Well it’s already December in the garden and whilst it’s not the best for growing there should be a few crops that have sat nicely and quietly throughout the later summer months maturing steadily to give us some wonderful tasty treats during both the festive season and the dank and leaner winter months.

We have Brussels sprouts, which honestly, we thought we were going to have to pull out as they looked super pathetic and as if they’d amount to nothing. We turned out backs and now we’ve a lovely crop standing proud ready to turn into some lovely dishes for the winter. I even saw a Jamie Oliver concoction that included Brussels in a toad in the hole that we are going to have to try it now I’ve seen it!! We’ve carrots, leeks, cavalo Nero, curly kale, red cabbage and a couple of cauliflower the size of footballs that I’ve no idea where they shot up from, swede, lovely bright rainbow chard and a couple of Savoy cabbage. Not bad for a tardy start to planting winter veg, feeling quite pleased with myself!!

When we get a dry and calm day, we roll our sleeves up, clear a couple of beds that had been absolutely overrun with weeds, whilst doing this we decided, rightly or wrongly, to cut back all of the soft fruits. Will be a live or die affair I’m afraid but things had gotten so overgrown I found myself overwhelmed at the scale of work and just thought “I’m going for it” it’s now much tidier and we’ll see how we fair. As they say “some you win, some you lose” and I’m sure I’d be corrected by purists out there but I’ve done the deed to see how we go rather than clear out altogether and start again, see what makes it, even if a limited crop for a year, we still have some serious weeding to do and paths to restone but I think we’ll get there …..happy days.