Early March pickings and promise in the Veg Patch

Weather a bit on the grey side yesterday, so I decided I needed to refresh my 'It is Spring really!' kitchen window display, which gives me something more cheerful to look at while washing the pots.

Narcissi Tete a tete, and an unknown variety of hellebore from the garden

There are alternative 'bouquets' coming out of the garden too, but equally as welcome!

Latest haul for tea from the Purple Sprouting broccoli patch

They always look such ungainly plants for me - in other people's gardens they look robust and handsome, but not here...fortunately the harvest looks fine and tastes lovely

One of my usual scraggy specimens of Purple sprouting strapped to its supporting post like a drunkard leaning on a lamppost...

The leeks are definitely on their last legs now, I really need to harvest what's reasonably edible in the next few days - a few have already developed their flowering stalks so I think I might leave them to flower as a treat for the early insects and perhaps try to collect my own leek seed as an experiment.

The chives are beautifully perky at least, cosseted underneath their little plastic cloche.  The first fresh herbs are so welcome in my lunchtime omelettes.

Last of the leeks!

This weekend I decided to take the mini polytunnel off the spring cabbages as they look to me like they should be able to withstand a bit of frost now.  Really I just had the tunnel on them to try and stop them being torn to shreds by the winter winds here when they seemed much more vulnerable a few months ago!  If my evil plan runs smoothly, then I hope I will be able to harvest from these after the purple sprouting and cavolo nero have given up and gone to flower...if it stays cool as it is at the moment I think I'm safe for a few more harvesting weeks from them, but of course if we have a sudden warm spell they will go whoosh...

August sown Spring Cabbage, intended for harvest as loose greens

Same decision for the Perpetual spinach that has been luxuriating under its little polytunnel all winter too - caught Cobweb the Cat sunbathing in there on top of them and suddenly realised how warm they were getting!  I don't want these to shoot to seed when I haven't even had a meal off them yet - some rain and a bit of chillyness should sort them out hopefully too.

I never actually got round to protecting the parsley with a little cloche - and just look at it! We have picked from this plant all winter and it is still providing fresh growth.  Again, it will probably jet into flower if a warm spell comes but I will definitely repeat last year's lesson - I didn't grow it from seed (I can never get the conditions right for it) but simply bought it in a pot from Lidl or Sainsburys for £1 and planted it in the bed.  Lot less hassle and worked a treat, as we can see...

Evie's chives and parsley plant, with autumn sown Perpetual Spinach behind

I promised smallholder friend Sue that I would investigate for her and try to identify these weird and wonderful iris which we found in her garden, and which are standing really well in her kitchen table vase.  I have never seen anything like them before but I was pretty certain they are some sort of iris.  Too tall for reticulata iris, but too early surely for sibirica types..although they are happily naturalised in her garden alongside the driveway which is also bordered by a stream, so i assumed a bog loving variety.

Iris tuberosa 

Well, how wrong can you be??? Turns out they are Hermodactylus tuberosus also known as Iris tuberosa or the Widow's iris, which hail from southern Europe and enjoy typically stony, hot dry locations with a good baking in the summer, like the bearded iris do.  Hmmm...plants can be weird can't they. I suppose the sun bounces off the driveway in the summer and bakes them, they are on the south facing side of the garden...and Sue says she thinks there may be quite a bit of old farmyard type spoil and general rubble dumped under the ground in that area.  But overall we are talking about a plot of land barely above the flood level on the moor!  Boggy and heavy are the usual words we use for her ground!!!

Either way, I have baggsied a bit of the clump when its the right time to fiddle with them, in late summer. Because they look very unusual and stunning in the vase at the moment.