Gardening types, Black history month

Factual Questions
1

We in the UK hold Black History month in October, whereas the North American types do it in February.

We UK types are now looking at the seed catalogues and planning for the coming season.

Sooo, I’m aiming to produce some crop that will allow for catering during UK Black History month. That’s alongside our regular stuff such as winter veg and salads,

Here is what I’m looking at most of which would not be considered as part of Jamaican cuisine.

Aubergine - Eggplants
Courgette
Decorative Broccoli - which will go among the flower beds - where there is very heavy clay, brassicas seem to do well.
Borlotti Beans
Sweet Potato - some way off planting time for these
Broad Bean
Tomato
Chilli, lots of them
Garlic
Kitchen Bay - We have the plants, just need to take the cuttings and bring them on
Basil
Oregano
Lemon something or other herb - looks to be a broad leafed thing
Onions - white & red
Nasturtium - good for plate decoration

I would like to try Black Eye Peas but planting for those is a few months away in our climate especially to time it for very late summer/autumn

Quite a lot of this will go into the greenhouse and tunnels, but anything that would work outside in pretty heavy soil would be useful.

I’m limited on space, I only have a few acres to play with, and 3X30 metre poly tunnels and around the same amount of heated greenhouse space. That sounds like plenty but I have bedding plants to produce as well, we are looking at 20000 of those, minimum.

I also have a workforce to deal with this, unskilled but I want to give them ownership of some areas, it will help them pass their time and maybe they will learn something so fairly simple and fast growing will keep their interest.

So, what is there, especially herbs, that I can try out?
Need answers before March

2

Tell me about it! Here in NY’s Hudson Valley we have clayey soil and last year I planted Swiss chard for the first time. ZOMBIE CHARD INVASION.

So go for the brassicas that form part of the “mixed greens” dishes (with vinegar and pickled pepper sauce) in African-American cuisine: collard greens and kale, generally cooked along with mustard greens and turnip greens.

By the way, since this isn’t so much a factual-answer question as a request for opinions and suggestions, you might try asking a mod to switch it over to Cafe Society, where gardening/cooking threads generally go.

3

Hello MODS, can you move this over to Café Society please?