winter crops

The last couple of weeks have seen very little gardening activity, mainly due to the poor weather. However, today was a glorious autumn day it was a pleasure to be out  and getting on with a lot of general tidying and weeding - something I usually neglect during the busy summer period. Part of what was originally a rockery I’ve turned into a herb bed and I’ve been trying to excavate the roots of perennial weeds growing there. Couch grass and creeping buttercup are the bane of my life, and I suspect of many other gardeners as well. If you leave one little bit behind it will regrow so you have to be  very observant and sift through the soil to make certain you’ve got it all. And then there’s the  ground cover plants that the previous property owner thought would be a good idea. Wrong! it’s only a good idea if you can put a solid barrier between them and the rest of the garden otherwise you have roots and runners constantly trying to take over.

The veg. plot now has a few bare patches where crops have been lifted but there’s still plenty out there to put towards a meal.  The container grown salad crops have been moved into the greenhouse to give some protection from the weather.

Here are radishes, various types of lettuce and spring onions. The 'empty' red box has the latest sowing of AYR lettuce which have yet to emerge. Inside the greenhouse last year it got down to -15 but the salad crops survived and then had a head start in the spring.

It is nice to be able to pick a few leaves to stick in a sandwich in the middle of winter and it keeps the continuity going. For me there is no single growing season although things are obviously much more hectic in the warmer months. I'll be sowing sprouting seeds through the winter and before you know it the first of the new year's crops will be starting off in the propagator.