Is this Winter?

Purple sprouting broccoli

This time last year we had the 'Beast from the East', with temperatures here down to -14°C. This year could not be more different - temperatures up to 20°C with a clear blue sky. Things are coming on very early as a result. Our daffodils are in bloom a month early. Mind you, we are not over winter yet, so planting tender crops must wait! I fully expect snow in March, or at least more frosts.
The picture shows my purple sprouting broccoli, which is doing well. I picked some this morning, together with the first rhubarb of the year. I had put my wheelbarrow upside down over this to protect it from the worst of the weather, and it looks good. Two things to look forward to this evening!
I  have also just planted spring shallots and onion sets. The winter onion sets still look good, but of course when you plant them you cannot say how the winter will be, and how many will survive. So now I have lots of onions!
I've also planted some carrot  and leek seeds, and broad beans and kalettes at home. I'd never heard of kalettes until recently, but they are like flowering sprouts, ie instead of making sprouts with tight buds, they make much more open buds. They taste like sweet, nutty, sprouts - or crispy seaweed if roasted. Delicious.
Also starting early are strawberries, so I've been tidying these up. Next it will be feeding with blood, fish and bone, then mulching with a layer of chippings to keep the fruit away from the slugs.

January

This is what January means to me - cold, wet, dark, little happening. At least we are past the shortest day, although the dull weather means that it is still dark very early in the afternoon.

A time for manuring, adding compost and digging. Much of this is done now, and practically all the vegetables have been harvested. I dug up the last of the leeks and parsnips last week. The only thing left is purple sprouting broccoli, which should start to come on next month.

Because I took out most things, I can now finish the tidying up before the growing season starts. Firstly there is weeding (why do they never stop growing, even in the depths of winter?) then manuring and finishing off the digging. There are a few garlic cloves growing (they always benefit from a nice cold spell) plus some winter onion sets, but that's it. No seeds being planted until at least next month.
So I'll leave it there, and resume in the spring.

All very sad!

 It's all very sad at this time of year. The days are short and cold, and sometimes like this - wet and foggy!
Most of the vegetables have finished, and have been dug up and discarded, but there is still some purple sprouting broccoli which should yield in the spring. At the moment, I am digging leeks (which did very well, and should be OK in the ground over winter) and parsnips (which also did quite well, although all have many roots, and most are a very strange shape) and pulling the last of the carrots.
So it's down to manuring, adding compost and digging. I've done a lot, but there is still a bit to do, and some that can't be done until the 

remaining vegetables have finished. I've also finished putting chippings over the paths to a depth of 3 or 4 inches, and done most of the weeding, a never-ending chore!
Not much to report then. The next thing will be the purple sprouting broccoli, followed by (hopefully) a good strawberry crop, but as ever, it will all depend on the weather.

Strawberries

Strawberries are perennials - they live for several years - and fruiting gets better until they are 3 or 4 years old. It is best to replace them then, to avoid decreasing yields. There are two ways of doing this, expensive and cheap, although the cheap method involves rather more labour. You can buy new plants, or you can propagate your own from the old plants. Today I started on the latter. After fruiting, strawberry plants put out runners, which is their method of vegetative reproduction. The new plant is part of the old, so will always come true, unlike the seeds, which can give variable plants depending on how they were pollinated. By August, each plant will have put out a number of runners. Some will just look like long tendrils, but small plants will be growing, and rooting themselves, along and at the end of, the runners. So I chose a dozen of the better looking runners and potted them up whilst still attached to the parent plant. These will root in the 3" pots that I used, and next spring can be cut off the parents and planted where I want them. The pots were sunk into the ground and watered well. All other runners were cut off and discarded. The small plants will take a year or two to establish and grow before they fruit as well as the older plants, but by growing on runners every year, the yield can be maintained. I also weeded the strawberry plot, which was long overdue!
Because of the dry weather - it did not rain at all for about 9 weeks, until 2 weeks ago - a lot of things either finished early or did not mature properly. Broccoli was a good example of this. Last year, it was excellent, with plump, tender heads, but this year it has basically gone to seed without heading up. Runner beans all came in a rush, but have stabilised somewhat now it is wetter. I have been watering courgettes nearly every day, and they have loved the weather. I grew an extra plant this year, but needn't have done so, as we now have more than 20 in the fridge, despite  using them every day, in one form or another! I've also been picking beetroot, spring onions, carrots and French beans. Nearly all my potatoes are in store, and I have started picking sweetcorn - delicious! They were 'knee high by the fourth of July' as they should have been, but they also love the hot weather, and have come very early, at least two weeks. All of my white onions are now drying off, but my red onions are a little bit later. It's our autumn show in 3 weeks time, but I suspect that nearly everything will have finished by then.

Busy picking!

It's midsummer, and we have not had any rain at all for at least 6 weeks. Everything is parched, especially as the weather has been so hot. There are cracks in the soil that you can lose your hand in. Despite this, and only because I have been watering nearly every day, I have been harvesting a great variety of produce : potatoes (I dug all my Vivaldi a few weeks ago, but still have Sarpo Mira in the ground) courgettes, runner beans, French beans, carrots, lettuce, beetroot, cabbage and broccoli. Broad beans have just about finished - I have left a few pods on to mature for seeds - and peas never really started, despite me sowing them several times. Sweetcorn will be ready in a month or so, as will onions, some of which have already started bending over. Some of the excess produce - broad beans, runner beans - has gone in the freezer, but at the moment we could live on vegetables. There are lots of them, and they are so much better than what you can buy, being ultra-fresh, extremely tasty and grown without artificial inputs.

The fruits of success

My first root of potatoes this year. These are Vivaldi - extremely tasty - and the yield is good. Very little slug damage so far, although no doubt this will change as the season progresses.
I am still picking strawberries. 23 lb so far, which is not bad, but nowhere near as good as last year's exceptional crop, when I had picked 48 lb at this stage. I have been replacing old plants with new, and I put some fertiliser down earlier in the year, so it is probably down to the lack of rain this year. I have watered them occasionally, but we need a lot more rain - the strawberries are forming but not swelling as much as last year.
Also picking broad beans when they are about finger sized, and eating them 'mange tout' rather than just the beans, which is delicious.
Yesterday I picked a cabbage as well. Not very large, but no damage whatsoever, and a half of it was plenty for the two of us.
I have, despite the weather, planted out both leeks and sweetcorn. These have all needed watering of course, but an early problem has arisen with the sweetcorn : one that has never happened before and that I was not expecting. There is a mole undermining them! I would rather not trap it (but I will happily trap any mice that come after the cobs) so will have to try to deter it. Apparently mothballs pushed down into their runs is quite effective (they don't like the smell) but if anyone has any better ideas ...

Ready for summer

Everything (nearly, more later) is growing well. The fine weather that was forecast actually happened, so I have nearly everything in the ground. The only things to go in now  are the leeks (still a bit small) and the sweetcorn.

I've started picking strawberries - just a few so far, and they are a week later than last year - and the first broad beans should be ready next week.

The one thing that is slow is the peas. I had zero germination early in the year, so bought a new pack of seed and tried again. A few have germinated, but seem to be really struggling. Disappointing, as they were excellent last year.

Of course, it wouldn't be England if I didn't complain about the weather. Yes, it's been warm, but rain has been lacking over the last few weeks, so I've had to water, especially the seeds and seedlings, quite regularly. Other than that, it's been weeding, of which there is always some to do!