Week 52+24 - Bed DD5

Week 52+21 - Bed DD5

Week 52+7 - Bed DD5

By far the most productive bed in the plots at this time of year.

New leaves of Pentland Brig Kale continue to sprout...

... we have hardly made a dent in the Thousand Headed kale ...
... and we harvested a substantial crop of secondary shoots from the Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

Week 52+5 - Bed DD5

We have been harvesting quite a bit out of these beds over the past few weeks. The curly kale in the foreground continues to sprout masses of leaves. The Purple Sprouting Broccoli has produced a few central flower stalks - one of the best treats late winter! The Thousand Headed kale at the far end of the bed has produced an enormous amount of foliage. Although not as tender as some of the other types of kale, this variety produces numerous large shoots that can be harvested whole.

Week 49 - Bed DD5

We have harvested most of the larger leaves of the kale plants in the foreground ...
... leaving a mass of smaller leaves that will continue to grow.

Some of the sprouts are ready for harvesting.

Week 47 - Bed DD5

The brassicas in this bed continue to grow and develop and we have started to harvest some of the kale leaves in the foreground.

The Brussels Sprout plants have not grown very large but the sprouts have started to form and will be ready to start harvesting in a few weeks.

Week 40 - Bed DD5

The plants are getting visibly larger by the week!

A few chicory plants remain at the end of the bed. It does not seem that anyone is interested in harvesting them.

Each of the Thousand Headed Kale plants is about 80-90cm in diameter, and over 120cm tall.

The Red Sear Sprouting Broccoli plants continue to be eaten by caterpillars, and we keep killing them - they really should be visited more than once a week). We removed one of the weaker plants (bottom left) a few weeks ago as it was being overshadowed by the huge kale plants, and another one (top right) is quite stunted. The other two plants are doing reasonably well despite being continually eaten.

Two of the four Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli plants are doing well,and the other two are smaller and more infected by caterpillars.

The Pentland Brig plants are virtually unaffected by the caterpillars, and all four plants are doing well.

Week 38 - Bed DD5

The plants in this bed are starting to form a solid canopy, with very little of the soil visible.

The curly leaves of the Pentland Brig Kale form a solid mass at the south end of the bed.

The Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli plants are more compact, with broader flat leaves.

This Red Spear Sprouting Broccoli plant has been eaten by caterpillars, which we removed by hand. Depending on the attitude of the person involved, some were squished on the spot, and others were carried a distance away from the gardens in hopes that they would not find their way back.

The Thousand Headed Kale plants have grown quite large.

Week 33 - Bed DD5

The plants in this bed are coming along quite well.

The sprouting broccoli plants are looking stronger than they did a few weeks ago.

The Thousand Headded Kale is a strong upright plant.

Week 31 - Bed DD5

Six weeks after transplanting, most of the kale and sprouting broccoli plants are fairly strong and healthy.

The Pentland Brig Kale plant is already quite big, but it does look a bit pale.

The sprouting broccoli plants are more compact but still looking healthy.

The chicory that we left at the end of the bed is getting big, but so far no one who has sampled a leaf can handle the bitterness. We will leave them to continue to grow and hopefully they will produce a blanched heart that will be more palatable.

Week 26 - Bed DD5

The kale and sprouting broccoli plants transplants are doing well, helped by the cool conditions and rain. It takes a while for the transplants to recover from the loss of roots, and sunny dry conditions would have stressed the plants.

Week 25 - Bed DD5 Planting

Because none of the plants in this bed have been doing well, we decided to remove everything (except a few chicory plants) and transplant a variety of large overwintering brassicas instead:

• Thousand Headded Kale (2 plants) - a tough, extremely vigorous variety growing up to 1.2m
• Red Spear Sprouting Broccoli (4 plants) - a high yield early variety, harvest from mid Feb with many side shoots
• Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli (4 plants) - early variety producing many purple spears from early March
• Pentland Brig Kale (4 plants) - a very frost hardy and heavy cropping leafy winter veg with a distinct flavour, with leafy side shoots and spears like broccoli

In order to thin out the brassica seedbed (EX6), additional kale and sprouting plants were transferred to this bed as a temporary holding.

Freshly transplanted kale plant.

Week 25 - Bed DD5

The rocket (centre) grew well initially, but the spinach (left), kohl rabi (right) and Minowase radish (not shown) either failed to germinate or didn't grow well.

The rocket has been eaten by flea beetles, and a few of the plants are starting to bolt.

The chicory appears to be growing well, despite the wrong conditions, but is very bitter, indicating that it has not had the right growing conditions. All of the plants in this bed prefer cool weather and have been stressed or failed to germinate under recent conditions. Extra water would have helped.

Week 24 - Bed DD5

Five weeks after planting, only the rocket and chicory have germinated successfully.

Week 19 - Bed DD5 Planting

This bed was double dug this week, incorporating some chopped sod between the two soil layers, and into it we planted a variety of fast growing crops (listed from north to south):

• Sugar Loaf (Pain de Sucre) Chicory (30 stations covering 20% of the bed) - a large leafy self blanching variety, excellent winter salad crop with a bitter taste
• Matador (Atlanta) Spinach (15 stations covering 20% of the bed) - an all year round variety with dark green leaves
• Rucola Coltivata Rocket/Arugula (25 stations covering 20% of the bed) - a refined variety with rich dark leaves and wonderful spicy taste
• Larno Kohl Rabi (20 stations covering 25% of the bed) - a pale green variety with swollen edible stems, which can be grown outside from spring to autumn
• Mooli Minowase Radish (25 stations covering 15% of the bed) - a long large crisp tender white radish variety with a sweet mild flavour, which is very quick growing

All of these crops will do well if we get cooler conditions with more rain than we have had recently.