Kitchen Garden Forum

I thought this might be a good exercise to help us do better next year
Pool ideas. I was not too well organised this year because of caring for Mum
but I did harvest some spinach some Kale and rhubarb, I had to remove the flowers off the rhubarb, in march! Some land cress, some mixed salad leves in the greenhouse and herbs thyme, sage, chives, garlic chives, oregano parsley and lovage in pots, the mint is only just poking through now

Far from a barren month I have always thought of March (and early April) as a glut time, when what has survived the winter is pushed into growth by the longer daylight hours. Late May through June is the real "hungry gap".

Have harvested cabbage, kale (leaves and flowers), pak choi, mizuna, mibuna, chicories, endives (scarole and frisee), salad rocket, wild rocket, claytonia, bunching onions, parsley, coriander, Japanese mustards, watercress and pea shoots from the polytunnel and rhubarb, thyme, nettles and ramsons from outside.

I assure you I'm not boasting; this is the least I expect in March/April.

We harvested carrots, parsnips, leeks, kale, rhubarb from the plot as well as obviously using lots of things from storage.

We also grew salad leaves in a spare room under lights.

We would have had cabbage and other brassicas but they were put paid to by the winter weather.

I had leeks. parsnips and purple sprouting. Onions in store, peas in the freezer plus celeric and, parsnips roasted and baked potatoes prepared and frozen.

Beryl.

Not as good as other years,probably due to the earlier severe weather,but I am still harvesting cabbage,Kale,Parsnips and Carrots(which I never store).

Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Parsnips, Carrots, Brussels Sprouts, Curly Parsley, Dwarf Green Kale.

Hello

I had some parsnips left in the ground and pulled them out last week. They had grown new foliage and some seemed to be growing quite well. I planted them over a year ago..

Having doubts now; could I have left them in the ground for the second year? Would have added some green to the vegetable patch! Wouldn't have been so barren..

Hi Garden Mum,
Parsnips are true biennials and to leave them in the ground for a second year they would head up to flower and then die, which is fine for seeds of open pollinating varieties, but the actual Parsnip would be like a very tough and stringy affair which is totally inedible.
JB.

I obviously must try harder as I only have curly kale...

Nothing wrong with Curly Kale.

Thanks Peter, I love curly kale and have a fab recipe to use it.

Go on then, post it in Readers Recipes.

I will.

Thanks for the reassurance JohnBoy; didn't like to think that I had wasted a crop of parsnips that would have done me proud by the end of the year!

The last of the potatoes, onions, shallots, eating and cooking apples from store. Leeks, parsnips, jerusalem artichokes, purple sprouting broccoli, four kinds of kale, Delaway cabbage and rhubarb from the garden and lettuce, pak choi, mizuna, parsley, swiss chard, thyme and spinach from the cold greenhouse.