I have never bought vegetable plants before for my plot as I’ve seen it as sort of cheating because it wasn’t sowed from seed. However some vegetables don’t seem to take to me growing them from seed and I like enjoying the summer months in the garden so normally forget to sow winter vegetables. This year I have bought some vegetable plants to have something in the vegetable plot throughout winter rather than it being empty.

I bought my plants from a company called Rocket Gardens, I have not used this company before but their plants arrived quickly last August and come well packaged and I planted mine straight away into gaps made by the climbing beans and peas being cleared away.

I bought and planted:

• Cauliflower – Romanesco (cross between broccoli and cauliflower),
• Swede – Marian
• Leeks – Musselburgh
• Kale – Cavolo Nero (Blake Kale)

The cauliflower, kale and swede as they are all brassicas needed a cage with netting to keep out the butterflies and caterpillars. The plants have grown very strong under their netting and we have as a family have been on caterpillar and slug watch to check they aren’t eating our lovely plants.

We took the netting off the cauliflower and swede in November after all the cabbage white butterflies had disappeared.

Here’s the vegetable plants we planted in Mid August and an update of their progress:

Leeks

I have always failed at growing leeks from seed, they have without fail always had whitefly. I was interested to give these plants ago to see how they perform in our vegetable plot.

January 2021 Update: Our leeks are fattening up nicely and the leaf layers are forming their fan shape nicely. We are still on baby slug watch as they seem to like taking a bite of our leeks in the wet winter weather.

Cauliflower

I have never grown cauliflower because I had heard they are difficult for beginners, so I thought I’d try growing them from a plant instead. I’m growing a cauliflower crossed with broccoli called romanesco, which looks beautiful and green.

January 2021 Update: Our green twisted cauliflower is forming in the centre of the plants, they are the size of a tennis ball. They look like spirals and are amazing to watch the lime green heads form.

Swede

I grew these once before sowing the seeds straight into the ground and slugs ate the seedlings so hopefully these plants will survive.

Early December 2020 Update: 2 swedes harvested, they were quite large and we had them with potato and made a swede and potato gratin with creme fresh and cheese, it was delicious. Not all the swedes survive slug attack.

Kale

I have grown a number of kale varieties but not the black Tuscany variety which I have always wanted to grow but I simply forgot to sow it at the correct time.

January 2021 Update: We have been harvesting the outside leaves as we go along since November and there are plenty more leaves to harvest well into the new year. The plants have all survived and stood up well to the freezing temperatures and heavy rain we have had in the UK this month.