The over-wintering vegetables

The potager is thoroughly weeded. And it looks a treat.

I finished up the strawberry and raspberry beds. And then spent a bit of time sorting out the cabbage beds.  There are a lot of plants still in this section – I’m suprised the mole rat chose to eat all the swiss chard roots, but left the cabbage plants alone.

And I wanted to record the amazing plucky little vegetables and herbs which came through winter and a few weeks of snow.

Rocket, kale, sorrel, broad beans.  I’m delighted they are still here.

I had to weed quite carefully in the beds as I needed to save the sweet peas which have self sown two seasons ago and are still going strong.

And there are some dear little pansies which dot the beds.  They had to be carefully levered up and placed at the far end of the rows.

I removed dead stalks of sunflowers – like submerged rocks hidden just under the soil.

And spent a futile few minutes trying to block the mole run down the far left side of the cabbage bed with stones.  The mole may have moved on, so I was hoping the wretched mole rat won’t be able to shift the stones on its own.

I have three or four rocket plants (arugula) which are almost flowering again. I’m going to let them self seed all over this perfectly cleared bed in the hope my salad leaves will get away rather fast.

And that is the beauty of being able to choose your own varieties of plants. I never sow coriander as that self seeds here no matter how cold the weather. So too a few sweet peas, and now the rocket. It saves some space in the seed sowing trays.

But you just have to accept that you don’t get to choose where they will grow.

I was a bit more ruthless weeding out the poppy seedlings. In the first few years I was so in thrall to these curious wildlfowers that I sacrificed whole areas for the fleeting flowers.

This time I only kept those that were growing on the edges of the narrow beds. It felt a bit cruel, but I have found that they don’t transplant very well.