It's that time of year when the gardener gets respite from the frantic summer months. Nothing is growing anymore - weeds included. But beside uniformly earthy former potato patch and the skeletonised pumpkin patch there are green patches still. This is when the brassicas come into their own! Late cabbages, Brussel sprouts, kale and sprouting broccoli are approaching their prime. The purple sprouting broccoli will not start producing until next March, but has plenty of leaf already.
The other green area is more of a remnant offering leaf beat, beetroot and leeks.
(Under the net is more kale and some Chinese cabbage. Despite the net the leaves have been pockmarked by some pest). So end of season is here but there are still harvests to look forward to.
Here's the traditional Good Friday bake. Who would have thought that it might have been at risk with the run on flour of late. Looking back over the years the last time there was a problem was in 2016 when our cooker broke.
Another Good Friday tradition is planting potatoes. Three out or 4 nets have been planted already so I am ahead of the game. I am holding off on the last one as I have crops still to harvest (leeks and chard). You have to think well ahead to avoid these conflicts. In another area the carrot patch has followed on from the brassicas. Kale and Purple Sprouting Broccoli are being cropped and uprooted all in one operation so that the ground can be prepared for the new crop. Note to self: It helps if these late croppers are all grown at one end of the brassica patch.
Of course everything is going hell for leather right now what with spring proper arriving and all that. Rather than try to list everything here is a representative picture of the sort of madness that is abroad. This is my third sowing of brassicas (the earlier ones being cabbage, cauliflower and Brussel sprouts). They have all come good with the exeption of the two Tuscan Kales. Either they are slower to germinate or the seed (which is years old) has finally lost its viability.
I find it amusing that blogging drops when there is more going on in the garden. Paradoxically there is more to report on too. Busy makes busy.
The prospect of an impending mini ice age has warned me off sowing anything new. (I have already filled up my propagator and there won't be anywhere to house the burgeoning tomatoes, peppers, leeks as my greenhouse is unheated). To cheer myself up, and to use up some of my rye starter, I have made Rye Crispbreads for the first time. The hole in the middle is indicative of the original storage technique for these Scandinavian staples. I won't be threading them though. They stack up nicely anyhow.
I did go to the plot yesterday and pick some greens - and a goodly amount of carrots too. I also barrowed and dug manure into the pea and bean patch, walking across the new brassica patch to compact the ground in the process. One school of thought is that you should never compact ground where you want to grow vegetables, but I make an exception for brassicas which can disappoint in loose soil.
Once the promised cold snap has passed I can contemplate getting started on this year's sowing in earnest. In the meantime I'll champ on crispbreads.
It is just about the end of the brassicas. They have been a mixed bunch this last year. I planted 3 sorts of kale and 2 sorts of broccoli which was fairly adventurous. Not surprisingly the cabbages ran out rather sooner than I would have hoped. For some years now I have deployed weed suppressant fabric (WSF) on the brassica section although I left a bare strip for those brassicas that hate to be transplanted (turnips , swedes, pak choi, mooli). This has confirmed me in my opinion of the benefit of using WSF. The weeds grew away happily in the bare strip and as the bird netting is in place it was no joke removing them - a back aching hands and knees balancing act.
Brassica patch with bare strip to left at planting time
A few weeks on - weeds on the rampage to the left, WSF doing the hard work to the right!
The kale was great with the Dwarf Curled being the star performer for volume and hardiness. The Cavelo Nero is excellent too but not as hardy. The purple veined variety lost out although it was a great novelty before it got a bit tough and tasteless. I did grow some Brussels (Evesham Special) but they were too small to grace the Christmas table. I grew two crops on the bare strip - early cabbages (Greyhound) and Caulis (All The Year Round) and then successional sowings of Turnip Swede, Mooli and Pak Choi. These sowings either failed or faired poorly for size. I think I should have fed the soil more before the successional sowing. Pak Choi just gets wiped out by pests (from flea beetle to slugs) whenever I try to grow it on the allotment. Probably will not try growing it here again.
As always I have managed to put the latest crop (purple sprouting broccoli) in the most inconvenient of places - right where I want to plant my new strawberry patch. The net has been raised, but not before the pigeons had a go at the PSB pecking through it when the snow weighed it down! All will be forgiven - provided it still comes good.
Bedraggled brassicas PSB nearest
Next year I will have a smaller brassica patch as I am adjusting my rotation. More over wintering cabbages, less Pak Choi and Mooli, some kale. Lime in advance and a good feed for any successional sowings. And even the Swedes will be sown through WSF this year!
