Wealden Times | WT165 | November 2015 | Gift supplement inside

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FreeImages.com/Ibon San Martin
FreeImages.com/Nathalie Dulex
Winter vegetables
Jo Arnell enjoys the earthiness of her seasonal crop
There is a filthy frugality about winter vegetables.
Perhaps it’s because so many of them have to be dug
up, rather than daintily picked from on high. You
can feel it, in the dirt that gets under your frozen fingernails
and the dew drop that hangs from your nose; digging up
grubby root veg really puts you in touch with the earth, and
our heritage – a link to the sort of food that has sustained us
since the time before hairbrushes. There is satisfaction and
meagre comfort in trudging muddily from the veg patch
with home-grown winter fare, but don’t worry if you’ve
missed your chance this year; buying them is cleaner, nearly
as satisfying and only slightly less primordial. I heard Bruce
Robinson (writer of Withnail and I) on the radio this week
describing how he was once so poor he lived only on old
vegetables that had fallen on the ground at Camden Market.
It sounded so bleak, romantic – and weirdly healthy. It
put me in the right frame of mind for winter gardening.
Some winter vegetables are easier to grow than others,
and some, quite frankly, go beyond a challenge and into
the realms of masochism and other bad behaviour (see the
beastly brassica section below). The following information is
based on my trials and errors, and attempts at growing winter
vegetables – with varied amounts of success. We’ll skate
briefly through a few of them:
It might not be too late
Depending on when you read this – at the dentist in January
is too late – you may still have time to plant some crops.
Technically these won’t be winter vegetables, as they’ll be
ready for harvest in the spring and summer, but overwintering
counts in my book. Peas and broad beans are very hardy,
especially those selected for overwintering (try the broad bean
‘Aquadulce Claudia’ and a pea called ‘Feltham First’). These
will get a head start on spring-sown varieties and should
be ready to harvest 4 - 6 weeks earlier than spring-sown
varieties.
You will still get away with sowing, or rather planting,
some onion sets this month too. These are just tiny onions
that will bulk up to edible size over the months, but will be
ready much earlier than onions from spring-sown seed.
It is exactly the right time to sow garlic though,
and there are lots of interesting varieties to try
that aren’t available in the shops. Elephant garlic
is great roasted whole and served alongside meat
dishes.
Easy winter vegetables
Leeks are my ultimate desert-island (or perhaps
it had better be Hebridean) vegetable. Leeks
are sown from seed at the bleak end of winter,
or in early spring, because they take a
boringly long time to bulk up – gradually
thickening up from what look like tiny
blades of grass. The only thing you
have to do during this time – and
this sounds odd, but bear with
me – is dig them up once they
get to pencil thickness,
and then replant each
one in a much deeper,
wider hole. You’re then
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