So much kale - curly, black, eaten and old

My two shop bought kale varieties, looking a little dry I must say

Kale is not a vegetable I have ever had any regard for.  But when I realised I would have a whole bed free all winter I started hunting around for some nice winter vegetables to fill it, and settled amongst other things, on kale.

Kale, as one person on twitter told me, would survive a nuclear winter.  I haven't got plans to live through one of those, but winter hardiness is exactly what I was looking for.  I believe we have only willingly bought kale once from the supermarket, and I can't say I was a fan.  But I haven't let that hold me back and now seem to be growing four different varieties.  I had the audacity to question whether kale was an appetising vegetable on twitter, and was promptly put right!  It seems there are some real defenders of kale out there!  But one mentioned a kale and lentil curry that does sound rather tempting so I will have to remember to have a go at that.

My first batch of Nero di Toscana kale, apparently the world's most
appetising kale to pests

I have sown two varieties myself and bought two.  The two I bought are a black kale and F1 reflex curly kale.  The black one has lovely purple tinged smooth leaves at the moment, but this should change to dark green, very knobbly green leaves.  This seems to be feature of kale; leaves like crinkled old bags.

Reflex will be even more crinkly than the black variety, im looking at the picture on the label and my mind can't help wander to all the nooks and crannies caterpillars will have to hide in. I am quickly discovering that this is the main hitch of growing winter greens: all the caterpillars out to get them.  Not such a problem with the kale at the second, but my cauliflowers? That is another story! But a story for another day.

These shop bought ones are already planted out in my new front bed.  I wanted to plant them in the traditional row style, but my annual flowers and beans haven't finished yet so I have ended up popping them in here and there in my usual haphazard way.  It looks rather charming at the second, but when the annuals are over and gone, the neighbours are going to wonder what the hell I was thinking! Oh well. It should also make harvesting the leaves a bit more of a challenge.  I am trying to keep on top of the weeds to make sure I don't suddenly start munching on them rather the kale!

Ninety nine percent of the stuff in this picture is not kale. The line of the
plants at the far left are a line of kale

I also did some sowing.  I bought just the one kale variety at the Hampton Court flower show - Nero di Toscana, because this was still in the day when the taste of a vegetable was a prerequisite to growing it, and as I have already said, im not sure what kale tastes like.

These seedlings are my biggest issue at the moment.  If I leave them uncovered on the patio something just comes along and mows long the top of them.  Its been a real challenge nursing them through. I suspect pigeons so have them tucked away and covered in fleece to keep the pesky birds off.  This seems to be working, but what I didn't get is the other sat 5 metres away for several weeks and were left immaculate. It makes no sense.  What I didn't account for in all my protection was a falling apple which took a seedling out.  Typical.  What makes it through this tough time will join their fellows in the bed.

At this point I clearly have more than enough kale, but then I came across a really old packet the mother bought and didn't use.  I always love a challenge so I couldn't resist trying to germinate them.  I chucked in a whole lot as they are old anyway.  Of course the seed is still viable and all of it has come up, and now I have an excessive amount. Oh well. Be making lots of that kale and lentil curry wont I! Now I just need to figure out when to start picking the leaves...  

A successful crop of chantenay of carrots

 

Proudly clutching my crop for the year, all that time, two tiny handfuls

I love growing carrots.  They make so little fuss, so un-needy.  Just sow some seed, water, and then ignore for several months.  And then, as if by magic little orange nuggets form under the soil perfect for eating.  The only problem is I don't have the right soil for carrots.  My soil is heavy heavy clay, so heavy in fact our house is actually situated on the brickyard used to create all the bricks of the other houses built around here.  So thats basically pure clay.

Therefore my carrot crop is somewhat limited.  I would grow row upon row, but I am instead reduced to just two pots.  Obviously I could have chosen as many pots as I wanted, but despite half-filling another pot with sandy compost I never actually got around to sowing anymore carrot.

The Paris Market Atlas mini golfballs.  These are fun but not exactly hunger-killing carrots, especially the tiddly ones

I have not been growing carrots long, my first attempt being last year due to the aforementioned difficulty.  I can't say I was overwhelmed with carrots, with my final crop being tiny in size rather than number, but I may have got them sown a bit late in the year. My carrot of choice was Paris Market Atlas because its round like golf balls rather than the usual long root, and the packet said they were great for kids.  I find myself drawn to these kinds of things, although less so now, because I feel that seeds singled out for kids come with a higher chance of success.

This year I thought I would have another go seeing as they take so little effort, and expand into two varieties.  The second being Chantenay Red Cored 2 which again is not a big carrot, but should form delightful orange wedges.

Dirty carrots look all appealing but took me about half an hour to scrub

Sowing carrots has to be the simplest activity ever.  I merely mix shop bought compost with horticultural sand and then sprinkle the seed on top.  And then leave for about five months.  Obviously they need watering and the trick is to not disturb the carrot tops too much or you attract carrot fly, which can result in the pots being moved about the garden a fair bit If I think I have got too handsy with my plants.  I feel like the threat of carrot fly looms over every interaction I have with them.
I may have thinned the sowings a bit, but thinking back, I don't think I did, preferring instead to just let them jostle for position although this clearly isn't the way your meant to do it.

Sometime in June I had a little poke about amongst the frondy carrot tops and spotted a few orange flashes shouldering their way clear of the soil.  We had carrots! I waited and waited, keeping an eye on the protusions hoping they would get bigger but I don't remember that they did particularly, and then finally at the start of September I pulled them.

Chantenay Red Cored 2 are slightly more substantial, and I find the wedge shape particularly pleasing

Paris Market Atlas had performed better than last year, but with a clear split between sizeable golf balls and tiddlers. I don't understand why some are huge and others are tiny, it certainly made no rhyme or reason when I was pulling them up.

My prize carrot, he was perfect in every way

But the biggest success were the Chantenay Red Cored 2, which is quite some name for such a squat little carrot, including one absolutely prize specimen.  He was perfect in every way.  The rest were a decent size, producing far more actual edible vegetable than Paris, so for next year I think I would drop Paris - which is fun but not exactly overly productive - and grow a couple of pots of this one.  One carrot had grown legs, which is random as its a sure sign you have stony soil, which doesn't make sense in my perfect compost and sand mix, but there we are!

In comparison to this little freaky specimen which decided, despite perfect
soil, to grow a set of dodgy appendages 

But this may not be the end of the road for Paris.  I was flicking through a seed catalogue the other day and it said Paris was perfect for clay soils where you wouldn't dare try carrots, so maybe next year I will try a couple of rows in some of my better soil and see how we do.  Could be exciting!

An endless supply of runner beans - Scarlet Empire & White Lady

The Scarlet Empire in full flower, I do enjoy a vegetable that can do pretty as well

I got plenty of blossom off this variety, although there are a fair few plants
in this mass

I come to writing this directly from eating what could not be far short of a pound of runner beans for dinner, which may cloud my opinion a little.  I have taken to eating ludicrous amounts of this vegetable in an attempt to keep up with supply, but there is only so many beans one person wants to eat, and I am well over this level.

I personally like the runner bean flowers coloured rather than white, they
make more of a firey impact

Normally my main complaint with growing vegetables is that the crop tastes great, I just end up slicing one pea in half to ensure everybody gets a piece.  Not with my runner beans, oh no.  From what you can gather from above, I have been inundated.  To say it has been a success would be to undersell.

Yours truly at the beginning of the season getting the mass pick underway, ignore the shoes, they aren't mine.  Im now only picking from about chest height and above

The White Lady variety in flower, managed to snap this bumble making good
his exit

The secret has been where I grew them.  Last year the mother grew runner beans but I only remember having a few meals off of them.  That would be because she only had a few plants planted in about a foot square and they had to climb up the apple tree for support.  Clearly not ideal.  This year she sowed about twenty seedlings of Scarlet Empire, without actually having anywhere to put them, and then she dug up all the bushes in the front garden, and suddenly a prime bean growing spot appeared.  It is open on all sides, with good blow-through and lots of sun.  And the beans have loved it.

Early beans forming.  I swear they look like this one minute and then you
check on them a few days later and you have a foot long green swords

I have already covered my intense session of wigwam making, needless to say they have survived sturdy through intense rain and the odd gusty breeze.  The mother's runners I planted round one wigwam and some White Lady I bought round another.  The Scarlet Empire started flowering first, with lovely bright reddy-orange flowers that sung out and were really pretty.  The White Lady are more of a pale creamy white, still nice but not as impressive.  The Scarlet Empire was completely covered in flowers, and much to my horror does still have flowers on it now because I haven't cut the tops of the plants, naughty me.  The only difference I can tell between the two is that the Scarlet Empire tend to be a slightly darker bean and maybe a bit thicker, and also possibly mature faster.  Its hard to tell because I do not segment my beans on picking, I just chuck them all in a colander together.

More early beans

I do this because picking beans has become my second job.  I come home from work every other day and go straight into the front garden to start picking for a good half hour.  I can't keep up.  It always amazes me that a, the little rotters can grow so fast.  You leave them to get just a smidgeon bigger and come back the next day to find them huge.  And b, that despite going through the plants with a fine tooth comb you come across absolute whoppers that are a bit on the tough side.  And the most annoying part is at the beginning I would be out there picking and a neighbour would wander past and exclaim that they were wondering when I would start picking.  Like im not always picking!

Slightly bigger beans

At the start I was terribly concerned about knocking off the ageing blooms incase this meant that little beans wouldn't form.  Now I actively try and knock off the baby beans.  Thats a joke, I would never turn my nose up at vegetables that have made the effort to grow, but I am reaching my limit.  I probably pick a good half pound of runner and french beans every two days, thats a lot to consume, especially as the mother, a woman who can munch through twenty beans in a single sitting alone, is out of action just having had a tonsillectomy.  So with our ranks dwindling the fridge is stuffed and the freezer is also packed out.  Im hoping some extra room can be found in the freezer so we can save them for a time when I feel less over indulged in beans.

The average pile every two days, thats a lot of bean to munch through

Next year I will be growing runner beans again, after all they are such good value for money, just maybe not so many plants!

PS. What's the deal with the massive spiders on spindly legs that seem to hang around in runner bean bushes?!  I just pulled a few and screamed like a girl.

My takings from one lovely August day, ah the summer, I already miss its bounty

A superb sweet pea season

Despite not giving a thought to the overall colour scheme, I thought
the overall effect of my haphazard buying was really pretty

This year I really went for the sweet peas.  Every year I have a competition with my neighbour as to who can get sweet peas to flower first (he doesn't know he is involved in this competition). This year I won, and I am so smug about it.  He still grew far more overall but he gives over half his garden to them while I just have a couple of pots.  Last time I talked sweet peas they were just about blooming, see here.

Bright zingy colours are always a welcome sight, although this was not
luminous in real life 

I had a continuous bountiful supply right from June until the end of August, and thats not bad I think.  Last weekend I pulled out the first plant to bloom because it had finally given up flowering, and to be honest with you im quite glad.  They sure are pretty, but boy are they are a lot of work.  In full heavy flower I was spending a good twenty minutes out there every evening cutting them, but thats just stage one.  Then comes the long arduous task of checking through all the blooms picked in the last couple of days for dead and dying ones before adding in the new ones.  The problem is sweet peas are just so messy.  The moment you touch a slightly ageing one it completely collapses and then theres pollen all over the worktops and petals are swimming around in the sink.  Im not complaining, but I think I need the next eight months off to really look forward to next year's batch again.

The average daily pick near the end of the season

My aim every year is to have sweet peas coming out of my ears and have enough to give away down the street.  Well I didn't quite manage that because I staggered my sowings so I only ever had two pots flowering at the same time. I did manage to fill four vases at once though, the kitchen windowsill absolutely stuffed.  I like them in the kitchen, it really brightens up the washing-up.

A particularly bright pink arrangement, barry dare is one of my top picks for
the year, its fabulous

I didn't put chicken-wire around the bottom of the pots or netting round the canes, and my peas were just fine.  Yes a little unruly, but thats my style so thats not a bother.  So much easier than trying to fight with the net to even get to the flowers.

I let my peas grow free and uncaged this year, it it worked perfectly well
safe to say I wont be faffing around with chicken wire or netting in the future!

I thought having one pot flower so late was a mistake but its nice to still have long stemmed flowers to help add a little height to a vase when you get to that annoying stage later in a sweet peas life when you only have an inch of stem to try and work with.  I really hate this part.  I thought it was something I was doing wrong, but a little internet research revealed this to just be a sign the plant is getting older.  I wish it wouldn't, you just can't arrange an inch in any attractive meaningful way.

This clearly shows the shortening of the stem as the season progresses, the long ones are from my last sowings, while the short ones at the bottom are much older.  How you're meant to do anything with the short ones I don't know

So on to the actual colours.  Some have really wowed me, others were underwhelming and some have just been plane missing.  But overall I was very pleased that my haphazard buying led to a very pleasing colour scheme.  It turns out really dark coloured flowers are simply beautiful, two very late additions were the absolute highlight for me.  Ones that promise to change colour are really not worth it, and pink ones are super pretty.  If I was a more organised person I would be able to go through every variety I planted with a corresponding picture, but I am not that person.  I did not label a thing. Instead in another upcoming post I will just run through the ones I can identify and are worth it, or not.

Im really fond of these bright pinky red ones

A monster weed - the teasel

Its funny how something so menacingly spiky can erupt in such pretty
purple flower, life is full of contrasts as they say

There has been something growing in my front garden for months.  At first I didn't spot it, but it had that exceptionally luscious quality that only weeds do and grew with impressive vim and vigour.  It also has the kind of maliciously spiky leaf that only a weed does.  All signs were pointing to this being a weed.  Everything except its absurdly prime position in the bed and a sense of belonging there.  I therefore let it grow there for a couple of months while deciding its fate.

After it  suddenly shot up three feet and began to resemble something from the day of triphids, the mother decided while weeding one day when I wasn't in to yank it out.  It was quite clearly a weed by this point.  Nothing you actually plant grows so well.  It was only on pulling it from the ground that she found the roots were still forming a pot shape, and there was a little white label sticking out from the root ball. This was a plant after all.  It just looks like a weed because it kind of is, its a great big teasel.

It doesn't disappoint on the flower side with several lovely big heads,
hopefully I can try turning them into decorations at christmas

Of course once I read the label I remembered that for some reason I decided to buy and plant a huge weed last year.  At this point it was not selling itself to me, tall, green and spiky, it was not a thing of beauty.  Maybe I was looking for a bit of statuesque architecture?  Whatever the case I had to hack back other plants to make room for it.  I should add that on discovering it was a plant the mother replanted it, hoping it would recover.  It did, although it showed its displeasure by developing a right angled bend in the thick stem before recovering to continue growing straight.

Then, slowly a teasel head popped out the top.  At this point the plant is about as tall as I am.  And then suddenly it was pretty.  Each spiky teasel bloomed with a lovely lilac purple petals, not all over, but in rings and patches.  It seems odd that something so tall and domineering could erupt in such a pretty delicate floral display.  But then plants are like that; surprising.  The flowers don't last long, but they are worth it.

This shows the three stages of flowering, you don't get a full head of flowers but there is enough

The teasel heads can be cut and sprayed to use as christmas decorations, so I have left them in situ for the moment and then I will try to do something fancy with them nearer the festive season.  I have also collected some seed from the flowers, no idea why as there is no way I have room for more than one of these monsters! But this one will be allowed to stay, even if it is a room hogger.

Snapdragons - bizarre hybrids, small but colourful

A plain yellow one,  I was virtually laying on the ground to take this

Snapdragons, or antirrhinum to give them their proper name, are the quintessential cottage garden plant. So english, so very english.  But so passed me by until now.  Before growing them I knew of their existence, but genuinely don't think I could have identified one, or even remember seeing one before.  But I knew the name, so during the great seed splurge of last year I threw a packet in and gave them a go.

Yellow with just the odd splattering of pink, very dainty

From memory I would say the seedlings took forever to get going, but overall I think the seed to plant growing experience was fairly straight-forward.   They were really really tiny for ages so I was a bit afraid to move them outside.  In hindsight I think they could have gone out earlier, I was just being overprotective.  I put the seedlings outside at the beginning of April and started planting them out into the bed at the beginning of May.  Flowers first appeared some time in June.

This one looks like it has been caught in quite the spray of pink, but its very
attractive

I really love one element of snapdragons, and dislike another.  First the dislike - they are so squat! Not great for adding height to the border thats for sure.  Maybe its just my variety but they haven't grown taller than ten inches maximum and all the flowers stalks are very tightly packed together.  They sit there small and unassuming amongst much more statuesque plants.  I guess you need low colour, but they have such short stems for cutting!

This one is just the most beautiful colour, not quite sure how it ended up
in a packet of so-called marbled ones

Anyways this is completely offset by the colour.  Oh the colour!  So bright and fun, I was going to say there is nothing subtle about the colour, but actually some of mine have very sophisticated gradiations of colour.  But some are just unashamedly fun.  I bought a marbled mix - Bizarre Hybrids, so the colours tend to have one strong base colour - generally yellow which is flexed with various amounts of pink.  Think child splatter paintings or those marbled papers you can make by putting paint in water and placing paper on it.  Maybe they just appeal to me because of my art background.  I love a good mess, but I also love a bright zingy yellow, and these are zingy.  I also have a few more sophisticated ones, such as a orange-purple one thats really beautiful and a lovely dark pinky-red.  I think the colours definitely make up for the squatty structure, they are some of the prettiest coloured flowers I can think of.

And shock it to you pink, although only the one head

I also saw some on a visit to a nearby National Trust property and the colours were fabulous.  A really intense red and the most beautiful peachy-pink shades.  Definitely feeling the need to branch out and get some more colours.  After all they don't take up much room being pigmy plants, and can be cut back when the flower spikes finish to flower again.  I can work with the awkwardness as a cut flower for some of that colour.

Really like the red one on the left, but love love love this flame coloured one
 on the right

This one looks like a nice fruit salad, which is a sweet, might just be an english
thing, in which case google it

The mother can manipulate the flower heads so that they move.  She calls them bunny ears, because when you press a certain part 'bunny ears' move.  Can I get it to work?  No.  Doesn't matter how I grapple with them, I just can't get it to work.  Not that you're meant to get physical with flowers, but I keep trying.

A little line up of suspects, showing the colour variations