I really do have my sad face on today. Summer’s gone. Today is the start of autumn.

Yesterday I was sitting in my grandad’s armchair, under a knitted blanket, next to the roaring fire, drinking my first glass of mulled wine of the year. Picture it.

And all of my lovely vegetable plants are coming to the end of their life… So I’m going to pull them up today. It feels a bit like the last day of holiday, or the day before you go back to school so I’m going to have a little moment of reflection…

My courgettes were brilliant I have to say, although I am sure one of the plants was a marrow. They all need to come out now although I have two of the ten plants still holding on and squeezing out the last of their gifts. Will have to choose how I use those carefully. I always think the first and last courgettes of the year need some kind of ceremony. I have so much courgette chutney in the cupboard and soup in the freezer I don’t think we’ll go hungry this winter. And I shall plant my seeds (again) in March and be so excited (again) when the first one appears in July. Then hubby will get sick of them (again) by August and I’ll make chutney (again) in September.

Tomatoes were plentiful but mostly green so have had to ripen indoors on the windowsill. The taste is absolutely fantastic. There are still a few left on the plants so I might have a go at fried green tomatoes (at the Whistlestop Cafe) before the first frost comes to bite us on the bum. Onions are long gone, I wish I’d done more to be honest. Leeks are still doing their thing and so is the garlic. Butternut squash are taking over the whole place like triffids and have also invaded my next door neighbour’s plot. She has claimed squatter’s rights to any squash on her side.

Potatoes were fantastic, I’ve got some maris piper’s in now – I was hoping to make them last until Christmas but they are starting to yellow so I think they may get blanched and frozen for the big day. The carrots were a big surprise – I’d heard how hard they are to grow but they’ve been plentiful, although next year I will not use a whole packet in two rows as they’ve been far too close packed. We’ve been eating the thinnings each week but there are still loads. The parsnips also look fantastic still, I will confess to digging up a cheeky one with our last roast a few weeks ago and it was glorious. So hopefully we will have snippers, carrots and spuds for crimble.

On the not so positive front, my beetroots are still very small, the perpetual spinach leaves never got any bigger than the size of my little finger and the cucumbers flatly refused to do anything. Even the plants from the garden centre shrivelled up and died and I have no idea why, I’ve grown them perfectly well before in grow bags. I think perhaps my plot is too exposed for them. There is a lady at the end of my road with a huge polytunnel that grows ‘cukes’ (I’ve learnt from the allotmenteers that this is the term I should use) and then sells them from a little wooden cart outside her house for 25p so I am not going to get too upset, I shall just cheat and buy hers with the money from my piggybank.

I think now I need to dig in some muck and get some onions in to ‘over winter’ – am learning all these new words and terms lol.

But overall, great success I think especially for our first year properly at it. What with all my veg, top ups from the wooden cart down the road, and regular generous donations of eggs from the chooks next door, I’ve barely needed to buy anything except meat and staples like flour and butter from the local farmshop. I’ve not had to set foot in a supermarket for months now aside from sneaking in to buy bottles of cheap booze to make my sloe gin and my Christmas vodka.

Happy days indeed. Just call us Tom & Barbara. x