Heat Today will be hot in the south of the Netherlands: up to 30 degrees! Check whether your reservoir is still full, whether the mix is still moist, shade vulnerable plants around midday, and wait with sowing until it cools down.
Seasonal
Still sowing in October?
Can you still sow vegetables in October? Absolutely. A few varieties will still do well, and with some protection and a little luck, there are even more possibilities.
Late September:
It's fall. For the weather experts out there, it’s been fall for a month now. For the rest of us, since September 21.
With some luck, we'll have some mild weather and can even enjoy eating outside.
Plenty to harvest
With beautiful September weather, there’s plenty to harvest:
A zucchini or 2 every day, the odd carrot and beet, juicy radishes, and delicious beans.
The more you harvest, the more vegetable patches become empty. And that begs the question:
Can you still sow anything now?
Officially, there is almost nothing left to sow in October: the Makkelijke Moestuin app lists only a few varieties. But the weather has ignored rules and tables for years.
Warm weather in February, record temperatures, conditions that are too cold, too dry or too wet, and heatwaves. Forecasts are sometimes revised by the hour, with extreme changes within a few days. Can you still make sense of it?
I therefore keep sowing cheerfully. Not everything, of course, but vegetables that could still be sown in September. Mainly for fun, and because the weather could suddenly turn beautiful again.
It remains a gamble. Perhaps this year we will skip autumn entirely and have snow and -5°C next week. As true Makkelijke Moestuin gardeners, you and I are no longer surprised by anything, are we?
Warm weather in February, record temperatures, conditions that are too cold, too dry or too wet, and heatwaves. Forecasts are sometimes revised by the hour, with extreme changes within a few days. Can you still make sense of it?
I therefore keep sowing cheerfully. Not everything, of course, but vegetables that could still be sown in September. Mainly for fun, and because the weather could suddenly turn beautiful again.
It remains a gamble. Perhaps this year we will skip autumn entirely and have snow and -5°C next week. As true Makkelijke Moestuin gardeners, you and I are no longer surprised by anything, are we?
What to sow in October
Now's a good time to sow these varieties:
- dino kale
- radish
- spinach
- winter pea (for the shoots)
- winter purslane
- winter lettuce
It's also the ideal time for:
- winter onions
- garlic
Technically it's too late to sow these vegetables, but think it's worth a try:
- endive
- turnip
- Asian salad mix (for the mizuna and mustard greens)
- arugola
- lamb's lettuce
- chard
Keep in mind that - even when all the seedlings come up - the little ones are still slow to grow. The days are getting shorter and shorter after all.
Help your plants grow in all kinds of weather
You don’t just have to hope for a warm October - you can help by covering your garden box with a crop cover. Our specially designed MM-Muts fits like a glove: or a warm winter mitten for your garden box.
The elastic around the edges makes the fleece fit snugly around your garden box. We're really happy with them. It's not just us: we’ve made a lot of Planty gardeners happy with them too.
For now - and for the next 6 months - a crop cover like this will be your new favorite thing in the garden. It protects your plants from the cold - and hale too. It turns your garden box into a kind of cold greenhouse.
That doesn’t just help the seeds to germinate and become seedlings, but the plants also grow faster. So, the chance that you harvest something in the winter is much higher than without.
You can read all about how it works here. And if you want your own, you can find the MM-Muts in the shop. They come in 2 sizes: 60x120 and 120x120 cm.
Have fun sowing!
