Autumn plans

As we move into autumn, the nights close in but the daytime still has warmth and beautiful colours. My garden is a spring one and is at its best during May and June, while Freyja Farm and Walled Garden has to be productive year-round to provide organic fruit, vegetables and herbs for the kitchen.

Maintaining a steady flow of freshly grown food is a challenge. We can guarantee an abundance during the summer and into autumn – and this year has certainly been abundant!

Winter is an interesting time for a grower, with less heat and daylight meaning plants take time to grow, if they grow at all. The secret is in the planning and by the end of September we need to have plenty of vegetables sown and planted as over-wintering crops need to be established to ensure a harvest for early spring. By the end of summer, we also have many crops in the ground to see us through the winter such as cabbages, leeks, cauliflowers, turnips, celeriac, parsnips and brussels sprouts alongside lovely leafy spinach, chard, rocket, mustards, pak choi, lettuces and oriental leaves. We also tend to store some root vegetables – sometimes leaving them in the ground or storing them in crates – to ensure potatoes, carrots, onions, beetroot and lots more are available.

Our tomatoes and peppers tend to be available during the autumn months too, while much of the summer herbs, fruit and vegetables have been eaten fresh or preserved to provide a taste of summer during autumn and into winter.

During the summer, we got to build our huge cedar greenhouse. It is beautiful and we are still looking at it in awe. As we progress the Freyja project, we expect the conditions in the greenhouse will extend our growing season further, while the rest of the walled garden has proved to be a few degrees warmer than outside its walls. We can’t wait to experiment and create our greenhouse plan.
Enjoy autumn in your garden.