Winter Greens!

Things are really slowing down on my patch at the moment. It won't be long before I'm blogging about 'my favourite trug' for want of a better subject. But there's still lots of life in the garden. I've had my best crop of parsley ever this year! I had always assumed that because it is a dark green, lush colour that it might like growing in a damp shady corner. This year I planted flat leaved and curled parsley in a raised bed in full sun! The bed had been very well manured each year for previous crops and it had a deep root run. Amazing stuff! I kept thinking of excuses to eat parsley all Summer. Any other ideas, anyone?

A few Winter lettuce seedlings and Swis Chard seedlings have been planted in a large pot on the patio. I must have a mouthfull of Winter greens every so often!

I left the last crop of Runner Beans to go to seed, it is such an easy crop to grow here in my London clay soil, it would have preferred a bit more rain this year, but this variety St George did very well. - But not well enough to fork out for these expensive F1 hybrid seeds next year. I think I'll use home saved ones next year. Not much difference.

I think I'll leave these sweetcorn stalks to stand in the garden all Winter. They just provide a bit of shape and interest over the dull and dingy Winter months. The birds like to perch in them too!

Just look at these Bramleys! If you leave them to ripen for a few weeks more in the sunlight, you get the most amazing colour! You can see here why it is a good idea to thin the apples down to singles - much too close to each other, critters have taken up residence in between them! - well, that's two more for the pie then!