Page 21 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2021

Harvest time for the last of our July sowings
Following the same theme as our last couple of articles, we wanted to share what will be the last in this particular series. As a reminder, these articles have followed our progress with a number of crops that we sowed back in July 2020.
Following our harvest reports for
the majority of those crops in previous magazines, we have the last plants to report back on in this article. As always, to provide a bit of context, this article is being written on 31 January, albeit it will be April by the time you read it! And as we’ve said in the previous articles, we are in Essex, where temperatures are typically warmer than further North, and so we cannot guarantee the same results that we have experienced will apply everywhere. Not that any of us can predict the weather in any case!
Winter brassicas
As a reminder, the varieties we are growing this year are as follows:
• “Tundra”, “Consulate”, “Endeavour”, “Prudence” and “Supervoy” cabbages;
• “Trafalgar” and “Brodie” Brussels sprouts;
• “Rudolph” and “Red Admiral” broccoli; and
• “Ironman” and “Typhoon” Calabrese.
As reported in the last magazine, the Calabrese were just starting to form heads in
early November (slightly later than expected by about two weeks). However, these
went on to produce some decent sized heads which we enjoyed eating throughout November. And we were lucky not to get many harsh frosts as they were developing, so got some nice broccoli heads out of these plants.
As you can see from the photo, the cauliflowers also produced some decent
sized heads at about the same time, and we were still managing to harvest quite an array of different colourful vegetables given the time of year.
The cabbages and Brussels sprouts haven’t been as successful as we’ve had
in prior years. We think this is because they didn’t get a chance to make strong enough plants before the cold weather kicked in. So we’ve made a note to sow them a couple
of weeks earlier in future! However, we have recently started to harvest some of both
and are enjoying them just the same. The cabbage heads just haven’t got as large as we may have liked. You can see that the rest of the plants are still growing away in the garden though, so we’ve still got a few more bits of home grown veg to see us through the rest of winter and into spring.
Last but not least is the broccoli which you can see from the photo is just starting
to form heads. Although we really like purple sprouting broccoli, we do find that it is a less efficient plant than the likes of “Ironman”
and “Typhoon” as the main head is smaller and then the main crop comes from the shoots that you take after the main head has been cut. And these shoots are not brilliant at all coming at the same time! Therefore, especially when the weather isn’t great, it’s
a bit harder to get enough for a feed before other shoots have gone past their best/been ruined by the frost!
Simply Vegetables 21