What to plant in OctoberFor an early crop of peas next spring, sow hardy cultivars like 'Avola' and 'Meteor'. Sow direct in 5cm drills in the ground or in guttering or root trainers to plant out in a couple of weeks.
October is also a good time to plant out peas sown in root trainers or guttering in September.
Salad mixes are one of easiest crops to grow.
From an October sowing, you may get a small crop before winter, but then the plants will enter dormancy and not start growing again until March, when they'll provide you with an early crop of fresh salad leaves.
Sow direct in well-prepared soil or in pots. Cover with a cloche to protect from the worst of the weather, or move pots into a greenhouse or similar for shelter.
Early-summer cropping cauliflower cultivars like 'Snowball' can be sown now to overwinter, and then planted out in spring. Sow in multi-celled trays and thin out to one seedling per cell.
Keep under cover such as in a greenhouse or cold frame, and then plant out in spring.
Planted in autumn, garlic cloves will grow roots before winter and will get off to a head start on spring-sown garlic as soon as temperatures increase again, cropping by early summer. Choose a mixture of softneck and hardneck varieties for a good mix of flavours and uses. Plant into multi-celled trays or small pots for planting out later, if you have heavy soil.
Many varieties of onion can be planted as sets, now. Choose autumn-planting varieties like 'Radar'. Plant the sets into well-prepared, fertile soil. onions need a lot of moisture – you shouldn't need to water in winter but check moisture levels in spring and summer and provide extra moisture if necessary.
