OK, so maybe my efforts to Florence Nightingale the basils in the window box were slightly misguided. I decided to let my sensibility govern my stubbornness (for once) and removed all of the basil from the ground up. Leaving the roots intact adds needed nitrogen to the soil. Or so I read somewhere.

Not wanting to let the cold spat get the better of me (stubbornness slowly kicking in again), I scoured Newland’s Cross for packets of seeds that suggested the contents were not a stranger to the colder seasons. I picked up:

• Kale – big demand for this in our apartment. Kale Dwarf Green Curled to be precise. “Hardy” apparently.
• Corn Salad Cavallo – some kind of “winter” salad leaves.
• Lettuce – “Sow at any time of year”. I’ll be the judge of that.

In order to find a home for the Kale and Lettuce seeds, at least for their infancy, I fashioned a mobile seed tray box. It consists of two seed trays on some waterproof plastic (bin liner) raised inside a cardboard box. I thought it wise to go for a transportable solution so during you’returningourapartmentintoafarm type disputes it would facilitate rapid retreat to the other room or the greenhouse outside. Our living room has been still getting a good deal of sun and regularly hitting 20+ degrees Celsius in the evening, despite the weather. At the moment the seed trays are occupying pride of place by the window. Let’s see how long that lasts.

In the other room, I planted the corn salad leaves where the basil used to be. I only covered the left half the window box with the aim being to populate the right half in a few weeks and ensure some kind of continuous harvest. I expect “harvest” might be a little ambitious for what happens but ah sure we’ll see anyway. Updates due in a few weeks when we have to look at thinning and then transplanting.

Incidentally, I had a quick look on google and Wikipedia there and am still none the wiser as to why it is called “corn” salad. Answers on a postcard please.