Out of the Holding bed

Curly red kale, Nov 2018

In my Holding bed (one of five beds specified by John Seymour's gardening method), I grew on my winter brassicas:  Brussels sprouts, kale (curly and Tuscan), and cauliflower.  Early this month, the son and I transplanted the curly kale out into the main Brassicas bed where the dwarf French beans had just been cleared away.

Part of the specifics of the Holding bed is that plants are grown more closely than in the main beds:  in the kale's case, about six inches apart.  They're far enough apart not to have stunted growth, but close enough to get quite a lot of them together.

Once there is room for them in the main beds in autumn, these closely spaced plants need to be moved so they have more room to grow and, more importantly, produce.  In curly kale's case, the ten or so plants were pretty tall but quite leggy and not particularly leafy.  To transplant, I dug a much deeper hole to plant out, and then earthed them up as well.  A couple of them were close to waist height (a couple were under knee height though).  They seem to have adjusted to their new positions and hopefully will produce a bit more later this winter or in early spring.

What about the Brussels sprouts, Tuscan kale and cauliflower?  Well, it looks like the cauliflowers didn't survive the squash vine attack (overly luxurious growth overtook some of the Holding bed), while the sprouts and Tuscan kale remain in the Holding bed.  I did want to move the sprouts to a more sensible spacing, but they were already starting to produce and I didn't want to risk losing the harvest.  And it looks like there's just two (small) Tuscan kale plants, both already spaced far enough apart, now that the curly kale has vacated the spot.  They're staying too.