Week 27 - Bed 9 Planting

We dug up all of the brassica transplants out of this bed and selected the healthiest plants for transplanting back into the bed at wider spacing, keeping in mind that the turnip will likely be harvested within the next few weeks.

We transplanted three plants of each vegetable, listed from foreground to background in the photo above (south to north):

• Waltman Calabrese Broccoli - autumn maturing variety, with a small central head followed by large number of side shoots
• Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli - early variety producing many purple spears from early March
• Darkmar 21 Brussels Sprouts - a early variety producing large, dark green sprouts in Oct-Dec
• Pentland Brig Kale - a very frost hardy and heavy cropping leafy winter veg with a distinct flavour, with leafy side shoots and spears like broccoli

There were many transplants left over, some of which immediately went to another garden and a few were temporarily heeled in to save them in case space became available in a neighboring garden - see the clump in the foreground of the photo above.

The weather conditions were damp, cool and overcast when we transplanted the young plants, but the sun came out shortly after and the plants stated to wilt because the disturbed roots could not suck up the amount of water that the plant needed. These plants will recover with a good watering and will be helped by the cool wet conditions that are forecast.

We sowed significantly more brassica plants that we had space for, We could have sowed only a half row of each and still had enough. The remaining mix of brassica seedlings that we did not have space for were steamed for dinner!