching, I realized that I may have what need to start building a cold frame. That's inspiration!
Thank you for sharing. Your new subscriber.
So pleased to hear this. And thank you so much for subscribing. Happy gardening!
Just found your channel. Love, love, love your vivaciousness! Subscribed and definitely tuning in again.
Bless you - that's very kind of you to say. Well, a very warm welcome to the channel to you! :-)
Very helpful. I started last year as a project with my two boys. Failed miserably with most of it.
Now using you grow plan to help us out.
Hope you have better success this time round - I'm sure you will. :-)
I'm planting all of that this winter.
Beans and peas soon. Some self sown sweetpeas have started popping up on their own.
May have even gone in with the garlic too early. The shoots are inches long already. Hopefully that's okay. 🤞
Cheers, Ben.
Fingers crossed they will be okay. :-)
Here in USA zone 9B I plant different varieties of sweet pea. Happy Fall Day
I sowed some peas at the end of August using dried peas from the spring crop. Didn’t expect anything but all come up. Love sweet peas and love sowing next years crop. Sown shallots from sets this year looking forward to trying them. Autumn a very busy time- I prioritise getting my dahlias and non hardy bulbs dug up, plant my bulbs. Thank you for the tip of what to do with the small rubbish cloves from garlic
Great to have saved your own pea seeds. :-)
@@GrowVeg I was very selective only choose pods that were full with 10 peas, and threw away the ones that weren’t full or didn’t have the right number of peas.
Ty for the video! I found that you are very informative!!!
I really want some snacking peas next year. Whether those are shelling or snap peas I'm still not sure. Definitely leaning more towards anything I can plant once or twice and get multiple harvests out of. Ie radishes are great, but sowing more than once can be more work than I'm willing to put into them. Tomatoes did wonderful last year and cucumbers I certainly want to grow but the groundhogs ate the plants and I didn't get a single cucumber. Need to start them super early so they can be off the ground. Quickly
I still don't know what ate all of my carrot tops. Rest of garden unscathed!
Hi Sherri, Our season was off to a terrible start this year but my husband was tireless in setting have a heart traps. FINALLY, the critters seemed to be gone and I was able to grow some things out of doors in the garden. Never give up! 🙂@@sherriianiro747
Always good if you can get multiple harvests. :-)
I can highly recommend the Japanese Shenshyu onion as an overwintering crop i grew them last year and am growing them again this year along with overwintering electric red,i planted mine out about 5 weeks ago with some net protection(150 in total on an allotment) and they are already well on there way.They also store very well i just hung mine up in an onion bag in a cool out building and am still eating the last few from this years spring crop.
I'm Hardy zone 7-8 UK 6A-1 USDA
Great recommendations! :-)
Hi Ben, I’m not sure if it’s my iPhone, but I lost audio right after you asked if the bird was a crow. I watched the entire remaining part of your video with captions on. I could barely hear your voice even after pressing the volume button to its highest point. Cheers for another great video. Ray.
Hi, I didn't loose audio completely but it went very quiet I also used the captions. So I don't think it was just you 😊
Oh crikey, thank you so much for letting me know! I will look into this.
I’ve always got garlic from the garlic farm, they are great.
Another excellent video Ben. Sure to inspire and motivate… In a few more weeks, once it is good and cold, and there is no chance of the soil warming up… It will be a good time to sow spinach and other similar greens. If you sow those into a bed and cover them with leaves, they will be one of the first greens to pop up in late winter/ early spring. I’ve had them sprout up out of the melting snows, and they are most welcome. Winter is my favorite time to garden and I love how the winter, frosts, and snows can make some greens and veggies sweet (especially brassicas). But I also grow in my tropical greenhouse and let some veggies bask in the grow lights that are there to help the tropicals. There is always plenty to do in the garden for those that know and are not afraid to get their hands dirty. Cheers.
I agree - winter can be a stunning time of year. :-)
It looks like a British crow 🙂 the beak is slim & yellowish colored. Ravens have big thick black beaks 🥰
Hi Ben. I'm still waiting to be able to plant radishes. The weather might be getting cool enough to plant them, but here in California, you just never know. 80°F plus, then down to 60's, then back up. It's hard to plant anything in zone 10a that's really cold hardy. Thank you for your videos, I absolutely love watching them! 🤗
Thank you for watching. Hope your weather cools down soon. Must be tough dealing with warm temperatures so late in the year like this.
@@GrowVeg Thank you Ben. Indeed it is, today will be 82°F and climbing, even though yesterday it was a nice 76°.
Oh well. 🤷♀️ lol
When I planted sweet peas, the plant was so good, but I didn’t get any flowers at all, very disappointed as sweet peas are my favourite flower, the scent reminds me of my Dad. Any ideas on what I can do to make sure I get flowers next year, we move to our house in France 1st December, and my first place to be will be in my garden trying to get it ready for planting and in the green house planting up some seeds that you have shown today, hopefully it won’t be to late, I’m so excited about my new garden.
I'm not sure why they wouldn't have flowered. They can sometimes take a while to get going. They need plenty of sunshine - so if it was heavily shaded then this may have had a part to play. Hope next summer's sweet peas bloom profusely for you.
Here in zone 5b, Nova Scotia, we plant garlic from mid Oct to early Nov. The ground can freeze in Nov.
I have a new home with a very tiny garden, so I will be using containers and grow bags mostly. There is a small greenhouse so I have been researching how to use that. I have planted my spring bulbs thus weekend and have sown a few sweet pea in the greenhouse but nothing is showing yet. I definitely want sweet peas in abundance so will try starting them in the house.
Love the 70s F'in music - very classy ;)
Haha, cheers!
So glad I stopped by for this post Ben. I wasn't going to sow at this time and instead keep tender plants in G/h. But I've just picked up autumn-sow peas (meteor) and beans...so move over plants ☺️ I had great success with peas this year but beans seem to have been affected by blight or other. Any advice to avoid this. Similar to you, Zone 8/9 in Ireland.
I think the main thing to avoid blight/mildews is good airflow between plants. Peas in the open, with plenty of air around them, will definitely help to avoid this. More on veggie diseases here: www.growveg.com/plant-diseases/us-and-canada/
Actually planting garlic in my grow zone (usa 4a) is in aug/sept- so it depends entirely on what region you are in!!!!!!
That’s why Ben mentioned that he’s talking about zone 8.
Yes, definitely depends on your climate. :-)
Yes, definitely depends on your climate. :-)
As others have said, that's a rook not a carrion crow (also at 10:30). Love the tongue-in-cheek suggestion (with a smile!) to let you know in the comments, which I think was a clever rouse to engage people, knowing what the internet is like! Also amused by "...those mice will get hold of them..." [4:20] *shows footage of a vole*. You may be trolling us all for more engagement... but I come here for your great gardening tips and advice not wildlife identification! 😂Thanks for another engaging video, Ben!
You may be right. Or possibly not… ;-)
An excellent video, clearly explained and informative. I too got my garlic from The Isle of Wight as super quality. Thank you. I think you should write a book...I would buy it !
Thanks so much for your kind words. I do indeed have a book out: www.growveg.com/growveg-the-beginners-guide-to-easy-gardening.aspx
Brilliant, I will check it out, thanks.@@GrowVeg
Peas for sure! Onions and cabbage too.
I plan to have another go at garlic and will use your advice. Thanks 🙂
OOhhh - meant to say - about that frost last December (got down to -11C in my garden at night) - the GARLIC did something really amazing. As we got into spring and the shoots grew and the scapes arrived, there were also a number of shoots that had a bump in them that was not a scape. When I finally gave in and cut one open - it was a small clove. I emailed the Garlic Farm (where I bought them) to ask about it - and they were amazed and had to ask their expert. He said it likely was a survival mechanism but he had not seen it before either. And when I got them all open, some of the cloves had a little, green shoot coming out the top. So he was right. It was a beautiful and amazing thing to discover.. And I can highly recommend winter spinach, as it survived unscathed as well - and was harvestable well into spring - when the slugs re-emerged! Onions also survived, as did coriander and parsley - which turned into a triffid - and put down some of the most industrial-sized roots I've ever seen! As big as parsnips! Do you know if they are edible..? I hated putting them in the compost.. Never planting them in a raised bed again, though.. Same with cape gooseberries. Triffids that take over and leave no room or food for anyone else. Vertical learning curve!
Lots started off there - great job! I suspect the roots of parsley are indeed edible, as they are related to parsnips and carrots anyhow. I've never tried them myself - I wonder if they'd be a bit tough. But on the other hand could be very delicious! Gardening is very much a steep learning curve, but I guess that's half the fun!
Lovely video - I'm in zone 8b (Oregon) and have sown garlic and peas already - getting ready for the broad beans!
Just got another copy of my old favorite, Winter Gardening in the Maritime NW by Binda Colebrook (great name for a winter gardener as the coles are so winter hardy!) And I need to scatter some corn salad seed, as I'm in a new garden!
Great to have your garlic and peas in already - should be on to a lovely early harvest next summer. :-)
Feels good!
I just picked up a handful of Austrian Field peas. While they are mostly used as a cover crop to fix nitrogen, their leaves and shoots can be used as tasty salad and braising greens!
I sorted through my seeds and pulled out the cover crop/ winter seeds and have winter radish and both cover crop and big seeded broad beans, and have Babington Leek Sets in several pots. I had those 10 years, at my old house - just getting them started here.
😂😂 I used the goldilocks analogy the other day about weather conditions I like it not too hot and not too cold. It is sadly minus 7c at night here in SW Canada so I have fleeced them and I’ll pray 🙏. We don’t have onion sets here sadly 😢 even online. Can I grow peas in the same bed as tomatoes 🍅? Have a fab week Ben and Rosie stay warm, Ali 🥶🇨🇦
Stay warm also. Very mild this side of the pond currently, but cold weather soon to come I'm sure. Yes, you can grow peas in the same bed as tomatoes, so long as both will have enough space.
Question - do you continue to water the seeds over the winter? Or do you just give them that first soaking and leave them be until spring?
Great question.
So I just check the potting mix or soil every few days initially and then maybe once a week during the winter. If it is dry, then they get a water. So important to still keep them watered over the winter
I have garlic and onion to plant out now! Unfortunately it has been raining the last few weeks so I haven't been able to prepare the soil yet☹️
I've planted my garlic but not deep enough. I was going to mulch with straw so hopefully that will take care of that. I will do my peas, sweet peas and broad beans soon. I will do some hardy annuals and flowering green manures in a plastic box to overwinter and maybe some spring cabbage as an experiment. The ones I sowed in August literally melted in the Welsh rain. I am
Attempting to grow Greek basil under lights, bad idea?
How can I find out my hardiness zone? I grow near the Precelis as well as by the river teifi in St. Dogmaels. Thank you for the tip of bonemeal. I haven't used it for years as the foxes and cats love it!
Thank you for the video. So informative as usual.
If it’s any help, I grow Genovese Basil under lights all winter using the very simple Kratky passive hydroponic method and they do fantastically well. They’re usually ready to start harvesting 6 weeks after sowing.
I am in the Cotswolds. So you probably have a similar climate to mine. Potentially even just a tiny touch warmer. Basil should be fine under grow lights. :-)
I will definitely try again, the current lot damped off! @@GrowVeg
I will look up the system as I've never heard of it. Anything to keep me busy this winter!@@sandram5664
Ben ,your broad beans in modules ,when will you plant them out ?
Depending on temperatures, probably late February or early March.
thanks Ben @@GrowVeg
Wonderful information as usual :} We have those loud crows here in Colorado USA as well...they always show up in groups of five or more in our neighborhood looking for small rodents to feed on or small other animals...pesky birds I say! Have a good day!
Thanks so much - have a good day also.
I still have things producing in middle ga… peas eggplant tomatoes not a lot but a few at a time…. Cold snap this wk… sweet potato vine got frost bit hoping spuds r ok… never grown them before…. And my garlic implanted out 3 wks ago…. Has popped up… lol 3-4 inches high in retaining bed…. I just covered with leaves and straw and prayed lol …. We shall see in a month what potatoes I get …. But it’s so hard to cut back veg even if it’s producing slowly… to me it’s still alive …. If it’s green let it go… but I have planted cold crops… lettuces onions etc in boxes… 😊
I know what you mean about cutting them back. They seem like old friends after a long growing season don’t they. :-)
Those crows were looking for food, probably hoping you'll share the seeds with them 😊. I have a lot of them in my garden, plus doves, magpies, sparrows and gazillion other little birdies and they are a hungry lot.
I'll be sowing onions and garlic, and maybe some peas. My garden needs a bit of work so I'll be keeping the majority of the beds empty so I can work on them.
I'll keep growing food to two smaller beds and the polytunnel.
Great to have a polytunnel to keep the harvests coming. Hope you have a fantastic start to the growing season next spring. :-)
@@GrowVegThank you Ben, and right back at you.
I saved up for my polytunnel for more than a year and am glad I did, it makes so much difference to my growing abilities. I have two mini greenhouses in it (the cheap types you get from Aldi) which I use as propagators. They work really well at speeding up germination.
The polytunnel also doubles up as a home for a stray cat. He has a little house there and a cat flap so he can go in and out as he pleases. My own cats love sleeping there too.
Thank you Mr Ben : )
You say that you are in the equivalent of Zone 8 but whereabouts in the UK are you? There is a great difference in growing conditions in different parts of the UK, so that information would be very helpful
Yes of course. I'm on the edge of the Cotswolds, in north Oxfordshire, in the south of England.
Hi Ben, will you water again over the winter or just leave with that first good watering?
I will water from time to time, whenever the potting mix or soil is dry. I check maybe every few days in warmer weather, but then drop down to checking maybe every week or so.
Hi Ben, I’m in UK and am trying lettuce overwinter in my greenhouse. I’ve grown Merveilleuse de quatre saisons (i think that’s how it’s spelt) in the past and this time I’m going for Lobjoits, love a bit of salad in winter! Seedlings are just showing and hope they survive winter.
I think they should do in a greenhouse. Enjoy!
Thanks for the video, Ben. Also in England zone 8/8b. Have done garlic, onions and still have leeks and chard but hoping to sow as much as possible soon. Just to let you know, I’m watching this at 08.15 gmt and the sound went a couple of minutes in to just the left ear until the onions section then there’s faint background music in the right and voice in the left. No one else that I can see have mentioned it so thought I’d mention the time in case it happened only recently. The bird are Rooks, not crows 😊.
Thank you so much for letting me know. Someone else has mentioned a slight issue with the sound. Will look into this. Appreciate it. :-)