Edible Posy

Not only does it look beautiful, but the flavours are wonderful.

The shoots comprising this posy are Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Nine Star Perennial Broccoli, shoots and flowers of old collards.

Green Growth

The mild weather continues and we benefit from wonderful growth on the Daubenton's kale. This is an old Victorian perennial form of kale. The leaves are nicely soft and tender which means it is quite lovely eaten raw in salads and even as part of a sandwich!

To boost the growth I regularly fed it with dilute urine, starting from the middle of  February. The dilution was about one third urine to two thirds water, watered at the roots on a weekly basis.

Mind anywhere else in the country where the likely of heavy frosts it may be better to start this in mid March. Here in Pembrokeshire with the much milder conditions we can get away with encouraging new soft growth earlier.

Healthy tender leaves on the Daubenton's kale.

Mild

Winter seems to be passing very mild this year in the way of warmer temperatures. We may have suffered some intense storms with much damage around, but hardly a frost to be felt up to now.

The garlic in the garden is growing strongly

Winter Storm Damage

As with many places we suffered damage with the Winter storms. Down at Swanlake Bay many who walk there help to keep the beach and surrounds clean of rubbish brought in by the tide.

The intense storm not only brought in lots of rubbish but also ripped the neatly bagged and ready to be disposed of pile that lay above the beach.

It all got distributed around the beach in the bay. If nothing else this scene brings home just how much we are polluting the seas around the world with our indiscriminate throwing away of plastics and other manmade junk.

 

From rope to many forms of plastic.

By far one of the biggest sources of rubbish found are plastic bottles. Of which most are drinks and water bottles. We are clogging the sea with bottles!

I'm not sure if this is a sight that is good or bad. Goose barnacles take advantage of a floating plastic bottle to form a small colony.