My Patch from Scratch: Herbs and Salad

Borage is a beautiful herb with a blue flower which will attract bees and butterflies to the Patch. I am just about to thin and plant this out now along the edge of the Potato bed. I have sown lavender too - I want to grow wild herbs and flowers to bring in the pollinators!

Here is a tray of cornflowers that I have sown in the greenhouse. I will scatter more seed at the edge of the terraces when they are properly prepared but I wanted to put some in tubs too and get these off to an early start. Again, they should attract the bees...our neighbour has a beautiful hive of them just down the lane and so we often see honey bees here.

Can't resist showing you these photos of my anemones which are growing in a trough on the deck. The colour is heavenly...though I am not sure how attractive they are to bees!

Purple and green basil are just germinating now. I have sown them early and will make another sowing directly into the greenhouse beds in May when the tomatoes and peppers and aubergines are planted into them. Basil will help to keep the aphids down and also I would have it there just so that I can smell that divine scent when I water the tomatoes. The smell of tomato and basil in a warm greenhouse is one of the most evocative and delightful things I love about growing things!

Tom Thumb lettuces are so quick to form into pretty florets of luscious green promise of delicious salad to come! They are such a useful lettuce as they fit into tiny spaces between brassicas in the Patch. And they are so beautiful too!

Green Oak Leaf Lettuce

Salad Rocket and Black Seeded Simpson

Cocarde
These three lettuces, Green Oak Leaf, Black Seeded Simpson and Cocarde together with Salad Rocket and Mustard Golden Streaks formed the basis of our winter salads in the greenhouse beds last year. I have sown them (sowing number 1 in early March) into the greenhouse again to get in a quick crop before the tomatoes take over. They are loose leaf cut and come again plants and are already big enough to harvest. I have made another sowing (number 2) this month to put out into the Patch. I will make sowing number 3 in about June to last us outside into the autumn and another one, sowing number 4 in August/September for the greenhouse over the winter. I will add to this selection (which I absolutely love and want to repeat) a red oak leaf, possibly Danyelle, or maybe Solix, or Red Salad Bowl....so hard to choose! [see Scrumptious Summer Salads (March)]

Outside I have just planted out Mizuna, Pak Choi and some single lettuces, Freckles ( lovely romaine lettuce) Lobjoits ( a cos), Rosemoor which is a lovely Red Batavian lettuce and noisette a green Batavian.