The Winter Harvest Handbook
The Winter Harvest Handbook, anyone can have access to his hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use the innovative, highly successful methods
Coleman describes in this comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters.

Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and gardeners adopted from The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this new book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses.

Coleman offers clear, concise details on greenhouse construction and maintenance, planting schedules, crop management, harvesting practices, and even marketing methods in this complete, meticulous, and illustrated guide. Readers have access to all the techniques that have proven to produce higher-quality crops on Colemanis own farm.
His painstaking research and experimentation with more than 30 different crops will be valuable to small farmers, homesteaders, and experienced home gardeners who seek to expand their production seasons. A passionate advocate for the revival of small-scale sustainable farming, Coleman provides a practical model for supplying fresh, locally grown produce during the winter season, even in climates where conventional wisdom says it ijust can’t be done.

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year-round Vegetable Production Using Deep-organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses

These other books are also worth a look:

How to Grow Winter Vegetables

The Polytunnel Book: Fruit and Vegetables All Year Round

How to Grow Food in Your Polytunnel
– This book explains how to come through winter with plenty of vegetables stored, fresh harvests to make, and also has advice for growing plants to withstand the winter, for eating in spring during the hungry gap season of April, May and early June.
Highly recommended –

This close up of a dwarf borlotti bean shows from top to bottom:
the micropyle – the pore through which water will enter the seed
the hilum – where the seed was attached to the pod
the radicle – which is where the root grows from

I have this in my garden. It’s a close up of the end of a spikey succulent. Low growing but spreads easily. Think it has yellow flowers. Suspect it’s a sedum but will take a photo of flowers in summer for an ID.

euonymus plants online at Crocus – Euonymus plants

Euonymus alatus
winged spindle / fire bush…
Provides wonderful autumn colour
£15.49 for a 3 litre pot

Position: full sun or partial shade

Soil: any well-drained soil

Rate of growth: slow-growing

Flowering period: May and June

Flower colour: green

Other features: the flowers are followed by spherical, reddish-purple fruit,
which split to reveal bright orange seeds; all parts of the plant may cause
a mild stomach upset if ingested

Hardiness: fully hardy

Euonymus europaeus ‘Red Cascade’
spindle tree
Fantastic autumn colour and gorgeous berries
NOW £35.99 for a 12lt pot (1.25-1.5m) * Also available for£12.99
in a 2 litre pot

Position: full sun

Soil: any well-drained soil

Rate of growth: average

Flowering period: May and June

Hardiness: fully hardy

Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’
evergreen bittersweet
A tough evergreen shrub with yellow, variegated leaves
£7.99 for 1.5 litre pot

Position: full sun or partial shade

Soil: any well-drained soil

Rate of growth: fast-growing

Flowering period: May and June

Hardiness: fully hardy

Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald Gaiety’
evergreen bittersweet
A tough plant that makes excellent groundcover
£7.99 for a 1.5 litre pot
Position: full sun or partial shade

Soil: any well-drained soil

Rate of growth: fast-growing

Flowering period: May and June

Hardiness: fully hardy

Euonymus planipes
euonymus
Red autumn foliage attractive red fruits
£17.99 for a 3 litre pot

Position: full sun or partial shade

Soil: any well-drained soil

Rate of growth: fast-growing

Flowering period: May and June

Other features: the flowers are followed by spherical, pink-tinged, white fruit;
all parts of the plant may cause a mild stomach upset if ingested

Hardiness: fully hardy

Thompson & Morgan sell Dwarf Borlotti beans. Some people prefer to just eat the beans when you harvest> Good for pots.
The hilum is the palest oval bit of the seed. This is where it was attached in the pod.

Dwarf Bean ‘Splendido’ (Borlotti Bean) – Vita Sementi® Italian Seeds – 1 packet (60 grams) £2.29
The broad, 13cm (5”) pink-red pods of this attractive variety each contain 6-7 cream and red streaked Borlotti beans. The immature pods of Dwarf Bean ‘Splendido’ can be harvested and used as French beans, but are best left to mature and harvested for the full sized seeds in autumn. Height: 45cm (18”). Spread: 30cm (12”).

If you’ve just got a garden because you’ve moved house, or maybe you’ve just got to the top of the allotment waiting list … and you need some garden tools, where can you get some for free?

You should ask neighbours and friends if they have any old tools they don’t need any more. Check your local freecycle – there are some amazing people out there who’ll have a rummage in their shed and see what they have spare. Be prepared to travel though – check your own nearest group first. For me this is Oldham Freecycle, but I also subscribe to Manchester Freecycle too as it’s very close by and sometimes things listed there are closer. Keep an eye out for tools – but a polite request is always worth a try!

Find your nearest Freecycle group in the UK here (It’s also international)
We’ve used it to get rid of plants, an old lawnmower, and even rocks!
Polite reasonable requests always go down better with people. Ask for something too extravagant and people will think you’re being cheeky.

If you grow shallots then you can either use them for cooking or make them into amazing pickled onions.

Lots of shallots available at Dobies!

Shallot Bulbs Jermor – French 400g Pack £4.95
An excellent, slightly elongated shallot, with copper coloured skins and great tasting pink-tinged flesh. Each bulb yields 6-8 bulbs at harvest. Plant from mid January onwards. RHS Award of Garden Merit winner. (Grown in Brittany, in the heart of France’s main shallot growing region, these certified virus-free varieties are of superb quality and the increased yields and outstanding quality more than compensate for a higher initial price.) 400g of shallots (approximately 15-20 bulbs) will plant a row of about 3m (10′). Full growing instructions included. 7 – 10 Days HEALTH BENEFIT: High in potassium and vitamin C.

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If you know someone who grows a lot of fruit and would like to make juice (and possibly cider) then one of these fruit presses is just what they need. A great gift idea!

Available now at Dobies

Fruit Press (12 Litre) £174.95
Ideal for pressing apples, grapes and other fruit, our spindle fruit presses combine superb quality with excellent value, and are very easy to use. Just fill the cage with crushed fruit, assemble the two semi-circular pressing plates and the large iron nut on top, and use the wooden bar to screw down, the delicious juice flows into the base plate for collection. The press cage is made from fashioned oak staves, the pressure plates and space blocks from beech, all seasoned and coated with food compatible varnish. It has a robust, pressed steel base plate with lip to aid pouring, with wide-set pressed steel legs for stability, and all the pressed steel is protected by a tough baked-on polyester coating for longevity. Easy home assembly. Complete with instruction booklet and fruit net. 6 Litre: Holds 12 lbs of apples, giving a juice yield of up to 2.5 litres (4½ pints). Height 57cm (22½”), cage diameter 19.5cm (7¾”), overall diameter 28.5cm (11¾”), weight 10.2kg (22½ lbs).12 Litre: Holds 24 lbs of apples, giving a juice yield of up to 4.5 litres (8 pints). Height 57cm (22½”), cage diameter 27cm (10½”), overall diameter 37cm (14½”), weight 12kg.

If you have a log burner at home you’ll need a wood store to keep the wood dry. These sheds come with built in wood stores! They offer you a neat solution to a problem!

Dobies has great offers on these two amazingly useful stores!
Use the overhang for either logs or for bigger items like wheelbarrows or even a garden bench! You’ll enjoy resting in the shade (from the sun and rain) under the overhang too.

Overlap Shed with Lean-to 6′ x 4′ £269.95
A superb quality apex shed, manufactured from pressure treated 8mm overlap boards, 28mm x 28mm framing and heavy duty fibre board floor and roof sections. It has a fixed styrene window and hard-wearing mineral felt roof. And what makes it even more useful is the integral lean-to, which provides extra sheltered storage space. 15 year guarantee against rot. Flat packed for home assembly. Some drilling required. 196cm (6’5″) wide x 183cm (6′) deep x 201cm (6’7″) high. Please allow 14 days for delivery. 14 Days

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Plug plants – vegetables at Dobies.
Not quite as ususual an idea as it was a few years ago and certainly a great way to get started if you don’t have a greenhouse or even greenfingers. These plug plants make it easy to get started.

Bumper Veg Plant Collection Pack of 180 Plug Plants (as detailed) – SAVE £26.60! £29.95
If you want to feed your family with nutritious, home-grown vegetables but don’t have the time to grow from seed then this collection is for you! It provides you with 180 healthy plug plants across 9 popular varieties: 18 Beetroot Boltardy, 16 Broccoli Red Arrow, 16 Broccoli Tendergreen, 16 Brussels Sprouts Maximus F1, 16 Cabbage Kilaxy F1, 16 Cauliflower Clapton F1, 18 Leaf Beet Perpetual Spinach, 46 Leek Pancho and 18 Lettuce Mixed. Varieties will all be individually labelled. 180 Plug Plants worth £56.55; SAVE £26.60 on individual prices; NOW ONLY £29.95! June

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