Winter wednesday #12 - Bountiful

Before the weather rolled in yesterday afternoon I was able to spend a lot of time in the garden, appreciating it in all it's blustery and soggy goodness. Look at all this! Spring onions, a baby beetroot (yes, just one!), more rainbow chard and...


...a cauliflower! I'm super proud of this one. Who'd have thought I could grow a real, live, edible cauliflower?


This little section of the garden is doing fabulously. At the front is garlic, in the middle are the experimental greenfeast peas, at the back are my tall broad beans.


I tried to take a photo to show you just how many flowers are on those peas, but I don't think it quite conveys it. There must be hundreds, and they are starting to set peas. I can hardly wait to start eating them!


The broad beans are suddenly bursting out with flowers all over too.


There are lots of spring onions out there too. These are called 'red legs,' and they are planted in a pot with my Tahitian lime tree.


The globe artichokes I planted sometime last year are finally looking a little bit happier and less weedy. Perhaps I don't have to pull them out after all? Behind them, looking good, are the second round of broad beans I planted a couple of months ago, such babies compared to the early sowing!


This little unknown 'gambler's choice' fig is sending out it's Spring leaves already, well ahead of the pack (I have, I think, five fig treelings now!)


The weeds are doing beautifully too. Look at them go, so lush and luxuriant!


Yesterday wasn't just about harvesting and photographing, I got a couple of important jobs done too.

I planted my new 'Nellie Kelly' grafted passionfruit, it's new leaves are almost metallic.


Her new home is up against a west-facing fence with the brown turkey fig. Now, please, a special request to whatever bugger ate the passionfruit I planted last year down to the ground: Please leave my newbie alone!
I'll rig something up on the fence between the posts to give her something to climb up against.


I also completed 'round one' of the potato planting. You're supposed to plant after all risk of frost has passed, and I figured since we don't get much frost in my area I could take a chance and start now. I planted 7 out of 20 gourmet assorted tubers.


Well, I say 'planted' but as I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm using a no dig method this year for most of the potatoes, so they were just plonked on the ground after I'd turned it over and tried to take out the worst of the soursobs.


Then I piled on the peastraw, manure, blood and bone, potash, and a sprinkle of Dynamic Lifter and a general slow release fertilizer for luck, and watered the whole lot in with a dash of Seasol (I love that stuff! It was a bit like making a giant, layered pie. I hope the spuds like it! It was quite a lot of effort.
I'd bought a bag of compressed peastraw to try out, and whilst I don't like to moan about such things, I have to say don't waste your money on it. I had this grand idea that I could keep the bag to plant some more taters in, and I did manage it eventually, but it was so hard to get out without destroying the bag that I ended up cutting it halfway down and making my bag half the size. That's not a reason not to buy the stuff of course, but the straw was very fine and would blow away in a light wind I think, and it didn't go very far and was quite expensive, so all in all I wish I'd just bought a couple of bales of normal peastraw and gotten at least 4 times as much for the same amount of money.


Lastly, just for kicks, I had to show you my 'firelight' kangaroo paw which has been slowly, slowly growing it's flower spikes up to chest height. Beautiful, hey? I wish I had more than one! That red against the grey of our house is pretty special.


Head on over to Hazel's to see how other people are getting through the tail end of Winter