A few hardy leafy greens is a great way to keep your veg garden going, even if you only have a small amount of space. You can plant them outside quite happily, and if you can cover them with fleece or a cloche tunnel, they’ll do even better. Otherwise plant them in a greenhouse.
Perpetual Spinach
Such a winner. Perpetual spinach will do really well through the winter, and you should get a flurry of leaves to enjoy in spring as well and possibly on into the summer months.
Land Cress
This is a brilliant plant to grow if you enjoy watercress. The taste is very similar, and the leaves keep coming all through the winter until the plant produces its flowers in spring.
It is pretty hardy, so you can plant it outside happily without worrying about frost etc.
Mizuna
This is a wonderful plant for winter salads – it is packed with punchy flavour (similar to wild rocket, but a little milder) and grows well over the colder months.
It is a good one for growing in pots and window boxes too as it doesn’t need much space. You could grow it on a windowsill, or outside or in a greenhouse.
Pak Choi
This is a surprisingly useful plant for winter growing as you can treat it as cut and come again. This works well as you can harvest some of your pak choi plants whole, cutting them once they are mature, and others you can pick individual leaves from. Both will keep growing as long as the baby leaves in the very centre of the plant are left intact.
Giant Red Mustard
Wonderful leaves for winter growing – you can either pick the leaves young and add to salads for a punchy mustard flavour, or use the more mature leaves in late winter/spring and cook them down like you would spinach.
They have the added benefit of adding a burst of colour in the veg garden and being super easy-going.