Self-seeded surprises....

In all my inner-city self-sufficiency endeavours, nothing is more satisfying than growing stuff from seed. The outdoor table on my deck is always home to a few seed trays jammed full of baby seedlings waiting to be upgraded to luxury accommodation in the potager. So, over Easter I'm going to rip out all my tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes and pumpkins to free up a bit of space for the leeks, spring onions, parsnips and baby brassicas in my seed trays. I'm also going to sow broad beans, rocket salad and plant red onions in the potato patch. And I'm going to save the seeds from a few of my beans - some black-seeded runner beans, 'Borlotto Fire Tongue' beans and 'King of the Blues' climbing beans - to re-sow next summer.
What I won't be doing is sowing cabbages. I don't need to. Three weeks ago, my Dad came up and helped me rip out a whole heap of weeds from along the side boundary. He also spread out the huge pile of compost I'd made (well, actually I just piled it all up... nature did the rest) under the guava tree. (I need to organise a proper composting system, because at the moment all I do is dig stuff up, fling it into a vacant corner and wait for it to rot down.)
Anyway, since we pulled out all the cannas, ginger, woolly nightshade, wandering jew and arum lilies, a thick carpet of seedling weeds has germinated. It almost looks like a lush young lawn. So I went over to have a close look a couple of days ago and, blow me down, they're not weeds at all. I've got thousands of baby brassicas popping up everywhere. I guess the plants I pulled out at the beginning of summer and turfed under the pear tree must have set seed. I wonder if that old adage about "one year's seeding equals seven years weeding" applies to cabbages and cauliflowers? If so, I'll be making coleslaw until 2011...