Spring onions 10 weeks

Tender and True parsnips

parsnips 10 weeks after planting

Purple carrots after 6 weeks

Purple Carrots after 6 weeks

The purple carrots are still doing nicely - I had to thin a few out earlier this week as I noticed that there were some plants very close to others.  Reassuringly there were already nice long roots on each of the thinnings.

Last little gem lettuce

Little Gem lettuce

So this is the last little gem lettuce, and frankly I'm glad.  I've eaten so many of these damn things I'm fed up with them, and they did not turn out as the seed packet promised.  I shan't be growing them again.

On the plus side, I have today planted some more interesting plants - being japanese radishes in the place of the lettuce.

Horseradish leaves after 9 weeks

The leaves are now getting huge.

Horseradish leaves 9 weeks after planting

I'm very much hoping the roots are growing as strongly below the surface.

Boltardy beetroot at 8 weeks

Boltardy beetroot at 8 weeks

The beetroot at 8 weeks is just starting to show some roots at the foot of the plant.  I've been reading about this, and will need to thin out the plants shortly, in order to let the others have room to grow to their full potential, but I hope to get some small edible beetroots from the thinnings, rather than do it now.

Beetroot after 12 weeks

So here are the Alto F1 Beetroots after 12 weeks. I picked another few of the plants, and even though above the soil they looked promising, there was very little below the soil.

I've today planted a new variety of beetroot, being Cylindra Beetroot.  Like the Alto F1 variety, the Cylindra should produce long cylindrical roots, but hopefully the roots will turn out to be bigger than the F1.  I'll be keeping track of the progress.

Early Nantes Carrots 12 weeks in and first harvest

It's been 3 months already, and the carrots are showing nice broad shoulders above the soil, so I've been wondering whether to harvest or not.

12 week old early nantes carrots

 Impatience got the better of me and I decided to uproot two carrots to see how they are doing, and they would be able to be added to a salad that evening.  The carrots I picked were the same two shown in the photo above.  There seemed to be quite a lot of carrot there, but I had been stung by the lack of depth of the beetroot, so still was not expecting a decent sized carrot.  Below is the result.

Early nantes carrots just after harvest.

So weirdly, one is short and fat, the other longer, but thinner.  Neither were as big as I was hoping, but they were very nice.

I've left the others in the ground to get a bit bigger.  I'm coming to the conclusion that normal carrots are a bit of a waste in a small vegetable garden as they take a long time, take up a lot of space and are so cheap to buy in the supermarkets that the garden crop is very expensive by comparison.

I'm still holding out more hope for the purple carrots though.