Brussel Sprouts

I could not think of an attention grabbing title for this post so calling a spade a spade this is simply about Brussels Sprouts, love 'em or hate 'em. We grow them every year usually quite successfully but this year growth has been slow and we have 6 plants at varying degrees of growth even though they all went in the same day! Three plants went to seed so were brought home for the hens to enjoy.
   The netting which they were under was too short as they were growing up against it, apart from making the taller ones bend over the white butterflies could still lay their eggs on the leaves. I don't know how late in the season they stop but they are still very visible around our plots.
    The fruit cage is no longer needed so the canes and netting were recycled for the sprouts. I had to put some support canes in place for a few which were bending, topped with empty yogurt bottles to avoid getting our eyes poked if we are in the cage.There are embryo sprouts on the stalks so tidying up the bed and weeding might give them a boost.
  I also put in 6 small plants just visible in the foreground, these were donated by Christy one of our allotment colleagues.Christy grows all of his produce from seed and had these left over a couple of weeks ago, he asked me if I wanted them but they languished in the pot until last Tues when I picked the best 6 as slugs had got to them before me. The ones Christy had set in  his plot two weeks ago are growing and are much bigger than the ones left in the pot, so fingers crossed the winter veg will do better than the summer veg.The newer plants will hopefully provide a succession of sprouts after all they are not just for Christmas!