What are you harvesting today?

I expect the caulis got the sequence before Fibonacci discovered it! I look forward to examining the spiral when / if I manage to grow any.

I had great success with summer purple broccoli last year - I have just taken out the last stem and let the chickens have it for a treat.

Can I ask you about broccoli, FloBear? My husband has just discovered that he really likes Purple Sprouting Brocc - I have cooked the supermarket sort of broccoli for years but he's not that keen. However, the farmer on whose land the archery club my other half is in meets at gave him a bag of Purple Sprouting a few weeks ago, which he really liked, so I want to grow some. I did try about ten years ago, but hadn't been prepared for how tall the plants were, so they didn't have proper netting over them and consequently became infested with caterpillars,and completely unusable. Have you had the same problem, or have you found a shorter variety?

I tried the traditional purple sprouting a couple of times but as it's biennial, I could never look after it well enough for long enough. I agree with Mr Dandelion that it's much nicer than the overblown green heads of calabrese that we see everywhere.

The Summer purple that I found last year came to fruition the same year it was planted and I had little trouble from caterpillars or any other beasties until very late on when the Small White butterflies found a couple of the plants. However, last year was exceptional weather and I'm not naive enough to think I'll always escape without any problems.

My plants grew about a metre tall and with regualr picking kept producing until November then a couple of the plants that I hadn't got rid of started producing again this spring. I've dug them up as a chicken treat now.

A couple of years ago I was given some psb plants but I didn't know there was any such thing as a summer variety. I was expecting them to produce the following spring but they were dead by then and I thought I had failed miserably - now I know differently.
I've got a kale that produces spring sprouts and it self seeds if I let a bit flower.

What variety was it, FloBear?

The packet I have is from Thompson and Morgan. It's called Broccoli, Summer Purple. There are 125 seeds in the packet. If anyone would like some, there are plenty to spare.

I'd love to try some - just a few would be lovely. I'll PM you my address. Thank you!

I like the sound of them too - but I don't know when I am next going to be planting seeds, so will give them a miss.

FloBear wrote:The packet I have is from Thompson and Morgan. It's called Broccoli, Summer Purple. There are 125 seeds in the packet. If anyone would like some, there are plenty to spare.

Remember there is a whole new area of the forum for this kind of thing, if anyone else has spares to offer or a wishlist ...

The Seed Exchange

Thanks, CH. The discussion emerged out of harvesting which is why it ended up here!

Rhubarb is coming g up well now.
I saw a suggestion of combining rhubarb and raspberries. If you've never tried it I would recommend it. It is really the most delicious combination - I've always got some frozen raspberries. Probably the best crumble I've ever made.

That sounds wonderful. I may just have to take some raspberries out of my frozen 'emergency summer pudding mix'!!

You remind me that I must drop in at the lotty and see if my new rhubarb plant has survived. The last one just vanished !

Also want to see if my asparagus rescue has worked - the old bed had run out of steam so I transplanted the odd bit to the lotty, hoping to give it a new lease of life.

Don't want to rain on your parade, Ploshkin, but I have to say that rhubarb and strawberry is even nicer. I freeze some of my summer crop of strawberries specifically for that purpose.

I have done rhubarb and strawberry on your recommendation Freebird but I think the raspberry combination trumps it.

I think we might have to put this one down to different tastes ... now we all need to do a blind tasting and see which we prefer

My rhubarb's doing well but I'll have to wait a few months for my raspberries and strawberries before I can do a taste test!

We've just had a big bowl of lovely strawberries, the first of the season from the polytunnel.

I have strawberries turning red but have failed to net them so will probaby not get many. The 'ground cover' strawberry plants for the birds generally get noshed by Maisie-the-Westie!

I planted a new row of strawberries in the autumn - all I can say is that I must have chosen a very late variety, as they are still flowering. There are lots of flowers though, so it's looking hopeful for a good harvest. I am needing to pick and eat spring cabbage though, as the couple I put in last autumn are growing over the starwberries a bit!

Yesterday I had a small handful of mangetout and my first c******te (is it too early for the C word?) from the polytunnel.

Ploshkin wrote:Yesterday I had a small handful of mangetout and my first c******te (is it too early for the C word?) from the polytunnel.

We have been eating asparagus. Going to miss that when we move.

Yes, it's definitely too early for the c*******e word. We're still selling plants at the two-leaf stage in the nursery!

I may have asked you this before, Freebird (if so, apologies, it's my age!)- when you planted the asparagus bed, did you use manure? The information I've seen recommends animal manure but I don't have access to any. Would garden compost (incorporating chicken manure) be sufficient for good fertility?

Tbh Dandelion, I'm not sure I used anything. The crowns arrived when I was suffering from flu, and they were sitting around for so long that I was just desperate to get them in the ground.

Until I discovered Charles Dowding's no-dig, the plot would get a bit of mulch when I remembered. The last two seasons though, with Mr D's recommended thickness of mulch, I have had the best crops ever.

I think the answer to your question is that they will grow regardless of what you use, but you will have better crops if you can provide an annual thick mulch of something. No idea if animal manure is better than garden compost, but your suggestion sounds pretty good to me.