The winter potager

Now this is not going to be pretty. No Instagram gorgeous here.

I’ve had a bit too much of this…

And sometimes in a large potager you get that ‘where on earth do I start?’ moment.

We still have good eating in the kale patch. The growth slows mightily at this time of year. But you can carefully pick off leaves for stir fry dishes. You freeze your fingers while you work. But there is easily two meals worth a week.

And I have my eye on those yellow pointy brassicas which look very much like the broccoli family. (Yes, yes, I lost the label.)

Leeks aplenty. Dotted about. And always looking at me as if to say ‘ why did you only plant 50 seedlings at the beginning of summer? More, more, more.

And of course the zombie peppers which refuse to die!

What is thrilling is seeing all the self seeded lettuce plants coming up. Merveilles de quatre saisons indeed.

I need to wait for a sunny day and carefully transplant them.

My plan is to actually pot them up and leave them in the comparative warmth of the potting shed over winter.

In preparation for such an event I actually went up there to clean. Really sort things out and prepare it for the next few months of cold.

Someone was Not Happy with this activity.

She was bouncing off the walls when I wielded the broom. But instead of just leaving me be, she kept lunging at me and demanding food and then really sinking her teeth into my jumper and sleeves.

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The noose in the middle of the shot is not for strangling attack cats, by the way. I use it to hang my wreaths on when I am doing the fiddly positioning of the decorative bits.

I have yet to mulch the dahlias in their pots against the stone walls at the back of the potager.

Nor have I done the main clean up of weeds.

And I want to remove the raspberries from this quadrant of the Potager and shift everything up to the permaculture bed at the top of the farm.

The raspberries are just too invasive. And tricky to control.

Oh, and lesson learned from this year’s growing season.

Sweet potatoes do not thrive in medium sized 10 litre pots.

I did laugh when I stuck a trowel in to check on the growth.

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I reckon I will spend more time cleaning the tubers than actually eating them.

But it was fun trying. Next year I will plant them in the ground and hope the mole rats don’t feast on them before I can.