Out with the Brussels, in with the beetroot

I’ve finally picked the last few Brussels sprouts of the season. With such lovely weather I enjoyed sitting outside peeling them. Later I took them inside and shredded them ready for a stir fry. Accept for Christmas dinner we do prefer them fried rather than boiled, you get much more flavour and a nicer texture. But then homegrown veg tastes better whatever you do with it.

This has been our most successful harvest to date, mainly because we have a proper brassica cover now. We managed to get some specific butterfly netting to cover it with, to keep those pesky cabbage whites out.

With the last of the Brussels and the Calvolo Nero (Italian kale) gone to seed, it was time to clear last season’s brassica bed and turn it into this years roots bed.

I’d already planted a couple of celeriac plants at the one end. I had really poor germination because of using up an old packet of seeds, but that makes it feel like my two plants were free, waste not want not.

I’m going to plant the rest of the bed with beetroot this year. I’ve spent most of my life not liking beetroot, but now I absolutely love it. I grow three varieties, the traditional dark red ‘Red Ace’, ‘Chioggia’ and ‘Golden Globe’. I’ve divided the bed into thirds and just started one row of each variety.

I have new strawberry plants every year by potting up the runners that stream from the main plants every summer. I keep the baby strawberry plants in one of the raised beds – wherever there’s space. Unfortunately we do have quite a lot of vine weevils around and they seem to love pots that are on the floor, but miss the raised ones.

Ornamentals

A couple of weeks ago I chopped my tall grass ‘Karl Foerster’ to the ground as I could see the new growth starting to appear. All the advice says chop the old growth down early before the new shoots get too tall, as you don’t want to chop the tips off losing that lovely point at the tip. Well I’m afraid I have no lovely pointy tips, not because I accidentally chopped them off, but because my cats think they are planted in the garden especially for them to eat! Luckily the flower spikes seem to sneak past their nibbling, or at least they have every other year – fingers crossed.

At this time of year I feel, that if I sat and watched the garden I’d actually be able to see it growing. Every day there are changes, especially with this very welcome warm spell of weather we’ve been having. Unfortunately I believe there’s a cold snap just around the corner, I’m sure I heard hailstones mentioned. That wouldn’t do the tender new shoots much good. Better get back outside and make the most of it.

Stay safe and happy gardening.