These remind me of little birds peeping for food, actually, emergent lupins; planted a month ago in the glasshouse. At this time of year, indoors or out, growth is either nil or death by freezing. I have only really grasped the fact that in this climate there are only two crops a year and one of those is a cover crop that will germinate and grow through the coldest months.
It seems painfully obvious that winter crops need to be fully grown here before winter starts. I didn't quite manage that. For celery and cabbage I bought plants in early February which bought me time but the brussel sprouts should have had a lot more growing and the Kale, well I'll save that for a blog of shame.
The brussel sprouts, freshly shampooed and glistening. The spray had to be used in 24 hours and the recipe made 5 litres which even for me was too much. Next time I'll freeze half. It's active ingredients were chilli, garlic and onions and there was speculation that rather than annihilate, I might instead incite some sort of mexican party. No sombreros to be seen and the aphids turned from grey to black so I consider it a success. Each leaf has a sprout in its armpit until you get to the little cabbage on top which is the last thing to eat.
Getting back to the two crops per season, that main crop needs to go in as early as possible and the fennel also went in too late. I finally got one beautiful fennel, the only one that didn't bolt to seed and had to pick it because it was beginning to freeze. Now what? Well I feel like we need a culinary success here to justify growing it again. Just don't quite know what form that will take. Have used some in a salad to get the benefit of fresh, there's nothing like it but then you knew I would say that.
