Even if you don’t fancy gardening or harvesting over the winter, you can grow a few things to harvest and enjoy in spring next year. These are our top three for an early spring harvest…
Calabrese Broccoli
Planted now, in October, you can expect to see very slow, steady growth over the winter months. Then, in early spring, probably late March, the plant should burst into action, growing faster until it puts out broccoli spears in late April/May.
The joy of this is that the flurry of broccoli will come at a time when there is little else to harvest in the veg garden as many other winter crops will have gone over, and spring planted crops will still be too young for harvesting.
Spring Onions
These are a handy little plant for anyone who would like to grow a few things to enjoy in early spring – they take up hardly any space, and are perfect for pots and window boxes.
If you plant them in mid/late October, you should be able to harvest a few in late winter and early spring – there’s no need to harvest them all at once, so plant up a few (we sell them in sets of 10) and enjoy chopping them in to salads and stir-fries as you need them.
Perpetual Spinach
This is just such a useful plant to have in the veg garden over the winter. All going well, you’ll be able to harvest in December if you plant it in October. But its real joy is when it flourishes in early spring as the days begin to warm up and you get to harvest loads of vibrant leaves to make into super healthy soups.
You can’t really go wrong – just make sure it has good access to sunlight and follow the spacing in the grow guide (which comes with the plants)