Annecy Gardens: Flowering brassicas & much, much more

The fields of oilseed rape around Gloucestershire are echoed with some of the flowers in the Annecy Gardens. Plants of the red curly kale, 'Redbor' are flowering now & the pale yellow flowers are very pretty:

Red curly kale 'Redbor'; you can also see potatoes emerging here & lettuce

Looking particularly striking at the moment is the variegated kale, 'Creme Chantilly', where the cream flowers tone in with the pale yellow leaf margins:

Brassica 'Creme Chantilly' in flower

The seakale, Crambe maritima, also has attractive leaves (no flowers on our plants) that look much like kale; although I believe exceedingly tough if eaten at this stage, it is generally recommended to eat the blanched young shoots in early spring. We've given it a little sign as last year it was being picked at this stage ~ which will only weaken the plant & provide the picker with something horrible to eat.

Crambe maritima

This year we're having a go at polyculture, sowing seeds of a number of different vegetables as a mixture; it is suggested that doing this might provide heavier crops through more intensive use of the ground; also help reduce pest damage ~ for instance, growing a mixture containing both onions & carrots may reduce carrot fly damage as the onions will mean the carrot flies cannot smell the carrots to lay their eggs on them. Well, that's the theory.

Seedlings germinating in the polyculture

The echiums are now in flower. Both blue Echium gentianoides & red Echium pininana x wildprettii, the bees in particular love this latter, when we were at the garden there were masses of bumble bees of a number of species visiting the plants; also honeybee visitors too.