The Vegetable Plot - December

 Feast on your Christmas veggies

The keen vegetable gardener should be enjoying an abundance of seasonal crops from Brussels sprouts to cauliflower, leeks, parsnips, celery and celeriac to Jerusalem artichokes, Savoy cabbage and kale. Winter doesn’t stop you growing onions, peas, potatoes, spinach, radishes and rhubarb. In the greenhouse or on a windowsill you can grow herbs such as mint, basil, chives and dill. Winter hardy salad leaves can be grown under cover. 

Try sowing Winter Gem and Arctic King. Ailsa Craig exhibition onion seeds planted now will promote big growth and hardy broad beans direct sown outdoors should give you a bumper crop. 

Prepare your soil with plenty of organic matter and plant rhubarb crowns. If you have a heated greenhouse or frame you can have mustard and cress, lettuce, chicory, endive and radishes all growing for the festive season. What about growing some fruit for next year? Raspberry canes can go in now while they are dormant. Strawberries planted now will bear fruit in summer and you can plant blackberries between now and spring.  

• Grow bok choy, chard and kale
• Plant blueberries and gooseberries
• Plan your vegetable patch for spring planting
• Protect cauliflower from frost with horticultural fleece
• Continue forcing rhubarb and chicory and blanching endive.    
• Check your stored vegetables and remove any rotted or diseased ones
• Check vegetable plantings for signs they have lifted after frost and firm them back in 
• Protect celery by covering the ridges with dry straw or bracken