How Green is My Valley - Not Very

Yesterday, I intended to put one of my garden-y posts up. The sun shone for most of the day and I spent the afternoon, weeding and pottering about in the poly tunnel. Not that anything has started to move much yet. To be quite honest, I've hardly been out in the garden at all this year.

It's just on the intersection between winter and spring and most of my garden looks a bit like the picture of the artichoke above, although the green spiky leaves are starting to shoot out from the base.

I planted some broccoli out in October last year and it's looking a bit promising - so might have a mini crop in about a month's time.

Those are the tail end of the leeks - still tender as yet but will have to be used before the end of the month - besides I could do with the ground to  plant lettuce and salad crops. I should do a plan really, but being a bit idle I just take photos and hope for the best.

I sowed some spring cabbage, caulies and Kohl Rabbi last October too.  Planted them out at the end of December. They have survived the frost, snow and the slugs  as yet so maybe another crop there end of April, beginning of May.
Got some carrot seeds in buckets. What you do, is make holes in the bottom of either an old plastic or metal bucket. Fill it compost mixed with a free draining soil (a few pebbles or broken clay bits at the bottom to provide a good soak-away). Sow a pinch of  seed and cover them with a little bit of compost. They're usually susceptible to the carrot fly - little white maggots that bore through the carrots and make them inedible. This way, you can move them on to a bench or somewhere a bit higher where the fly can't reach. I did this last year and it worked quite well.

I took this picture, across the field, last night. This morning it was all thick over with freezing fog. What a game. I had to have a CT scan today with that purple dye they inject into your arm to see where any knobbly bits might or might not be lurking. The radiographer set me up on the machine. You have to lie on a bed with your arms up in the air while you pass through a sort of hoop. A dis-embodied voice gives you instructions - like hold your breath, while the camera flashes and the bed moves through the tunnel. The young man (not may years older than my granddaughter) who set me up was great. He told me that I would start to feel very hot and might even feel as though I was wetting myself (charming).  When it was all over, he said that he'd never actually had a CT scan although he'd operated the machine loads of times and asked me what it was like. I thought for a moment or two and then said, 'Well, it's a bit like sitting on a hot water bottle.' And you couldn't have a better day for it.