How late is too late?

I've recently acquired a patch of land usable for gardening. After removing 7 foot high bramble bushes, and 5 foot high grass riddled with 6 foot high bindweed (it was climbing itself), I have something that resembles Ground Zero more than a garden.

I did however salvage some buried (literally) mint plants, and a couple of rhubarbs barely clinging onto life, so it's not entirely barren now.

Starting from basically scratch now, is there anything I can sensibly plant this year and actually get something back for my time? I'm thinking maybe some damn fast carrots, but is anything else actually viable or worth risking hours of work just to have a frost slaughter it?

Failing that is there anything that'd work as a placeholder / soil enricher if nothing else, just to stop weeds instantly reclaiming the land?

 

You could try carrots, beetroot, radish, cut and come salad.

How big is it?

In the autumn you could plant garlic, spring cabbage and broad beans for early picking next year.

If your not using the ground, but it is clear put some black plastic over to stop weed or sow some green manure. I am not too sure when to do this though, maybe check mount on the net. This will help stop weeds and next year just cut down and dig into the ground.

Rusty

 

00000000000000000000000000001348Hornet, welcome to the site. Yesterday I planted dwarf beans and sowed parsnips, carrots, beetroots and peas.. You can also put in spring cabbage, kale, broccolli and winter cauliflowers. In another couple of months you can plant garlic, shallots and Japanese onions.

 

Thanks for all the replies. The patch of land is about 2.5m x 6m, so not huge but decent enough.

I've shortlisted beetroot, carrots, parsnips and I'll risk some spring onions. Peas seem a prohibitive bother given the effort for quantity, sadly. On which note are potatoes remotely viable, or would it be limited to new potato tier only?

Salad I can't do until I've built the Slug Defences, I refuse to grow crops that'll be eaten by invertebrates before I get a look-in. Plans are underway though.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

Some of us plant first or second early potatoes about now to get a few new potatoes for Christmas lunch