If you’re growing winter veggies, like leeks, kale, cabbages, parsnips, sprouts and winter salads, then have a quick read of our guide for some top tips…
Brussels Sprouts – if you’re growing them, you should be able to harvest sprouts from November through to February. You can harvest individual sprouts by twisting them off the stalk and working your way up from the bottom (where they are larger and more mature.) Or you can harvest an entire stalk – if you do this, strip the side leaves off leaving the cabbage-like head at the top (it’s edible and can be treated like a cabbage when cooking) and stand the stalk in water in a cool, dark shed and it should keep for several weeks.
Cabbages – cabbages will stand in the ground through the winter quite happily. You can harvest them as and when you want to use one in the kitchen. Be careful to protect them from snails and slugs which often hide in between the outer leaves. Once harvested, they’ll keep in the fridge for several days.
Kale, Spinach & Chard – we’d suggest harvesting individual leaves as and when you want to use them. Pick the larger leaves first, leaving the smaller leaves to continue growing. For those that are already fairly mature, you can expect to be harvesting until early spring, and then harvest the whole head before the plants form flowers. For those that were planted in autumn and are still small, you should be able to keep harvesting through spring and into early summer. Once you’ve harvested the leaves, you can pop them in a jug of water and they’ll stay quite fresh for a few days without needing to take up fridge space.
Leeks – harvest leeks as and when you want to use them. They should stand in the ground quite happily until late winter/early spring, but watch out for signs of bolting (a thicker, central stem will start to form from which it will produce a small bud) and also keep an eye out for signs of rust, a fungal disease that you can recognise by orange-brown rust-like spots appearing on the leaves. If you see signs of either of these, we’d suggest harvesting asap and discarding any unusable leaves and using up your lovely leeks as quickly as you can.
Parsnips, Celeriac & other winter roots – these should stand well in the ground until late winter. Harvest them as you want to use them. If conditions turn very wet, you may prefer to harvest them and store them – pull them up, trim off the leaves and let them dry before storing in a hessian sack in a cool, dry place.
Winter Lettuces – these may not quite have reached maturity yet, although they are likely to do so over the next month or two. Either harvest as cut and come again, or wait and harvest entire lettuce heads. As the weather turns very cold, with frost and snow, they will benefit from a cloche.
Winter Salad Leaves – most salad leaves will be fine in the ground right through winter, and should be harvestable as cut & come again until early spring when they are likely to bolt. Just keep picking what you want, as you want to use it – we find salad leaves are at their most tasty straight from the veg patch, so prefer not to have too much sitting in the fridge when we could be harvesting it fresh.