November is the month the garden goes quiet in Ireland. The clocks have gone back, the soil is cold and wet, and most of what you sow now would sit in the ground and rot before it did anything.

But November is not empty. It is the last chance this year for the hardy crops that are meant to spend the winter small and give you the first fresh food of spring. Get them in during a dry, mild spell and they do the waiting for you.

The November rule: hardy, small and patient

In October the soil still had a little warmth left. By November it has almost none. Seed that goes in now germinates slowly, puts down roots and then stops, a few centimetres tall, until the light comes back in February.

That is exactly what you want. A plant that has rooted through the winter takes off in March, weeks ahead of anything you could sow in spring. The trick is to sow only crops that are built for it, and to pick your day: wait for a few dry days so the ground is workable, not sticky.

1. Broad beans: the main event

If you only sow one thing this month, make it broad beans. Aguadulce Supersimonia is a long-podded variety with eight or nine beans in each pod, and it is the classic choice for an autumn sowing.

Sow the seed about 5 cm deep, 20 cm apart, in a double row with about 25 cm between the two lines so the plants hold each other up through the winter wind. Early November is fine. By the end of the month, in a cold or wet garden, you are better off waiting until February.

Autumn sown beans also flower before blackfly numbers build up in early summer, so they usually suffer far less from it than a spring sowing.

If your ground is heavy and sits waterlogged, sow one bean to a small pot, keep the pots in a cold frame or an unheated porch, and plant them out in March. You keep most of the head start and lose far less seed to rot.

2. Peas: under cover, not in the open bed

Peas can be sown in November, but in an open Irish bed it is a gamble: cold, wet soil and hungry mice take a lot of the seed. Give them some shelter and the odds change.

Sow Piccolo Provenzale, a dwarf pea that needs no tall supports, or Dark Skin Perfection in a polytunnel border, or in a length of guttering or deep modules in an unheated greenhouse or porch. Plant them out, or let them grow on under cover, once the worst of the winter has passed. The reward is pods in late spring, when peas in the shops are still coming from abroad.

3. Garlic: the other job for this month

November is also the traditional time to plant garlic cloves in Ireland, because garlic needs a cold spell to form proper bulbs. Push single cloves into the soil, pointed end up, about 15 cm apart with the tip just below the surface. Use garlic sold for planting, not cloves from the supermarket, which may carry disease or be a variety bred for a warmer climate.

4. A windowsill crop for the kitchen

Outdoors, leaf crops sown now will just wait for spring. On a bright windowsill they keep going. A tray of cultivated rocket or cutting lettuces, cut young as baby leaves, gives you something fresh and peppery for a sandwich or a plate of pasta through the darkest weeks.

What to harvest now

November is when the Italian winter crops earn their place. Cavolo nero gets sweeter after the first frosts: pick from the bottom of the stem up, a few leaves per plant at a time, and it keeps producing all winter. Radicchio Tonda di Verona colours up as the nights get colder, which is exactly what you want from it.

Welly to belly this month: cavolo nero, a good pinch of chilli and garlic, olive oil and a pot of beans. That is a Tuscan ribollita, and it is built for a wet Irish evening.

What to do this weekend

Pick the driest day you get. Put in a double row of broad beans, plant a row of garlic next to them, and cover any bare soil with compost, leaves or cardboard so the rain does not wash the structure out of it over winter. Then sow a tray of rocket for the kitchen windowsill.

That is an hour of work, and it means the first fresh beans and peas of next year come from your own garden in May.

All seed is posted from Co. Longford. BloomySeeds is an Irish stockist of Franchi Sementi seed. See every seed for sowing in November.