Edible But Beautiful

I am counting down the days before the weather improves and I can get back into the garden. Sadly I have found the cold weather can trigger my angina, so I must be patient. But in the meantime I am planning and researching. Here is what I am hoping to grow this year: SPRING/SUMMER Borlotti beans French beans (climbing) - blauhilde, goldmarie Lablab bean Runner bean (dwarf) - hestia Crimson-flowered broad beans Carrots in raised containers - nantes, red samurai, purple sun Beetroot (yellow, bolthardy, and cylindra plus bull's blood for leave  Chilli pepper - Trinidad perfume  Hyssop Amaranthus calaloo Lettuce - various Basil Cucumber - jogger Cape gooseberry Tomatoes - rosella, karla, venus, bajaja, vilma, aztek Sweet pepper - ontara Summer savory Peas - kelvedon wonder, shiraz (mangetout), sugar bon (sugarsnap) Salsola Pattypan squash - disco Chard - rainbow swisschard,  perpetual spinach Spinach - New Zealand, red-veined, Orach Sunflowers Nasturtiums

What Didn't Work Root vegetables -  either just grow lots of leaves and no root (radishes, turnips, kohlrabi) or grow loads of roots turning them into demented underground spiders (see hamburg parsley photo above). Kalettes and swiss chard  - need staking or supporting in some way in my soil, the kalettes fell over in the strong winds and one chard actually got torn from the ground. Tomatoes grown in the flower beds - too many leaves and not enough fruit. Flea beetles.  My brassica leaves were constantly being turned into lace doilies. Contrary to what some books say I had the horrid little beetles all through the growing season. As my aim is to grow brassicas partly for their appearance, the usual response of covering them with enviromesh isn't really an option. Leek moth - destroyed my leeks last year.. Generally - the garden was pretty crammed What Worked Well Beans - borlotti beans were a revelation, as were freshly picked yellow french beans Lettuce

We have been having strange weather here in the UK; heavy snow before Christmas and then another load after Christmas. I have two cloches in the garden protecting winter salad plants with the hope of eating fresh salad leaves at least once a week throughout the winter and getting a head start on lettuce for the hunger gap months in spring, or should I say I had two cloches. I woke a few days ago to find the longer hoop cloche (shown above) had been broken by the sheer weight of snow. Underneath most of the plants were crushed beyond recovery. As the heavy snow had managed to shear off whole branches off trees all around our small town, I suppose I should not have been surprised. The smaller cloche survived the onslaught. so I still have some lettuce to pick from. In addition I had also planted some winter-resistant salad plants without cover. These were two oriental mustards (green in the snow and komatsuna), winter density lettuce and Czech winter spinach. I reckoned that if