The winter garden
In amongst all our DIY (which we’ve been too busy to document in any timely fashion, sorry!), I’m very happy to report that my broccoli experiment has been a success! They’ve survived shallow soil (via a box on deck), caterpillar attacks, and an awfully cold winter to now sport wonderful “broccoli-looking things” on top! Yum!
Even the very small plants have now got tasty purple sprouting broccoli at their tips, so we’ll have a fine feast at some point this week! As you can tell by my deplorable lack of vocabulary, I am not a seasoned gardener of any sort. I tend to go by the “stick it in the ground and see what happens” school of thought, and it wasn’t until midway through last year that I searched the internet and discovered you have to let broccoli live an entire year before you can eat it…
So round about December I finally planted some daffodil bulbs I found at What!!! for £1 (no, really, the shop really is called that, with three exclamation points), which have now blossomed into my all-time favourite flower, just in time for my birthday next week!
More on last weekend’s crazy DIY-a-thon once we get some photos…
Mom, 20 March 2009, 22:03:
I’ve never heard of letting it in the ground for a year, but I do know that a good frost on broccoli will sweeten it. Of course, in PA it naturally gets killed with the several months of below freezing temperatures.
VallyP, 22 March 2009, 19:26:
It’s lovely to see the bulbs coming up isn’t it? I can’t wait for the geraniums to appear in the market myself. Well done with your broccoli though! I’d never have thought of trying to grow it on board myself, but you’ve inspired me to try now ;-)
Tami and Larry in Alaska, 9 December 2009, 15:21:
Hello from
Alaska, USA
We have a boat and thought a lot about living year round on it,,