Yum

Loads of lovely purple sprouting broccoli around now, hidden away from the pigeons all winter under nets and wire mesh. It grows back after harvesting if you leave a few young shoots and produces more if you give it lots of water.

Truly tulip

Ribes sanguineum

After the delicate perfume of the late winter flowering Daphne, the vibrant early spring flowers of the American currant - Ribes sanguineum - have a rather pungent smell.

Ambient Allotment

Sprung Greens

The start of the purple sprouting broccoli season and the last of the leek and kale harvests (apart from a few leeks left to fatten during the coming weeks, or left to flower and seed).

Early buds

                                              Gooseberry

                                             Blackcurrant

                                              Apple (Cox's)

A warm spell has encouraged fruit bushes and trees to bud about ten days earlier than last year.

The Sower

Came across a postcard of Van Gogh's 'The Sower' this week, apt for this time of year, when so many seeds are crying out for compost, pots, modules, seed trays, sunny window ledges, an airing cupboard or a well-tilled soil.

Already on the go for the veg garden :

• Tomatoes (Roma & Costoluto)
• Chillies (Cayenne)
• Courgettes
• Peas (Kelvedon Wonder)
• Broad Beans
• Celery
• Lettuce
• Spinach 
• Coriander
• Parsley

And a few flowers :

• Sunflowers
• Sweet Peas 
• Antirhinnum
• Osteospermum
• Cosmos
• Rudbeckia
• Phlox
• Sweet Rocket
• Black Eyed Susan
• Calendula
• Tagetes
• Coreopsis

Better not have forgotten anything!

Early bee on an anemone

Grubs up

At first glance it looked like cat shit, but on closer inspection it was a frog nestling in the soil at the base of an olive tree growing in a pot. The olive leaves have been nibbled by vine weevils in the past couple of years and although it doesn't affect the tree, the small white weevil grubs that live in the soil and attack the roots do. Fortunately, frogs and toads like eating the grubs, so this one is providing an important service.

Swelling underground

Garlic looks healthy, on top, but it's what's under the soil that's important and whether it gets too wet over the next few months in the heavy clay soil.

Protection

Ain't no pesky varmints gonna trample on these broad beans, for now.

Early doors

Always a good sign that winter is nearly over: You can smell the sweet lemon scent of this daphne odora several metres away. A shame it's not mine and that cuttings are difficult to root, but it's next to a path, so many people benefit.

Ratty and friends

It seems a longer, darker and colder winter than for a while, despite there being no snow or severe prolonged frost. Foxes, or badgers, have trampled on some broad bean plants that had made a good start in the autumn and a couple of storms have battered most of the others. The dwarf kale plants and leeks have grown very little and rats have got into the shed and eaten most of a marrow and some apples.

All Hallows' Eve

Holey Cabbage

Almost impossible to prevent slugs from chomping the outer leaves of these late summer cabbages, even if the nets prevent pigeons from having a go too, but the hearts are usually dense enough to make them worthwhile.

Bachelor's Buttons

The injestion of Feverfew, aka Bachelor's Buttons, appears to be as beneficial as it is a hazard.

Evergreens

Plenty of fresh veg still around, though running out of onions as the first leeks begin to mature.

Seedy business

 

Now that the sunflowers, marigolds and rudbeckia are starting to wilt, it's good time to collect seed heads before the rain comes. 

Long haul

The garlic planted last month has already put on lots of growth (some of the cloves were unearthed by curious birds, badgers or mice, hence the protection) but it'll be another eight months, around June, until it'll be ready to harvest.

The colour of autumn

Into October and the sweet peas are still flowering, which is unusual. Any remaining colour at this time of year is welcome, before it all goes black and white. More pointless gourds, useful lettuce and tasty beets.