In the last two days we've gone from soft autumn sunshine and mild breezes, to dark skies and a wintry feel to the air. October has been lovely and we've seen enough growth of new plantings to set them up for winter, and in some cases spring.

See today’s new long form video for how we transformed the polytunnel’s summer plantings into it’s winter crops. No dig makes it rapid because there's no soil cultivation, few weeds and we add no compost in the autumn, only once a year in the spring. I water mostly with spray lines, every two weeks from now, and where they don't reach we top up around the edges by hand.

Please join us in celebrating the annual No Dig Day on 3rd November. There is still time to enter our two competitions, your caption for a photo, and for under 16’s making a no dig motif in the garden, with cash prizes.

There are still plenty of lovely leaves outside, such as this kale and pak choi which I transplanted only five weeks ago. I kept a fleece cover on for two weeks against flea beetle, which now has finished until next spring as they go dormant. I fear that the population in soil must be quite high, and next year won’t be easy unless it rains a lot.

After the dry summer, slug numbers are beautifully low because otherwise, pak choi is often full of holes.

We shall harvest the celeriac soon and they are looking much bigger on no dig, where this summer it looked like moisture was being better retained. There are a few exceptions such as the kale which is a little more strong on dig, and beetroot harvests were similar on both beds.

So far in 2026 the harvest totals from this two bed trial, in its 14th year, are 89kg dig and 101kg no dig. That's higher than normal, I guess thanks to unusually good light levels, complemented by sufficient watering.

There are so many options for succession planting, often between existing vegetables which often will finish soon. Such as the Brussels sprouts below which started between carrots.

Or in the case of these celeriac, we tidied up their lower leaves enough that Adam could make drills with a dibber, and drop home-saved seeds in them on the diagonal.

The quality of growth this autumn is extraordinary, like I've never seen spinach so healthy, this late in the year. It was sown 19th August direct, after potatoes, and we've had a lot of harvests since mid-September.

I'm hoping the plants will survive winter to crop again next spring.

Likewise many brassicas now look wonderful, after being eaten almost to death by flea beetles all summer. From greenhouse sowings of 26th June, I am now picking fine cauliflower and calabrese / broccoli.

Super healthy Brussels sprouts plants, a succession / interplanting between carrots (video) have been giving me much encouragement. We may need to cover them with netting by December, if pigeons get hungry.

When harvesting the sprouts I am however noticing a lot of grey aphids in them, and I need to give them a good rinse. They still taste excellent! And thanks to having good levels of organic matter in the soil, together with sufficient moisture, there are no clouds of white aphids.

I have heard from a friend in Lincolnshire who grows hundreds of acres of Brussels and broccoli, and he said that all of their brassicas this autumn are full of aphids, in unusual and significant amounts. They're even importing a tractor-mounted vacuum from Holland (where else!) to see if that will control the aphids.

Today is the day and my short video shows how I do it. The Chinese cabbage were only transplanted on 29th August, from sowing two weeks earlier. I delayed the sowing because of the flea beetles and it has really paid off, thanks to their amazing speed of growth and also using Bt against caterpillars.

I'm sorry that in the UK that's not allowed for amateurs but you can buy box hedge caterpillar killer and use that, because its active ingredient is the same, Bacillus thuringiensis, a soil bacteria. However, I gather that some cabbage moths, the ones whose caterpillars are large and brown, may be developing resistance to the Bt and I am finding some in a few heads.

I've been using the remaining warmth of autumn to establish many plants for spring harvest. The cabbage below stay under mesh throughout, firstly for protection from insects and rabbits and then through winter, for protection against pigeons.

I'm hoping they will come ready to harvest by April, but nothing is guaranteed because we don't know how much extreme weather there might be. Here the temperature normally stays above -8°C/18°F but sometimes it can be colder. Or if winter is very mild, these cabbages might make an early and much smaller head in February.

The salad onions have also been covered since transplanting, for protection against Allium leaf miner which is now pandemic here, just since the last three years. In 2025 I did not cover the spring onions, and lost 90% of the transplants.

This year unfortunately I did not manage to cover leeks and the leaf miner arrived early, so we've had to harvest all of the autumn leaks already, and discard a lot of damaged growth.

Pests are something you always need to consider and know about, see Pests & Diseases short course, in order to prevent as much damage as possible before it happens. Combine this knowledge with sowing at the best times for each vegetable, as in my Calendar of Sowing Dates, to achieve nice results.

Nicola will soon post course dates for next year, and one confirmed event for June 2027 is this visit from the USA.

An unexpected success this year has been the continued growth of collard plants, from seeds I sowed August 2025. They cropped extremely well through winter and spring, before suffering much damage from pests during the summer. A few plants also made heads and I twisted them out.

Yet most of them continue to grow! The only snag is that they are tall and difficult to protect against pigeons, unlike the new sowing made this August.

We still have a hosepipe ban here but as a commercial grower, I am allowed to water. We were using the hose, held by hand, for some vegetables in early October but then 100 mm / 4 inches rain fell since 17th October.

That was enough to create a small puddle in the middle of my large pond, which reflects the water table level. Last winter it was mostly full and I hope the same happens this winter, but so far November looks quite dry.

I startied this campaign because of knowing the importance to health, of fresh vegetables and unprocessed food. We've reached almost £15,000 of the £20,000 target, and please consider any contribution you can make.

My new Organic Gardening book has come out and it's a revised addition of my first book, 20 years later. I've learnt and achieved so much in that time that my attempted revision turned into a complete rewrite, in two volumes. If you buy it from my website, you can leave a note at checkout for any dedication you would like, in a signed copy.

You can buy the book a little more cheaply from Amazon, but they won't offer you a signed copy or dedication!

Do also check out my clothing range at Teemill, printed to order on organic cotton.

Also see the No Dig vegetable tea towel designed by Emma van Zeller. It's made with organic cotton and I'm finding it more effective in drying than most of the tea towels I have used, and it feels beautifully soft.

So it’s another myth, that carrot root flies don’t fly above 60cm / 24in!