Growing and going

It's been a strange position to be in - having a couple of modest vegetables patches that were crying out to be filled, but also being aware that they'll be under new onwership from towards the end of next month.

Coming out of winter and leading into spring, I hadn't wanted to plant anything that wouldn't be able to provide us with something useful or edible by the middle of November.

• The broad beans have gone really well. We've had two good harvests off them and there is at least one more not too far away.
• The garlic is pretty well advanced with some leaves starting to die back - so they'll be good to dig up next month to take with us.
• We've had some snow peas and sugarsnap peas but they haven't done too well. We had a very small harvest off the snow peas but a day of strong, hot wind seems to have sapped their will to live.
• Our green sprouting broccoli was a great success with many pickings off 3 or 4 plants. They are now well and truly into flower with some seed pods being formed. The pods that look mature will come with us.
• I planted some Kohl Rabi around 5 weeks ago but they haven't done anything spectacular. The few that germinated are only about 10cm high.
• Our carrots are currently hidden in behind the broad beans so they may be food for the people who have bought our house.
• We have some leeks that are also hidden between broad beans. They are probably around half the diameter of ones you'd buy in the shops so we'll start harvesting them soon and take any remainders with us.

So what will be left? A few broad bean plants bereft of pods that can serve as useful pea straw; some purple carrots, the odd snow pea and sugarsnap pea; some attractive flowering and podding broccoli. That'll be about it - and maybe some late-developing Kohl Rabi if it lifts its game.