Eureka! The cardoons/artichokes are NOT French soldiers. They have perked up and are all sprightly.Sat on my bench with a bowl of soup before picking definitively the last of the runner beans, 2 courgettes and a big bunch of curly kale. Last spring, I scavenged hundreds of bulbs being chucked out by florists and friends and stored them over the summer in a wooden crate smothered with leaf mould. Started planting them round the edges of my plot they don't infringe on vegetable space.
I find some huge shiny red circular bulbs anonymously tossed on to my plot. They have long, stiff dried leaves, sharp as swords. A friend suggests they are Crocosmia. Who left them? This community-type gardening means visits are punctuated with surprises. Some more welcome than others. Bicycled, wobbling, all the way home with bounty which by now included a huge bunch of cosmos and another autumnal mix. The curly cale kept springing out of my basket. A precarious and scary journey, but worth it.
