Planning for Winter

24/09/2008 by andy.

I may not have got most of the infrastructure work I’d hoped to done in the garden this year, owing to awful weather and too much work, but at least I haven’t fallen behind on my planting. On Sunday I finally managed to get the winter planting done for the polytunnel (high tunnel), which will be crucial for the cold weather and for next year’s hungry gap (that’s the name given to the period from March to May, when very few crops are ready to harvest).

One of the problems faced by tunnel growers is the dilemma of summer versus winter planting. Polytunnels are fabulous growing tools, and act pretty much like a greenhouse throughout the summer for a fraction of the price. The trouble is that if you want to, you can still be cutting cucumbers through October, and it could be Hallowe’en before you decide to cut your losses and make chutney out of any tomatoes that didn’t quite make it to ripeness; and by then, of course, it’s too late to plant most things. Harvesting from a high tunnel all year round requires a few compromises.

When you hit the last planting date for the tunnel in your area – and here in Dorset that’s about now – then it’s time to make a few hard choices. On Sunday I took out three melons that were going to achieve nothing more, poor things, and planted corn salad (aka lamb’s lettuce, machê) in their slot. I gave the cucumbers a long, meaningful look before taking all the leaves off to a height of 2′, allowing me to plant rocket – a hugely important ingredient of our winter salads - underneath them.

The remaining tomatoes likewise had their pyjama bottoms stolen before being undersown with vast quantities of spring onions, and so it went on. Other winter planting that got shoehorned in included two types of lettuce, radish, perpetual spinach (pre-grown in modules), peppery mizuna, vast quantities of carrots, a couple of cauliflower, and a few mooli. Everything there will play an important part in our diet through winter and spring (except possibly the mooli, which I should really make more of an effort with). Although the tunnel’s looking very gappy now, getting the autumn planting done is one of the times of the year where I give a happy…

…Ahhhhh.

Posted in polytunnel | No Comments »