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Caption: Garlic Planting

As autumn prepares to give way to winter, award-winning garden writer Ade Sellars shares his top practical jobs for the weeks ahead, from planting tulips and garlic to caring for your soil:

It’s hard to imagine, but it only seemed like yesterday we were in the sweaty vice-like grip of another heatwave. Hosepipe bans taunted our wilting blooms, growing veggies baked under an unforgiving sun, and gardeners were making offerings to appease the rain Gods. Yet, here we are now, in the depths of autumn, donning woolly jumpers and heavy coats in preparation of Jack Frost’s arrival. Clocks take a step back on the 26th of this month, meaning daylight hours finally succumb to the increasing darkness, bringing with it colder temperatures. On allotments and veg gardens, ripened pumpkins groan in anticipation of being harvested, hollowed and carved into the most gruesome of figures to celebrate the thinning of the veil on All Hollow’s Eve.

November arrives, and we pack our dearest off to parks and school fields to stand under the stars and huddle around fires that burn effigies of a man that could have changed history forever. As bonfires crackle, the sky explodes into an array of colour and spectacle, all to the excitement of gasping crowds.

Brisk country walks are taken, newly fallen leaves are kicked and we all raise a cup of homemade soup to celebrate glorious harvests. If you hadn’t realised by now, this is what
the passing of the baton looks like, where autumn hands responsibility over to winter. It’s also a time where gardeners will be preparing for the colder months ahead, whilst holding onto dreams of a new growing season and its alluring possibilities.

So, grab your wellies and scarf, head out outside and embrace the changing of the guard with a list of gardening jobs that will keep bodies warm and green spaces happy.

WINTER COLOUR

Exhausted and gone to seed, summer bedding plants have had their moment in the sun. Therefore, remove, clear weeds and freshen pots with Dalefoot’s Wool Compost for Potting. For winter colour, consider planting cyclamen, polyanthus and primrose. Whether it’s flower beds, borders, pots, containers or hanging baskets, these plants can fill your winter months with rich colour, seeing you right through to next spring.

PERENNIALS

Perennial plants will now be looking worse for wear. If garden wildlife has eaten the seeds, and you don’t want structure in your garden over the coming months, cut the plant to base and mulch with Dalefoot Composts Lakeland Gold. Not only will the compost help protect the rootball, but it will also retain moisture and help suppress weeds. Don’t cover over the plant, as the moisture can cause it to rot.

Increase your stock of summer flowering perennials by lifting, dividing and re-planting them where you want to see next year’s blooms. Water well and again apply a thick Lakeland Gold mulch around the plant to protect them the colder months ahead. As the soil is still warm, plants will have enough time to bed in.

BARE ROOT PLANTS

From November until March, bare root rose varieties are widely available to buy, this includes shrubs, trees and other plants. As they’re normally cheaper compared to potted varieties, there’s no excuse to plant out your favourite bloom in a flower bed or two.

Before planting, place your bare root roses in a bucket of water for at least half an hour, as this will allow them to re-hydrate. Dig the hole at least twice the size of the plant’s roots and about twelve inches in depth (length of a spade’s blade). When planting, ensure you use plenty of Lakeland Gold. Backfill, firm in well and water. Add a thick layer of compost around the plant to help protect roots from the winter weather.

If the ground isn’t waterlogged or frozen, get your bare root plants into the ground as soon as possible, otherwise the exposed roots will dry out. If you’re unable to plant them immediately, ‘heel in’. There, they can remain in a temporary site right up until spring, giving you ample time to get your final growing position prepared.

TULIP BULBS

Whether it’s swathes of tulips, container grown, or individual flowers dotted round your garden, November can be a good time to plant bulbs. Temperatures are dropping daily, so there’s no longer a threat of tulip fire infection. Avoid bulbs that show signs of decay, mould or damage, and plant three times to the depth of the bulb. Bulbs do not like to sit in water and can rot, so plant up with Dalefoot Composts Bulb Compost as this will ensure free-draining and encourage healthy, strong bulbs. You may want to cover the area with netting, to prevent mice and squirrels digging them up.

HARD-WOOD CUTTINGS

It’s not too late to take hard-wood cuttings, Plants include buddleia, vines and Cornus. Make a sharp cut just beneath a bud, and an angled cut across the top of the cutting. The angle ensures moisture runs off and doesn’t rot the cutting. Your cutting should be the length and width of a pencil. Place the straight end into a pot of compost, up to its middle. Try to use a square pot and place cuttings in each corner. Any heat will bounce off the corners of the pot and onto the cutting. Ensure the compost is damp, and place in a cold frame or greenhouse.

GARLIC

Keep the vampires at bay this Halloween and grow your own garlic. Before planting, ensure the chosen planting bed is free of weeds and large stones. Incorporate plenty of Dalefoot Composts Vegetables & Salad into the soil, tamp down and level the surface. Taking your garlic bulbs, divide them into cloves. There’s no need to remove the papery exterior as this will help protect them during planting. Plant cloves about 2-3cms deep with the pointy end of the clove facing up. Plant roughly 15cm apart and in rows 30cms apart. If you are unsure of measurements, simply use your hand trowel as a guide. The spade tends to be roughly 15cms in length, with the overall length roughly 30cms.

Once planted, water in well and label. Cover over planting area with netting, as this protects them from hungry birds thinking they’re worms. Keep the area weed free and the soil moist.

SOW

With the right protection, lettuce can be sown, grown and harvested. Consider varieties such as lamb’s lettuce, miner’s lettuce or micro greens. If you’re growing them in a greenhouse, try taking a bag of Dalefoot Composts Vegetables & Salad, lay it on the ground face up, remove the plastic front panel and sow your seeds into the bag. Label and water in well.

For an early spring harvest of broad beans, sow seeds into the ground. Ensure the area has had plenty of compost worked into the soil. Create a fine tilth, then sow double rows at six inches apart. Panting at nine inches apart to the depth of two inches. Cover the seeds, and water in well, marking the area where the seeds have been sown. Like garlic, to protect seedlings from hungry wildlife, cover over growing area with netting,

MAINTENANCE

If you have bare patches of soil in your flower beds or out on the veg plot, apply a thick layer of either Lakeland Gold or the Vegetables & Salads compost across the surface. Over the next few months, the compost will breakdown, leeching valuable nutrients into the soil. It will also protect plant roots, help to suppress weeds and improve soil structure.

Before the weather turns too cold give your lawn some attention by removing any thatch, aerate and give it a feed. Carry out any repairs and re-cut edges. Rake up fallen leaves as this will not only prevent pests from taking shelter, but it will also stop lawns being susceptible to the ‘browning off’ effect.

As plants and trees shed their leaves, you begin to see the blueprint of your garden. With a bare space, it’s easy to spot areas that need fixing and repairing. If you’re considering adding new features, such as arches, fences and paths, from now until spring is the ideal time. Most plants will have retreated back into the ground, so there’s little chance of damaging them as you work around the beds and borders.

BIO

I’m Ade Sellars the ‘Good Life Gardener’, and I am an award-winning garden writer, garden designer, presenter, and content producer, with a passion for growing my own food in my kitchen garden. As well as running my own gardening business, I produce tailored video content for gardening brands, flower shows and outdoor events, and I regularly deliver talks and demonstrations around the country. July this year I released my children’s debut fiction book, The Plot on the Hill: The Carrot Catastrophe.

The Plot on the Hill: The Carrot Catastrophe:
www.waterstones.com/book/the-plot-on-the-hill/ade-sellars/9781036990800
Website: www.adesellars.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@TheGoodLifeGardener
Instagram: adesellars

Caption: 24 hours before the wedding, and more glamorous than ever in the 30 degree heat

Caption: Even the cake was floral from AngelChops Cakes

Caption: My allotment 4 days after I took over 800 stems from it!

Caption: My bouquet

Caption: The reception and speeches

Award-winning garden writer Becky Searle shares her experience of growing her own wedding flowers, with practical tips on choosing varieties, planning sowings and making the most of what’s already in your garden:

Growing my own wedding flowers

The summer of 2026 brought about some huge challenges for gardeners. On my allotment the water butts had run dry by the end of July. My clay soils had dried and cracked even under several years’ worth of mulch. Elsewhere the world turned to sepia tones, with dried grass and brown leaves on trees.
For me, this year brought about another, slightly more personal challenge; to grow my own wedding flowers. My lovely new husband asked me to marry him after a five-year relationship, and I was excited to finally, at the grand old age of 40, plan a wedding.

Of course, being a gardener, my first thought was about flowers.

We knew we wanted the day to be colourful and full of flowers. My plan was simple; we had rented a slightly dingy village hall for £20, and I got hold of 60 second-hand bud vases to go down the banquet tables. The bud vases would also be our wedding favours, negating the traditional tatt, and relieving us of the problem of what to do with 60 vases after the big day. All I had to do was fill them. This meant that realistically I needed around 8-10 stems per vase. That’s around 480-600 stems, just for the table decorations. I also wanted them in the entrance to the hall, on the cake table and dotted around the room. If it weren’t for my desire to grow my own flowers, I think my husband-to-be would have left me there and then in fear of financial ruination. In fact, the average cost of flowers for a wedding is £1000 in the UK, and my taste was what some might call a little extravagant. A back of an envelope estimate for the number of stems I “needed” came out at between £800 and £1,800, depending on the flower, and where I got them from.

Then of course, if you are environmentally minded, you should also consider where those flowers come from. Many are grown under intensive conditions with a plethora of pesticides, chemical fertilisers and fungicides. And to add to that they often travel long distances to adorn the shelves of our florist shops, clocking up the floral equivalent of food miles. If you source locally grown flowers from your local flower farm (most of us have one, even if you don’t know about it), they will undoubtedly be a more sustainable option but are unlikely to cost any less.

For us gardeners there is of course a natural choice; grow your own. In fact, most of us already are growing at least some of our own flowers anyway. It is fun, rewarding and saves a lot of money. In fact, a quick rummage through my seed collection and it happened that I only needed about £10 worth of seeds to make all my floriferous dreams come true. If you are interested in growing your own flowers either for a wedding, or another special event, here are my top tips.

Make sure your flowers match your date

If you have the luxury of planning your event around when things might flower, do that. I looked back on my many years’ worth of photos from my garden and picked a wedding date that corresponded with when most of my favourite plants usually flower in my garden – cheating, I know. If you don’t have the luxury of choosing a date to suit your flowers, then you’ll need to work backwards and choose flowers that suit your date. Don’t set your heart on tulips if you’re getting married in June, and don’t try to grow dahlias for a spring party, it won’t work.
Spend some time to research what flowers in your area around the time that you have your event planned. Cover yourself further by growing plants that repeat flower, otherwise known as “cut and come again” flowers, as these have a much higher chance of being in flower at the exact time you need them. Many of the flowers I planted struggled with the early and intense heat this year and didn’t flower in time, still more flowered much earlier than I anticipated, so it’s worth bearing in mind that you will need to be flexible as even our best made plans don’t always work out.

Make a plan

This ties in with timing, because once you know what plants will flower around when you need them, you should make a plan of when you need to sow them and plant them out. Some plants will flower earlier if you sow them earlier, like sweet peas sown in autumn, that flower earlier than sweet peas sown in spring. If you’re going for a “one and done” flower like a gladiolus that will only flower once a year, you need to get the timing spot on, or better yet, make a few plantings or sowings a few weeks apart to cover yourself. I had gladioli at my wedding, but I was only able to use about a quarter of the flowers I planted. Thankfully I had enough to be getting on with. Which leads me to my next point.

Grow more than you think you’ll need

This might sound obvious, but I can’t stress it enough. Picture this; you’re standing in your garden or allotment the day before your wedding choosing flowers. Some will have gone over. Some will have mysterious bites out of them. Some will for reasons unknown to any of us have come out the wrong colour, and yet more won’t be ready to flower yet. You need to start by working out roughly how many flowers you will need, and then times that number by about three, unless the plant you are growing reliably produces more than one flower.

Be flexible

The more flexible you are on what you will use on the big day, the more chance you have of success. If you set your heart on a big bouquet of homegrown dahlias, but we have a wet summer and your dahlias are decimated by slugs, you’ll be disappointed. Picking schemes that include a diverse range of flowers you likely won’t notice too much if one or two of the things you planted don’t make it to the final display.

Forage

Don’t forget about the flowers you are already growing, or the ones that are growing around where you live. My beds are teeming with Verbena bonariensis, and these plants ended up playing an active role in my flower displays, lending their pop of vibrant purple to a series of 50 bud vases. A large clump of fountain grass in my front garden that I’ve never given too much attention to before suddenly became a rich source of texture and interest. In fact, it would have been entirely plausible in July to have grown all my own wedding flowers without adding a single purpose-grown plant to my allotment.

Part of foraging includes asking friends and family if they have anything you can use. In my experience most people are delighted to share the fruits of their labour with someone for their big day. So, take the time to snoop around in the lead up to your big day and make a list of plants you might forage or ask to cut.

As we got married in a small village, the locals were more than happy to lend a hand, with someone offering us a large bouquet of hydrangeas, and many more giving us their tubs, pots and baskets for use on the day to decorate the venue.

Allow time for cutting

The problem with growing your own flowers, is that in order to keep them fresh, they really need to be cut as close to the big day as possible. That means that if you’re a bride, you will find yourself on the day before your wedding with a pair of secateurs in hand and probably covered in dirt. A long-sleeved top, gloves, cap and plenty of suncream is important if it’s a warm day and you want to look your best the following day. I enlisted the help of my mum and a few friends the day before to help arrange the flowers, transport them and set up the venue. This is certainly not a one-person job!

Choosing your flowers

When it comes to choosing your flowers, I recommend you base this primarily around what you are consistently able to grow. The likelihood is that if you grow something well every year, it is well-suited to the conditions in your garden and will therefore flower well for you when you need it to. This isn’t always the case, but it’s a good rule of thumb. If you haven’t grown flowers before, you’ll need to put in some time to research what will do well. There are of course many, many wonderful plants you can grow for your big day, and I highly recommend doing some research before committing to anything. But here are some ideas of easy plants you might want to try:

Sweet peas: Very easy to grow but they need a lot of organic matter to help feed them, and a lot of water. I recommend putting some compost in with them when you plant, and giving them a thick mulch too, without covering the stems. Then mulch again a few months later if needed. I like to use Dalefoot’s Wool Compost for Vegetables & Salads for this. Water regularly and cut the flowers off every few days. Stop cutting them about 7-10 days before the big day.

Cosmos: These are also super easy and thrive in a wide range of conditions. Sow them indoors in spring and plant out after the risk of frost has passed. Keep cutting the flowers as they go over. They will need plenty of water and organic matter to establish but then can be very robust and drought tolerant once they get going.

Dahlias: Excellent if your event is in Autumn and you have nice light soils. They struggle in my heavy clay. If you want to grow them from seed, start them off the previous year. If you’re happy to grow from corms, start them in some Dalefoot Bulb Compost in the greenhouse in early spring, and plant them out once the risk of frost has passed, with a nice mulch of Wool Compost for Veg, or even Dalefoot’s Wool Compost Double Strength.

Zinnia: Happy, jolly colours and a long case life, zinnias are easy to grow and thrive in warm summers providing they have plenty of water to get them going and a good amount of organic matter. Give them a mulch after planting and remember to keep deadheading them.

Nigella: Perfect for some dreamy textures and colours, nigella can be direct sown onto a prepared seed bed in spring. I recommend making several sowings to ensure the timing, though they can repeat flower if you cut them right back after they flower, though this can take a while.

Sunflowers: Cheerful and bold, sunflowers are always a crowd pleaser. Choose some multi-headed sunflowers and either direct sow them in spring or sow them in the greenhouse. They are very prone to slug damage while young, so beware!

Gladioli: If you want huge impact, look no further than gladioli. They’re so easy to grow from bulbs it almost feels like you must be doing something wrong. Make sure to provide some support as they grow and plant the bulbs in batches to ensure the timing works out.

Feverfew: These delightful little perennials are a joy in the garden and in vases, like lots of little daisies. They are best sown the year before you want to use them as they can be quite slow growing, but once they get going, they’re extremely generous and have an excellent vase life.

I loved growing my own wedding flowers, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes gardening and has ideas above their financial station about how many flowers they will need. It was a delight to be able to share my flowers with so many people, and see my floral dreams become reality. Furthermore, I was able to enjoy vast bouquets of flowers all summer long.

Becky

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Becky Searle is a garden writer and author of Grow a New Garden; Plan, Design and Transform any Outdoor Space. She trained as an ecologist and specialises in soil health and ecosystem gardening. You can follow Becky online at @Sow_Much_More.

Everything you need to know about growing delicious herbs this autumn by award-winning writer Stephanie Hafferty:

We’re moving into the autumnal months, but there’s still a lot that can be sown and planted. August and September are bit like a second spring. It’s a key time for getting many edibles, including herbs, growing and established before the winter. Unlike actual spring, the days are getting shorter and cooler, which slows down growth, so it really is worthwhile getting everything planted before October, or by mid-September if you live in a cold location.

The key herbs to sow now are parsley, dill, coriander, chervil and basil. These grow fairly quickly and will be a good size before winter. They are fabulous in all kinds of dishes, and also as flavourings in autumnal preserves, pickles and chutneys.

For slower growing herbs such as rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, winter savory and sorrel, it is better to buy in plants. These can all be planted in the ground if free draining and not liable to flood, or into containers of potting compost such as Dalefoot’s Wool Compost for Potting.

An advantage of potted herbs is that they can easily be moved to more sheltered spots if the weather is bonkers this winter (and after this summer, who knows what it’ll be like?!)

I’ll be writing about using these woody herbs, with recipes, in my next Dalefoot Blog in November.

Preserving the summer herb harvest

A key job for August and September in the herb garden is to preserve gorgeous flavours for cooking, teas and more. A simple, traditional way to preserve herbs is to dry them.

Many herbs including lemon verbena, mint and lemon balm are easy to dry: just tie in bunches and hang in a cool, airy space.

More tender herbs including basil, shiso and fennel are best dried on trays or in a dehydrator. In bunches they can go a bit mouldy. The blue plastic crates from greengrocers, lined with clean tea towels, are ideal for this. Spread the herbs out, and place in a dry, airy place out of direct sunlight, such as an airing cupboard. I also dry edible flowers such as calendula and rose petals this way. Check every few days until they are dry.

Dehydrators are an excellent way of drying herbs quickly and thoroughly. Each machine is slightly different, so follow the directions for your dehydrator. Many multi-cookers and air fryers have a dehydrator setting, too.

When the herbs are completely dry, store in clean dry jars in a cool, dark place. Remember to label them!

Sowing seasonal herb seeds

I sow dill, chervil and coriander into module trays filled with Dalefoot Wool Compost for Seeds, mixed with a little fine horticultural grit. Modules are small and the grit helps with drainage. Sow three seeds per module, thinning to the two healthiest when they sprout. Plant out when the seedlings are about 5cm tall.

Parsley is a much slower growing herb, so I sow this in a small seed tray, and prick out into modules when they have sprouted. It is an incredibly useful herb, especially during winter and spring, so I make sure to have plenty of both flat leaf and curly parsley. (Dalefoot Seed Compost is fine in a tray as-is, no need for the grit.)

Basil loves sunshine and warmth, so a British autumn isn’t ideal for this versatile and fragrant herb. Unless you live somewhere warm, it is less likely to produce healthy plants than spring sown basil. Instead, I fill pots with seed or potting compost, sprinkle the seed on top, cover lightly and grow on the windowsills as a cut and come again potted herb. You can do the same with other herb seeds too.

This is a bit like the ones you see in supermarkets. However most (if not all) of those potted herbs are grown in peat, so growing your own in peat free compost is a much more environmentally friendly way of extending the basil growing season.

The shorter days of late summer and early autumn are ideal for growing dill, coriander and chervil, which tends to bolt (go to seed) quickly in summertime. Very hot weather can also trigger bolting, as the plant becomes stressed and goes into “reproduction mode”. We have had a very challenging summer, with multiple heatwaves and barely any rain for most of England and Wales. Hopefully late summer will be a seasonal mix of warmth, sunshine and rain.

The leaves, flowers and seeds of these fragrant herbs are still edible, but I would not recommend saving the seeds from prematurely bolting plants for sowing your next crops. For seed saving, it is better to choose the seeds from plants which have grown healthily and lived their appropriate life span. You can save the seeds to use dried in the kitchen, or to grow micro-leaves.

Growing herb micro-leaves

Micro-leaves can be grown at any time of year, even in the smallest of spaces. It’s a great way to add fresh flavours to meals in the depths of winter. You can also use any veg seeds with edible leaves such as beetroot, all brassicas and spring onions. It’s a marvelous way to use up odds and ends of seed packets that are out of date.

You’ll need:

Trays - seed trays or clean plastic supermarket produce trays, the sort soft fruit come in with holes in the bottom, are ideal

A little multipurpose compost (eg: Dalefoot Wool Compost for Seeds)
or a few sheets of kitchen paper

Herb seed

To grow your micro-leaves

Place about 1cm of compost on the bottom of the trays, or a few sheets of kitchen paper, and water.

Sow the seeds fairly thickly across the compost or paper. No need to cover. Place somewhere warm and light to germinate, such as a greenhouse or windowsill. If you’re growing them indoors, place on a tray to prevent water going everywhere!

Keep the seeds moist using a spray bottle filled with water.

When the seedlings are about 3cm tall, cut with scissors and sprinkle onto dishes, or to make dressings and pesto. You may get a second flush of seedlings germinating, for an extra crop.

Planting and growing parsley, dill, coriander and chervil

Once they are healthy little transplants around 5cm tall, plant the herbs 15cm apart in the garden. They’re ideal for interplanting around established veg too. I pop them in amongst brassicas which will be harvested next spring.

I also grow them in the polytunnel, in between the veg plants there. This helps to ensure a winter-long harvest. An alternative is to make a simple cloche - a sheet of clear polythene over homemade hoops - to protect your herbs when the weather turns cold.

Alternatively, plant into containers filled with potting compost. Ideal for growing in small spaces, balconies, or windowsills. Or outside the back door for winter harvesting without having to traipse up to the allotment!

About Stephanie:

Stephanie Hafferty is an award-winning garden and food writer, expert no dig gardener, homesteader, edible garden designer and inspirational public speaker. She grows at her homestead teaching garden on half an acre in West Wales.

Stephanie writes for national and international publications, and is the author of three books. Her latest book The Productive Garden: An essential guide towards self-sufficiency was published in March 2026 by Frances Lincoln.

Follow her journey on her blog, Instagram and You Tube

Website and blog: www.nodighome.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephaniehafferty/

You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/StephanieHaffertyNoDigHomesteading

Caption: Red cabbage

Caption: Romanesco

Caption: Broccoli

Caption: Swede

Award-winning garden writer Ade Sellars shares his top tips for sowing, growing and caring for brassicas, helping you enjoy delicious homegrown harvests well into autumn and winter:

It’s the height of summer, a time when allotments and veg gardens are brimming with produce all for the taking. Kitchens across the land go into overtime as gardeners swap trowels for whisks, conjuring magical meals with their harvested goods. For gluts, the likes of courgettes, beetroot and berries have their fate sealed in pickles, chutney and jam. Only to be brought out at a later date, to a newfound appreciation for these once overzealous growers. Everything grown is used and nothing is wasted.

When July is giving so much, many of us refuse to believe that summer will ever come to an end. Yet, there are already signs autumn is waiting in the wings. Gaps in veg beds begin to appear; flowers are keen to run to seed, and slowly those light summer evenings dim a little earlier as balmy days roll by. But fear not my veg-munching friends, there is a hero in this saga. Someone that can carry us through into autumn and onto winter. Filling beds, filling stomachs and filling hearts with growing joy. So, please be upstanding and make space for brassicas.

Whether its cabbage, cauliflower, festival sprouts, kale, swede, broccoli or the enchanting Romanesco, each and every variety is fit for purpose. But when Sprouting broccoli can reach the dizzy heights of three feet, and other crops can have the spread of over forty-five cms. Some gardeners may question whether they have the space to accommodate these bruisers. However, as someone who grows them all year round in raised beds, there are a couple of simple solutions. Try growing smaller varieties such as Cauliflower ‘Igloo’, conical cabbage ‘Greyhound’, or the dwarf variety Brussels sprouts ‘Long Island’. Also, restrict growth by growing brassicas a little closer together. Yes, they might rub shoulders with one another but keep on top of plant maintenance and they will produce a slightly smaller, but happy and healthy crop.

Now that your tastebuds are firmly teased, open the garden gate and be ready to greet autumn with warming recipes that have their roots in brassicas. To help you get started this month, I’ve put together a simple generic list on how to sow and grow them.

Sowing

Brassicas can be sown using a modular seed tray, or 7cm pot, filled with Dalefoot Wool Compost for Seeds. Tamp the soil down to create a firm surface, then create a 2cm hole in the centre. Place two seeds in the hole and cover over with compost. Water gently and place in a greenhouse, cold frame or on a warm windowsill to germinate. At this time of year germination should occur within 7-12 days. Once germinated, give seedlings plenty of light so they don’t become leggy.

July temperatures means the ground is warm, so direct sowing into the final growing area can achieve great results. Prepare the open growing area by incorporating plenty of Dalefoot Wool Compost for Vegetables and Salads. Firm the soil down with the back of a rake or use your heels to walk over the growing area. Create a fine, level tilth and water the area thoroughly before sowing to avoid dispersing the seed.

Next, create drills 1cm deep and 15cm apart. Rows should be 45-60cms apart if you’re sowing directly. Sow seed thinly, then cover over sown area with soil. Again, germination should take between 7-10 days. You may want to protect the area from hungry birds disrupting the soil and digging up the seeds.

Pricking out

Once two seedlings are firmly established in each seed module, remove the weaker seedling allowing the other one to grow on. To avoid disturbing the roots, either pinch-out the weaker seedling or cut it away. Keep soil moist.

For plants directly sown into the final growing area, thin seedlings to 30-45cms apart.

Growing on

When indoor seedlings are 10-15cm high, they are ready to be planted out into their final growing positions. Before planting out, let them harden off for a week beforehand. By bringing your plants outside for a few hours every day, you’ll acclimatise them to outside conditions.

Similar to direct sowing, the growing area should be prepared with Dalefoot Compost, then firmed down with the back of a rake. Ideally, the chosen plot should be in a warm, sunny, sheltered position. As brassicas can get quite tall, plant deeply (up to the first set of leaves) and firm around the roots. This will help them establish a good root system and prevent wind rock. Plants should be spaced 30-45cms apart in rows 45-60cms apart. Water in well. This also applies to plants that were grown and transplanted from a seed bed.

Plant maintenance

When planting cabbages into their final growing position, place a brassica collar around its stem just above the soil. This will help prevent cabbage root fly from laying eggs at the base of the plant, and its hatched larvae from eating and destroying the roots.

Club root is a fungal infection that damages the roots, leaving them swollen, distorted and stunted. The foliage can also discolour. If plants are infected, remove from site and destroy. Wash hands, tools and boots to help prevent the spread of infection. Avoid planting cabbages in areas where club root has occurred. Buy seed varieties that have some degree of club root resistance.

Birds, especially pigeons, will happily eat the leaves of the plants, so place fine netting over the crop at the time of planting. This will also deter the white cabbage butterfly from landing on the plants to lay its eggs during the summer months; an infestation of caterpillars can quickly devastate a crop.

Remove any yellowing or discoloured leaves as these could potentially harbour pests and diseases. Water regularly, keeping the soil moist, and weed area regularly so plants aren’t competing for nutrients.

Hints and Tips

If you are lacking space to direct sow, plug plants are a great way to get a headstart and can be bought online or at garden nurseries.

If growing kale, try opting for flat-leaf varieties. When bugs and aphids are rife this time of year. Varieties, such as ‘Nero’ are easier to harvest and clean compared to their curly leafed cousins, which I tend to grow the earlier part of the year.

Chinese cabbage can easily bolt in warmer conditions, so try to give them some shade.

To help deter pests, plant nasturtiums nearby. Butterflies and caterpillars will be drawn to these instead of your precious cabbage crop.

To improve the flavour of winter brassicas, such as swede and Brussels sprouts, harvest after a frost, as the cold temperatures turn the plants starches into sugars thus improving the flavour of these vegetables.

Whether it’s gardening, celebrating or just relaxing in your garden, make July a month of precious moments. Because as we step into autumn, it will be those memories that will carry us through the colder months and onto a new growing season.

BIOG

I’m Ade Sellars the ‘Good Life Gardener’, and I’m an award-winning garden writer, gardener designer, and filmmaker, with a passion for growing my own food in my kitchen garden. I’m also a garden presenter and I regularly stage host and deliver gardening talks around the country. My debut children’s fiction book The Plot on the Hill: The Carrot Catastrophe is now available to buy online and from all good bookstores.

Website: www.adesellars.com
Instagram: adesellars
YouTube: @TheGoodLifeGardener