Winter vegetables - brussel sprouts, perpetual spinach and leeks

It should be a winter of sprouts, kale, leeks and spinach. Hopefully

The winter vegetable is completely new terrain for me.  Last year my growing calendar as far as vegetables are concerned ended abruptly at the beginning of Autumn.  This year, being that I have bed space crying out to be used, I am pushing through and hope to have some kind of edible growing at all points right through until next year's broad beans take over.

I was unprepared for this decision.  With no advance preparation I took to my nearest garden centre to plunder their ready-grown supplies of winter seedlings.  Alas, choice was limited! But I have got a few goodies.

My leeks were a little spindly, but I went with planting anyway

The first is sprouts.  I personally love a good brussel, be that at christmas or any other time, I will eat them willingly.  I think the reason they are so unpopular is people ruin them by going overboard on the boiling.  But we have to get some first.

The seedlings seem to require an inordinate amount of space - like a metre between each one - certainly more than I am prepared to give them in any case.  With that kind of spacing I would have got about four seedlings in the entire space the dwarf beans previously took up, and thats just greedy.  Of course they will grow huge and be elbowing each other out of the way for space, but thats just tough.  I gave them about 60cm between, and thats me being generous.

Leek-holes, holes for leeks.  At the bottom of a trench that keeps trying to collapse to allow me to build up the bleached part

I also purchased perpetual spinach, lots of perpetual spinach.  I like spinach, but theres something about the name perpetual that is faintly unappetising, like its been hanging around a while and get old. Im hoping this isn't the case as the amount I have planted we will be having it on a very frequent basis.
These I have put in my rear veg-bed - freshly extended - which could be a bit shady and damp during the winter, we will have to go see, but hopefully they will do ok.

The un-adulturated leeks in all their original glory

Most interestingly in my book at least, are my new leeks.  Im not the biggest fan myself, but on twitter it certainly has its advocates!  And I just thought why not?! Planting these is bizarre.  The label said dig a hole 8 inches deep, pop in the leek and then just fill with water.  Instructions like that needed further explanation I thought, so I looked up a video.  Turns out the traditional method is to undo most of the leeks' hard work - slicing off both some roots and leaves before popping into the hole.  This makes the roots easier to get in the hole apparently, which is true, but feels so wrong.  The lady in the video was planting leeks the size of fingers, mine are more pencils, or pipe cleaners but I stuffed them in anyway.

The slosh of water just covers the roots in soil and thats enough apparently. Only some of my holes were longer than my leeks and one leek plain vanished when I added water. I had to insert a finger into the muddy hole to try and extract it.  It was unpleasant. But I was successful. The hole means the stem becomes bleached white which is what you want, but as mine are so small I have also dug a trench so the soil ca be built up.  I've had a few issues with backfilling, but so far so good.

Trimmed and ready for action, easy for stuffing in holes.
Apparently they love it!

Added to this is all my kale and a few other bits and pieces I will go into at a later date, so hopefully the winter will be veg-full!