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Kitchen
Garden
By
Barbara Pilcher, October 2001
Autumn
is the time to maximise the remainder of the
season's crops and to make provision for the
future.
Runner
beans continue to crop outdoors until the first
frosts and climbing French beans under polythene
keep going ill the temperature drops. It is
important to pick regularly at this stage so
that the flowers keep setting and you have fresh
beans for as long into the autumn as possible
- there is nothing to beat your own organic
produce for healthy eating. It is worth putting
some away in the freezer for those days when
an instant green vegetable is what you want.
With my climbing French beans I want to conserve
some pods for seed next year, so as well as
picking new young beans I am issuing instructions
that the more mature pods are not to be picked.
These will remain on the plant for as long as
possible, to be dried and shelled and stored
for sowing next year.
The
same zealous harvesting technique goes for courgettes.
I have had bumper crops of both green "Defender'
and yellow 'Goldrush' this year. Wonderful picked
small and 'en fleur' if I can manage it, but
great in soups when slightly overgrown (try
a little chilli and coriander oil on top to
add a kick!).
Just
keep picking until the first frosts draws it
all to a close.
I have been planting out the last of the overwintering
brassicas: 'Cavolo Nero' the black Tuscan kale,
'Redbor' kale with its wonderful magenta midribs,
winter cabbage 'Winter Tundra' and purple sprouting
broccoli. Even if you have no vegetable garden,
try some of these in the flower garden - they
have great colour and form. And the cabbage
family are so good for your health when eaten
regularly.
The
spinach is over for the season out of doors,
but the chards will stand over the winter and
provide us with crunchy stalks, creamy white
in 'Fordhook Giant' and 'Verde Bianca a Costa
Bianca 2' and red, yellow and orange in the
'Rainbow Lights' - together with the luxuriant
deepest green leafblades to use as spinach or
as wraps for steamed fish for example.
My
salad bed is full to bursting even in October.
Salad rocket and mixed salad leaves grow happily
at the end of the year and can be cloched if
the weather goes below freezing. Mustard and
cress are happily growing away and the last
of the 'Little Gem' lettuce are beginning to
heart up and will also continue with frost-free
protection. In the chicory bed, Treviso is making
tall green plants which will turn red as the
temperature drops. And my favourite of all 'Pan
di Zucchero', sugar loaf chicory, is beginning
to heart up. By December, perhaps even earlier,
it will have produced great hearts of the most
wonderful winter salad; palest green crisp leaves
with that hint of bitterness that is so appealing.
Some good vinaigrette, a few grapes or orange
segments and this is the perfect complement
to rich winter food.
Planting
a herb trough|
Compost
heaps, seakale and rhubarb | Harvesting,
drying and storage | Extending
the season for fresh herbs
| Autumn
Kitchen Garden
| Winter herbs |
February sowing
|
Soil
Preparation | April
Kitchen Garden
|
