Winter Brassicas

Brassicas are quite big and take up a lot of space, so we can't plant many in the veggie patch. Even with all year round growing and harvesting, there isn't anywhere near enough space in the veggie patch to keep us fed with brassicas.

The simple solution is to use all the tomato pots and buckets in the summer, and for winter brassicas in the winter. We'll use the compost from the potato sacks and tomato buckets for the winter brassicas.

So last week I sowed another 4 trays of brassicas:
24 Cauliflower (All Year Round)
12 Cabbage Kilaton
12 Kale (Black Tuscany)
12 Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli (Rudolph)
12 Late Purple Sprouting Broccoli
8 Cabbage (Durham Early)
8 Cabbage (?)
8 Cabbage (?)

The Black Tuscany Kale is winter hardy so can live outside without a problem. It produces large black leaves that can be used like cabbage. The leaves are "cut and come again", so we can pick what we need when we need it. We can also pick, chop, blanche and freeze leaves if we get enough.

There are 4 varieties of cabbage, all of which can live outside, and should mature at different times. With some luck, we should have cabbage throughout the winter. But my luck says that they'll all come at the same time ....

The AYR cauliflower is probably best either in the greenhouse or a coldframe / cloche. I have a greenhouse heater and I'm planning to run that throughout the winter. However, there is only so much we can keep in the greenhouse, so we won't get many cauliflowers in there. I'll have to look for some clear plastic sheeting to build a cloche.

There are two varieties of PSB which should give us PSB from December through to May.

More Sowings

I love this time of year: the sun starts shining, seeds start sprouting, I try to keep up with digging, the sowings and potting on and planting out ....

Lots of seeds are sprouting in the greenhouse - all the cauliflowers have started, some spinach, a couple of cucumbers etc.

This weekend we've sown:
8 Tomato Golden Sunrise
8 Tomato White Cherry
8 Tomato Roma

8 Tomato Harbinger
8 Tomato Pomodoro
8 Tomato Tigrella

19 Sweetcorn Sweet Bounty

8 Pak Choi Rubi
8 Lettuce Mixed Salad Leaves
4 Aubergine Black Beauty

4 Pepper Hot Caribbean Blend
4 Pepper Heatwave
4 Pepper Inferno
4 Chilli Cayenne
4 Chilli Hot Stuff
4 Chilli Twightlight

Large pot Leek Bandit
2 large pots Leek Musselburgh

1 half size seed tray Lambs Lettuce

Small trough Beetroot Boltardy

Large trough Carrot Chantenay Red
Small trough Carrot Purple Haze
Small trough Carrot Charlemagne
2 small troughs Carrot Autumn King 2

24 Red Cabbage Kalibos

8 Cauliflower Violetta
16 Cauliflower All Year Round

24 Kale Dwarf Green Curled

4 Sweet Pepper Jumbo
20 Sweet Pepper WorldBeater

1 Ginger root into an 8inch pot

Phew!