Leaves, leaves, leaves!

The balcony garden is green and brown at the moment. More brown than green really, because the trees have lost their leaves. This was fine for the apple and nectarine trees who were long finished fruiting but it seems Mr Fig Twig decided to play copy cat.

While the leaf in the above picture has long gone, the fruits remain and will, thanks to its leafy-nakedness, not ripen. At least they look good.

Other leaves were thrown out - thanks to my old enemy powdery mildew. It attacked the swiss chard, the rosemary and the snow peas. The snow peas were dead anyway, but the chard was lush and delicious. I ended up cutting off all affected leaves of the chard, then transplanting them to greener pastures (a sunnier pot with good soil.) They seem happier and are not reinfected so we will see if these drastic measures worked. The rosemary was not so lucky, and given I have two other healthy rosemary bushes (one a new Anzac bush generously given to me by my lovely other half's mother) the zombie rosemary was sent to the great compost heap in the sky.

But it is not all leafy doom and gloom. The wonderful red kale my lovely other half gave to me (yes I am very spoiled) is taking off and I look forward to cooking with it soon. The tuscan kale is nearing its end but the leaves have been gracing soups of late, as have spare broccoli leaves. Broccoli leaves are way too stringy for my tastes to be a spinach or chard alternate, but in soup they blend up just fine and give a great addition to the flavour and nutrients of the dish.

I'm still tossing up whether to squeeze in some leafy green asian veg (bok choy most likely) before the spring season starts or just leave the pots for a couple of months. Thoughts?