Here are 12 crops uyou can sow now if you are looking to beat the rising cost of food by growing your own vegetables at home! I hope you find this useful!
#selfsufficiency #gardeningideas
Here are 12 crops uyou can sow now if you are looking to beat the rising cost of food by growing your own vegetables at home! I hope you find this useful!
#selfsufficiency #gardeningideas
29 Comments
Nice vid. I always sigh when people say "fast growing". Things like spring onions, lettuce, turnips, beets even radish grow REALLY slowly for me.
I'm about the same latitude as you. Very similar frost dates. BUT.. it's much drier AND really windy. Sandy loam that just drains right through. I do grow lots of things successfully, it just takes a LOT longer than most gardening books and channels say. I'm pretty sure most are on clay by how little they water!
So, if anyone else feels the same, have hope. Just have patience, and know your conditions.
Regarding beetroot: If you leave a couple in the ground over winter, in spring they give some of the earliest leaves. We had winter temps drop down to -18C for almost two weeks last winter, and the beets I had left completely unprotected in the beds survived and started giving leaves end of March. I would also recommend eggplant, the Japanese varieties more than the standard black ones: In addition to the summer crop, I discovered that dehydrated they keep very well and can be used as part of stews – my parents were convinced they were meat when I served an eggplant stew.
Dear Huw, I have been following your work for years. I agree 100% with your plan but… what about …Turnips? They are delicious, versatiles in recipes and nutritious. Maybe you don't like it, that's fair. But I grow a lot: easy, sweet and a gastronomic delicacy. And I'am not even talking about Chards as well…both perfects in Game season.
I've succumbed to buying a few plug plants this year as life has too much going on so I've gone for buying in a few plug plants of things like cucumbers, winter squash, courgettes etc as mine were really poor from seed this year, but I've planted loads of stuff that seems to be doing well (peas, brassicas, onions, salad, etc) to still get a good mix but to alleviate the stress of failed starts. We're also making your hoop house design to add to some of our raised beds as our growing season is short and variable at best here in the Highlands of Scotland. This video was a nice little reminder of where to prioritise and why though, thank you!… This autumn we're keen to give the hotbed design a try for spring sowing, again in the hope of season extension. 🤞🏻
You can set garlic now, tight togethet and harvest the leavs!
The slugs are thanking me this year for helping them beat the rising cost of everything I plant
Your videos are always a delight.
Thank you, Huw! 👩🏼🌾🌱🌻
radish leaves are eatable too. They taste good as spinach or in an salat, when they are smaller.
I’ve been watching you since you were a little kid, Huw. Good stuff, as always. 🌱
Great video Huw, Succinct, no faff, good info, purposeful, excellent, thank.
This is definitely aimed at a UK, or perhaps more broadly a northern European audience. In northern hemisphere areas with hot summers, most of these would be inappropriate at this time of year. My brassicas aren't going in until August, at the earliest. Winter squash is also on my list, though not the C. maxima varieties mentioned here due to the vine borer. I use C. moschata varieties like butternut and fairytale pumpkin. Field corn would fall into the time sensitive category here right now (more time for sweet corn), and it's a little late for sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers. Roselle is an interesting, though seldom planted, option for summer greens. It might also work for greens in the U.K. in a warm microclimate, but flowering for hibiscus tea would likely never happen in time.
I absolutely have to grow beans and tomatoes to see me through lean times.
Great and clear way to get us all starting THIS week! Thanks for nudging us to get growing! ❤ I now have an evening of getting your suggestions into soil! Thank you for great ideas!
I wonder why you didn´t include beans – runner beans for proteins. Small space, growing vertically and so much fiber and nutrience…
…anyway. Like your videos very much!
Its never late to grow food in subtropics, ❤ from India.
Our house here in the Adirondacks is 220 years old with a beautiful stone cellar that stays chilly but doesn’t freeze for most of the year, so as a homestead, we cellar a lot of food. We grow most of these crops, but also add cauliflower, shell beans, storage onions, and potatoes. We have a fantastic variety of potato developed at Cornell called Adirondack Red that is red all the way through and actually stays pink once cooked and cellared all the way through the year perfectly until we planted those remaining. Super fun! Great advice Huw! ❤
Nice! I already have 8 of the 13 growing and have seeds for the rest…except radish. Which I generally don't like but am willing to try a couple of your suggested varieties.
Hello Huw, thank you for this video. I had a huge disaster in my poly tunnel at school. It the extreme heat, over the bank holiday weekend, almost everything absolutely baked. The heat melted our seedlings trays beyond help and baked most of our vegetable plants. We were devastated, I will be taking some of my own veggies into school to help replace some of what we have lost but this video has really helped in the way of fast advice. Thank you so much. Blessings Susie☺️🙏🏽🇬🇧
This is excellent 🙏🙏
Ty so much… I'm retired and my husband is in his last few years of truck driving. Between this video and the '6 Beds'series you are doing, I think ill be able to make a real difference to our food bill. Quebec, Canada zone 5.
Salad leaves grow in pots, troughs & the ground. We harvest the outer leaves (not the centre) & the plants last ages OR just pick the whole lettuce but keep sowing every 2-3 weeks for continuous supply. IF you give them shade from the 12-2 midday sun otherwise they bolt. Leaves are so expensive and they grow so easily it’s worth a try, even in containers
1:09 i sense a monetization strategy at work here 😂 anyway, here for it 😉
✊
Brilliant Hugh. I hadn't realised one could grow so much in June. Thank you from Scotland.
Beans, peas, and potatoes, particularly snap peas, cannellini flageolet, and dragon tongue beans, and fancy potatoes (fingerling, etc), are crazy expensive but the seeds are not. Every potato that sprouts, I cut off the sprouted section and plant it two days later. Then I have tons of potatoes for the larder and grow the fancy stuff that is overpriced. Nice tomatoes too, as I can them for winter.
Courgette is good for juicing w a carrot and maybe an apple. The pulp is good for spicing up, add flour and an egg for frying in patties. Freeze well.
Learning and practicing these skills (gardening, preserving, saving seeds) is so critical. Not just for saving money, but for our health and environment as well. Also allows us to give less money to harmful industries.
This is really useful thank you. Is butternut squash a winter squash and does it store well? That's my favourite for flavour I could eat that several times a week quite happily. I'm nearly out of space in my allotment but my garden is a bit of a mess and could do with the weed suppression so I would happily grow it there. Obviously I'll have to clear the weeds first
Thanks Huw, jusr starting to watch your project for how much you can grow in a small space, im trying to go self sustainable with my half allotment iv just started November 2025 only this ywar have i got a poly tunnel.. great investment but still learning.. soils.. planting seasons.. how many seeds i need to plant to feed a family of 5 and how long to crop.. how long it will last and preserving it for a longer time until new harvest seasons..
Its all so complicated to a newbe..
But im still going and still lesrning and still eager to know gardening ans self sustainablility.
Ao tjank you for your understanding, experrise and time given to let us all know.. so we have a good foundation to succeed ❤