Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Our leeks are smaller than usual as we were late planting them out as we waited for our new raised beds to be constructed.
It’s rather late to be harvesting them but they’re fine. It’s encouraging to have such a good crop from the revamped veg beds.
They worked well in our leek, courgette and Boursin cheese tart.
It’s been a beautiful day, sunny and settled; perfect for making progress with the veg beds. We’re concentrating on getting our failsafe regular crops in. Broads beans last week, Vivaldi potatoes, beetroot and perpetual spinach today. We also sowed a row of radishes but I wouldn’t describe them as failsafe, perhaps because if they do take and don’t get perforated by flea beetle we invariably miss them at their best.
We’ve cleared all three of our raised beds including the one with the leeks in. The freezer is now full to capacity after Barbara managed to fit in several bags of chopped leeks. It’s hardly the time of year for leek soup so hopefully we’ll find something else that we can make with them.
The leek bed might be looking neglected and weedy but it’s still productive. Looking down the garden I could see that some of the plants were starting to bolt, starting to send up flowering shoots that are tough and solid.
The garden shades colour that I used for the raised beds is a pretty good match for them.
These leeks gave us our lunch – two bowls of leek and potato soup – with a bit left over for tomorrow lunch and we stashed four bags of chopped leeks in the freezer, enough for another twelve portions.
We’ve got an impressive crop of leeks but some are going to seed and there’s mildew on the leaves. Time to make some soup and bag some ready-prepared in the freezer.
The back lawn is more moss than grass down by the pond and the pond itself has been in need of clearing of duckweed since the summer.
Come to think of it, every bit of the garden needs a clear-out for the winter, including the greenhouse, where a few ripe tomatoes still hang on the vines.
The big black and white tomcat swaggers through the meadow. A new addition to his territory is a bonfire night rocket. Not quite as impressive as landing a probe on a comet.
Mid-November and there’s still a lot in flower and a lot of spring flowering shrubs and flowers appearing early.
Most poppies have seedheads that resemble pepper pots; the Welsh poppy has slots. They remind me of Gaudi’s cathedral towers.