Spinach is a stalwart and there are three main types you can grow. True spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is the most succulent and is delicious either cooked or eaten raw in salads. However, be warned: it is also the most difficult to grow as it runs to seed at a moment’s notice unless given steady and moderate warmth and water.
For this reason, yields will be small (but delicious) unless grown in a cloche or polytunnel, which can be bought from garden centres. A good variety is ‘Bloomsdale’, available from Suttons.
If the hassle of growing this type of spinach puts you off, much easier and higher-yielding types to grow are members of the beetroot family, sold variously as perpetual spinach, New Zealand spinach or leaf beet. These are easy to grow and the most hardy. Sow in drills 8in-10in apart, water well and thin the emerging seedlings to 8in spacings. The first flush of leaves is delicious and picking can continue right through a mild winter from plants kept under horticultural fleece (again, available from garden centres), with heavy yields next spring until May, when the plants finally run to seed. They are available from most seed companies, such as Suttons, Kings Seeds and The Organic Gardening Catalogue.
Almost as tasty as true spinach, as hardy as leaf beet and my personal favourite is another beetroot cousin, sold variously as swiss chard, white silver or sea kale (from Suttons, Kings Seeds and The Organic Gardening Catalogue). It is well-known to ornamental gardeners, as its leaves have dramatic white veins and a bold shape. Sow 12in apart in lines 12in apart, as the plants grow 15in high. It also comes with yellow and red stalks, which adds colour to a wintry garden. As with leaf beet, there is a lull in growth during the dead of winter, but even in the north you should be picking valuable greens again by February.
Radicchio (available as above) is a richly veined red salad crop sold for a high price in supermarkets. It is not actually a lettuce — as it appears — but a variety of chicory. Sow the seed now and thin to 10in-12in each way. The plants form a heart when the days get shorter, and can be eaten from autumn onwards. You discard the bitter outer leaves and eat the crisp, luridly coloured heart. Radicchio survives outdoor frosts until February, but after Christmas the slugs and pigeons begin to demolish it. However, a bowl of crisp salad served up on Christmas Day after the turkey is sure to impress the family.
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A more conventional crop you can plant now is spring cabbage — my current favourite is ‘Durham Early’ (available from Kings Seeds). Plant as soon as possible at 12in to 15in spacing. They like a firm seedbed and neutral or alkaline soils, and will tolerate hard weather. Cover them in horticultural fleece from Christmas onwards to keep pigeons off, increase yields and bring forward picking time by a month to April.
Pak choi and mizuna need a greenhouse or polytunnel to grow properly, but you should be able to manage a crop of Chinese leaves (Chinese cabbage) outdoors. Plant now and thin to 12in in both directions and by late October or November, you will have what looks like a large cos lettuce, which is delicious stir-fried.
You can harvest rocket through most of the winter. This will survive outdoors and will liven up salads or, if you sow enough plants, provide you with a complete salad from time to time. Rocket tends to go to seed as soon as it is big enough to pick when planted in the summer. Whereas, if you plant it now — or even better at the end of August — then you can pick it until it finally flowers in April. We plant ours in the lea of an apple tree, which gives it a certain amount of frost protection. Rocket will grow surprisingly large in the spring, as will land cress.
You can also plant land cress (‘American Land Cress’ from Suttons) any time from July to September. It has a hot and tangy leaf that is a good garnish. And it is very hardy, somehow surviving the hardest frosts.
Kings Seeds, 01376 570 000, www.kingsseeds.com; Suttons, 01803 696 300, www.suttons-seeds.co.uk; The Organic Gardening Catalogue, 01932 253 666, www.organiccatalog.com