Late In Posting!

I went down the plot last week (the car just had a flat battery luckily and is all better now) and it wasn't awful. I expected it to be bad and for a lot of stuff to be dead and it pretty much lived up to expectations. The fact that it didn't exceed expectations was a nice surprise, I kind of like this 'grow slow' winter thing rather than the heart wrenching 'but I just weeded that bloody bed' that you get during the spring and summer! Add to that the fact that I actually felt quite motivated and it was a gorgeous winters day not requiring me to wear a coat and I had a really good couple of hours down there.

One of the butternut squashes had grown to a pretty reasonable size and could have been cooked had I not missed harvesting it by about 2 weeks and had it not been half eaten by some hungry beastie and then gone all squishy and rotten. The courgette plants were dead but there was nothing rotted on them which made me feel better. I harvested the Charlotte potatoes which were supposed to be for Christmas. I had a feeling that as the fortnight of constant rain had killed off the tops of the plants totally that there would be very little to find under the soil and I was right, I got a handful of very tiny spuds that will get chucked into a stew at some point.

So, I set about weeding and smartening up some beds and got 4 of them looking really good, so now I just have another 6 to go... I was surprised to see that 2 of my cauliflowers had formed little heads and that those heads seem to have gone rotten, not quite sure what's going on there as they aren't supposed to be ready for ages yet, I presume that I shall be pulling those 2 out at some point but I've left them in for now.

I harvested some kale as well while I was there. My book said that you could start after the first frost so I did. I was a tad worried about what I would think of kale as I'd never eaten in as an adult and couldn't remember if I liked it or not, but it was really nice which is a huge relief as I have about 12 plants! I have since found 2 recipes for ways to cook it so I'm looking forward to some more.

The cabbages are coming along well from what I can see and the onions are growing amazingly compared to how badly the last lot I tried grew, I guess the back bed isn't suited for onion growing.

So, fortnightly visits will resume and I will keep tidying up and start making plans for what to plant next. If weather allows I may start clearing for the Square Foot beds, that will be my next bedtime reading as I kind of got halfway through the book and then got distracted!