Grow your own veg box

Autumn vegetables

Image: Autumn harvest, third week of November (in box, clockwise from top left): onion ‘Centurion’; leek ‘Jolant’; kales ‘Redbor’ and ‘Giant Sutherland’; garlic; parsnip ‘Halblange’; bulb fennel ‘Montebianco’; chicory ‘Sugar Loaf’; carrot ‘Ceres’; beetroot ‘Sanguigna d’Ingegnoli’; squash ‘Anna Schwartz’; kohlrabi ‘Super Schmelz’; turnip ‘Tiny Pal’; squash ‘Butternut’. (Foreground, left to right): Swiss chard ‘Bright Lights’; tomato ‘Ferline’; sweet pepper ‘Sweet Orange Baby’; potato ‘Charlotte’; chicories ‘Lusia’ (green) and ‘Marzatica’ (red).

See summer for also in season: beetroot, carrot, calabrese, carrot, fennel, garlic, onion, potato.

CHICORY/RADICCHIO This grows best from sowings made after the longest day and before mid-August. There are bittersweet hearts and leaves of many colours and textures, according to the cultivar chosen. Radicchio hearts are mostly red leaved and white veined (‘Palla Rossa’ types) and heart up in September from a June sowing, and in late autumn from sowings made mid- to late July. The cultivar ‘Lusia’ is green with maroon striations and is probably the most frost hardy of the hearting cultivars. Sugarloaf hearts are longer, larger, paler and less crisp.

All hearts can be cut and stored for up to a month in late autumn.

Cultivars to produce cuttings of leaves for salad include ‘Treviso Svelta’ (pointed leaves, more red in cold weather) and Italian dandelion ‘Red Rib’. Their leaves are more bitter than lettuce but survive deep frost. Cultivars such as ‘Witloof’ and ‘Treviso’ can have their roots dug in late autumn, then be potted up and grown in darkness to produce yellow chicons until April.

Hearts need a spacing of 30x30cm (12x12in) and leaf chicory can be closer at 5–7cm (2–3in) apart in rows every 30cm (12in). Container growing works well as long as slugs are controlled, and leaf chicory can provide some salad through the winter months.

KALE This is the most winter-hardy green-leaf vegetable available to gardeners, but kale may need netting against pigeons. Sow from May to July – later sowing works better for avoiding flea beetles and cabbage butterflies – and it will grow vigorously until November. Plants are best raised in trays or modules indoors to reduce flea beetle damage on tender seedlings; set out at 45x45cm (18x18in) or 30x75cm (12x30in). Covering with mesh will ensure less insect damage but makes weeding more laborious. The first leaves can be picked from late September, by midwinter new growth is slow and harvests are small, then from March they increase again; tasty flowering shoots also appear until early May.

Cultivars for curled leaves include ‘Pentland Brig’ (green) and ‘Redbor’ F1 (red); the latter is highly ornamental. Flat-leaved cultivars have more tender leaves, suitable for salad when small, including ‘Red Russian’ and ‘Sutherland’.

KOHL RABI Best eaten small, before it turns woody, kohl rabi has the flavour of an exotic, creamy turnip. It makes a useful catch crop. Sow from late April to July for harvesting, usually, within two to three months, when between the size of golf and tennis balls. Leaves can also be eaten like spring greens. Autumn growth is stronger because flea beetles are absent; the cultivar ‘Super Schmelz’, sown in July, will grow large without turning woody. For purple-coloured roots try ‘Azur Star’.

LEEKS Among the most reliable vegetables for eating any time from August to May, leeks are also useful for standing so well in all weathers. Sow in April, usually outdoors: a row of 1m (39in) length can provide 50 small leeks in early summer to plant as a second crop after early potatoes, salad or overwintered broad beans. Compost can be spread before or just after planting. Space at 10x30cm (4x12in) on beds or 8x45cm (3x18in) in rows, dibbing holes so that plant roots are up to 10cm (4in) below the soil surface, to ensure a whiter, sweeter stem. Extra blanching can be achieved by earthing up in autumn, when growth is strong until November, especially if water is given in dry spells. Leeks grow well in large containers.

Cultivars have different seasons of harvest, starting with ‘King Richard’ for tall thin stems from late July, or of baby leeks from closer spacings. Autumn leeks include ‘Jolant’ and many Autumn Mammoth types such as ‘Porvite’, as well as some new hybrid cultivars such as ‘Roxton’ F1 and ‘Oarsman’ F1, which stands well into winter, along with ‘Bandit’ and ‘Atlanta’. Spring harvests are offered until early May by ‘Musselburgh’ and ‘Saint Victor’, whose leaves are slightly purple.

The main problems are white rot (see garlic), leek moth in southern counties (all top growth has to be cut off in August, drastically reducing yields) and leaf rust, which is worst in dry summers and can be reduced by watering.

PARSNIPS As they need a long growing season, parsnips are best sown from early March to mid-April. Soil is more likely to be moist in early spring, helping the long process of germination, and more success is likely in soil with few weed seeds, which otherwise grow ahead of parsnip seedlings and make them invisible. Be sure also to buy fresh seed as germination is poor otherwise.

Thin out seedlings to a final spacing of 10x30cm (4x12in) or 5x60cm (2x24in) for large roots from September. Harvesting after frost gives sweeter flavour and parsnips resist cold better than excessive moisture in heavy soils, where canker (brown rotting on the shoulders) can be a problem.

Cultivars such as ‘Gladiator’ F1 have some resistance to canker while ‘Excalibur’ F1 has extra sweetness and ‘White Gem’ is a reliable, older selection. Maggots of carrot root fly tunnel around parsnips but damage is mostly superficial and can be trimmed off.

PEPPER, SWEET and CHILLI These have similar sowing requirements to tomatoes and grow more reliably indoors, even in hot summers. Plants are much smaller than tomatoes and well suited to containers – the ‘Sweet Orange Baby’ photographed grew happily in a 25cm (10in) pot of multi-purpose compost with no supplementary feeding, although some liquid feed would have increased the yield. Larger peppers are possible with ‘Unicorn’ F1 and ‘Bell Boy’ F1. Note that it needs three or four weeks of warm weather for green peppers to ripen into their final colour, often in early autumn.

TURNIP Generally turnips grow best in autumn from sowings in early August, when flea beetles are less numerous. Aim for a spacing of 5–10x30cm (2–4x12in) depending how large you want the roots, which resist frost and can be harvested as needed. They can also be grown in containers as a late-summer crop after salad, using cultivars such as ‘Primera’ F1 and ‘Tiny Pal’ F1.

WINTER SQUASH The fruit matures in a hard skin with sweet, dense orange flesh. Seed needs warmth to germinate, so sow as for courgettes, preferably indoors to lengthen the season of growing, because British summers are a little marginal on average, especially in the north. Plant in well-composted soil at 1m (39in) apart, keep weeded and then harvest fruits in October when their stalks are drying. If stalks are still soft, the fruit are unripe and will need eating within a month or so, with a less sweet flavour.

Cultivars include top-flavoured ‘Butternut’ which matures last of all, sometimes in November; using a British hybrid such as ‘Hunter’ or ‘Harrier’ F1 can ensure earlier but somewhat smaller harvests. ‘Onion’ or ‘Uchiki Kuri’ ripens early, with small bright orange fruit, ‘Crown Prince’ produces fewer and larger fruits, ‘Turk’s Turban’ is highly ornamental as well as tasty, and cultivars such as ‘Harlequin’ F1 with small, high-sugar fruit can even be eaten raw.

For even more detailed information, see our vegetables A-Z section