Winter's final toll?

[toffeeman]

I sowed early purple sprouting brocoli and in the end had nowhere for them last year. As the seedlings clung on to life I stuck them in the ground at the end of summer. Several have lasted the winter and are a foot to 2 feet tall and appear quite healthy. However there's no signs of any spears. I'm under the impression they should be cropping by now and assume its the winter conditions/poor start. Should I still give them a chance or whip them out?

[Johnboy]

Hi Toffeeman,
It very much depends on the variety you have sown but I would leave then there exactly as they are. Ultimately you will get a crop.
I have grown Broccoli in very harsh conditions in other years and they may be late but have never failed to materialise.
JB.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Yes, don't give up on them, mine have just got going again and are sending out lots of new purple shoots. I was thinking about throwing them out last week. Perhaps they got the message.

[Primrose]

I'm looking for shoots from my big-headed pom-pom purple alliums to appear, but so far have only spotted shoots from a couple of bulbs. I lost quite a few of them after the previous winter's snow, and it now looks as if more of them have disappeared.

I've got some seeds though. Can anybody tell me, if I sowed some in seed trays, how long it would take for them to grow into viable plants and bulbs. I suspect if I go this route I might be in for a long haul, as none of the naturally dispersed seed into the soil in situ ever seems to have resulted in new plants.

[PLUMPUDDING]

I've no idea how long they will take to grow into a decent plant from seed, but you've just solved something I've been puzzling about. There are hundreds of what look like onion seedlings coming up in the rockery and I've just remembered that is where I left a bunch of the allium seedheads for a flower arranging friend to pick up last autumn. I'll pot a few up and see if and how long it takes them to make anything useable.

[Primrose]

Plum Pudding That's interesting because it seems to prove that the seeds survived the winter sub zero temperatures in your garden, yet not in mine. However, I must inspect my border more closely just in case a few seeds have survived and are now germinating. It's a rather shady borded at this time of year when the sun is still low in the sky, so perhaps the soil hasn't warmed up sufficiently yet.

[PLUMPUDDING]

The rockery is facing south east, so gets plenty of sun, Primrose, so perhaps you will get a few germinating when they warm up a bit. I'm still surprised so much has survived more or less unscathed as it got down to -14C some nights.