Gourmet Treats

 The garden is still under water, but we had a couple of days without rain at the weekend so I put on my galoshes, sowester, seaboots and fishing trousers to venture out to see what's out there.

 My lovely Purple Sprouting Broccoli 'Rudolph' is just perfect.  The tips are maturing a little like calabrese, but many of the small purple sprouts are ready now.

 Rudolph is one of the early varieties, and I did manage to get the plants in the ground in Summer this time, so they have made good progress.  In past years I have left the planting till much later for a crop in March and April. Quite good for successional sowing because these will be finished in a few weeks.

Another casualty of the flooding is my family apple tree.  Don't worry about the dark patch, that is just sticky stuff I put around the trunk in Autumn to stop the apple moths climbing up to lay eggs in the buds. No maggoty apples for me.  The problem here is that because the tree has been underwater for months now, it has started to lean over. You can see one of the roots at the base is visible.  I will have to gradually right it with some soft ties... perhaps stockings!! Every Matron has a good supply of stockings!