Cut and Come Again

The most  relevant question for any gardener must be,

 'What is in the garden at the moment?' 

or even better, 

'What are you eating from the garden at the moment?'

This is something that non-gardeners don't know: it is one thing to grow it, another to eat it and you are always looking to bring the two together as perfectly as possible.
I planted  purple sprouting brocolli in late summer for the first time and when it started to throw out these spindly shoots I wondered if I would bother with it again. Cancel that thought.

 

Run over the plants with a sharp knife, or snap the shoots off,  and harvest the lot. Maybe about 5 days later do the same again and on and on and on  it goes, throwing out new shoots from nowhere. And in the meantime, the price of brocolli and cauliflower in the supermarket are just about equal to a small chicken. Timing perfect.
 I chop bunches into three even lengths to make it easy to eat, steam it, add a little butter, s & p. Children eat it; the highest recommendation.
The purple goes to a grey green as it cooks; not as bright green as brocolli. It is strange that any cooking water that is drained off is purple.

 

Pickings are lean in the garden otherwise, in case you are imagining a self-satisfied smile, although I am beginning to remember all the fairly edibles I haven't documented, like the 'Onion Weed Experiment': Failed. That's something to look forward to hearing about...
Meanwhile, parsely, chives, mint and thyme are the most useful remnants, and the rhubarb. I would take photos but the camera's batteries have just fainted on me so that's all for next time and I will also put up an after shot of the hebe massacre below.

I think this front garden was about 10 years old this year.  In that time the cabbage trees left their neighbours in the dust,  the hebes grew old and lost their vigour and some plants like the miniature toi-toi died and threw out new shoots. I have dug out this hebe stump  in the foreground, although remarkably it did come away, and replaced it with something size appropriate that won't need annual pruning to keep it in check. Of course I thought I was doing that the first time.