Survivors

It was a particularly harsh winter for most of us, and sadly some plants on the plot that should have overwintered seem to have bitten the dust.

We have just one Purple Sprouting Broccoli plant left, and not looking particularly enthusiastic about it:

And one of the 'Everlasting' cauliflowers is gone, while the growing tip of the other seems to have rotten away to leave a dead crater at the top of the stem. Not sure what this means... Luckily we have a couple of these plants spare, safe but pot-bound at home, so I have replaced the dead one and we'll wait and see what the other does.

It's not all bad though - we were surprised to find some leftover beetroots that withstood the winter in perfect condition! Time to make more chutney! And our parsnips and leeks (which we're still harvesting!) have done stupendously well, and continue to be reliable crops on our plot. I should have photographed the leeks before we ate all the biggest ones! But these are still very reasonably sized, healthy and delicious.

I was pleased to find one of my primroses popping up in a corner. I planted a few but last year they seemed to be losing the battle against the grass. There's no sign of the others.

I thought my perennial sweet peas had lost against either weeds or slugs too, but here they are, struggling away. They were sown last year and never got very big. As soon as I can I will set up some decent support for them and hopefully it won't be too long before we have gorgeous flowers climbing up our compost heap! They don't look like much at the moment though...

Finally, here's our chard making a valiant comeback - hopefully I'll get a few more handfuls of leaves before it goes to flower.

 

But that's enough about last year's plants... Next, this year's new sowings!