What we are planting in our Harvster right now
Well at this time of the year most gardeners are hanging up their wellies for the year in the fruit and vegetable garden. But at Harvst Chris and I are still planting. We have, for the moment, a number of different seeds just planted to give interesting fresh vegetables over the late autumn and early winter. Seeds are also really cheap at the moment as companies are clearing stock ready for next year.
Just sown are the winter salads like Mustard, Mizuna, and Spinach for baby leaves as well as Corn Salad. Each of these are well adjusted to the relatively low light levels and can be boosted by the grow lights in your Harvster and with a bit of warmth will be cropping in 6-10 weeks time or possibly sooner. Just take a seed tray or module tray and fill with fresh compost, sparingly sow the seeds, pop in the Harvster and set up your programme on the Harvster app. Your automated mini greenhouse will do the rest until you need to thin the plants: once two or more true leaves have shown and the plants are big enough to handle. Then, fill one of the larger boxes with new compost and transfer the baby plants into their new home.
As an alternative for Perpetual Spinach, you can sow directly in the larger box and these will just need to be thinned down to one plant every 2 inches or so once they have germinated fully. That’s the bit I really don’t like, taking out new plants that you have grown, but if you don’t space the plants out the rest won’t grow so well and produce as much crop as they should. There also is the chance of diseases spreading more quickly too, so you should definitely thin them. You can always eat the thinnings too in your salads.
Also on the cards are the herbs like Parsley, Coriander and Dill. Whilst you can grow small pots in the house, I found that these are better germinated in a tray and then pricked out into individual plants. You then transfer them to a larger box giving them a couple of inches between each and they should then grow on well and crop all winter. Alternatively, you can prick them out into module trays and leave them unheated ready to go out into the garden or a larger post outside your mini greenhouse or frame in around February or March when the worst of the British weather is behind us.
Next time, we will look at broad bean plants ready for an early harvest in the Spring, more veg for over the winter and getting ready some sweet peas to give your garden or growing space a bit of colour next summer. Collect a few loo roll cardboard tubes and all will be revealed next time.
