October 12, 2020 by Helen Stallard

Autumn beef & vegetable stew

We are returned from our summer holiday, ‘summer’ being perhaps an optimistic notion for October. It is at this time of the year that we travel, partly to avoid school holidays but mainly because work is usually busiest during the festival-season of June to September. Not this year of course. Nothing is the same this year – not that you’d know it in Cornwall. There, the pace of life remains reassuringly unhurried, the noise of lockdown diktats from London seem to merely echo rather than shout.

Alas, the weather threw everything at us. Gales, rain, drizzle, sun, rainbow, wind again…Watching it all unfold, I wrote a few words in my journal:

Sea merging into sky
steel blue, grey, white, concrete
Three days of leaden sky
Forceful wind, rajasic weather,
Stormy. Relentless.

But then this morning, sun broke through
turning the cliffs golden
The hint of a rainbow dissolves onto the sea
and then returns with greater resolve.
A brief strengthening of sprit.

I am not normally driven to write poetry-style words. This is what the Cornish landscape does to a woman in middling-age.

Industrial architecture mimicking a Norman keep

I have always thought of our September/October break as the end of summer, a mental shift towards the autumn/winter months. On returning home my mind whirrs with lists to make the next six months more tolerable; much of it is kitchen and garden-room (I can wish) related: the final autumn harvests, the creation of dried flower vases around the house. Sloe-apple jelly and butternut squash soup become earmarked for creation. Traditionally we prepared for winter by filling our stores and retreating indoors, a way of thinking that remains in my blood.

Yesterday I gave in and harvested the outdoor tomatoes from the veg trug. These are lockdown plants, arriving shrivelled and near dead in the post after whiling away for days in the postal service, but they perked up and the four plants have given several kilo of fruit. Harry, only 3, insisted on using the secateurs and to his credit, did an effective job. The issue is ripeness, or rather the lack of it: 90% of them are green, our back garden too overlooked and the summer too cloudy to allow them to ripen. I’ve placed them on newspaper in the sun room in hope of a late ripening, and the rest – let’s face it – will probably end up in the compost.

The harvest from 4 tomato plants, all outdoor. An abundance of fruit, alas all of it in varying shades of green

Whilst sorting out tomatoes my eyes were drawn to the bunches of hanging strawflower and hops, now papery and dried, and I cut a few to make a small vase for the office – a classic procrastination before work. Over the next few weeks there will be more of these to brighten up the house, replacing the vases of dahlias and chrysanthemums that have been so abundant during late summer.

The first of this year’s dried flower posies, made of hop, strawflower, cornflower and poppy head

October weather – once one has truly been in it for days, as even in gale-force winds a pre-schooler insists on building sandcastles – demands a return to slow food. Feta cheese and salads won’t cut it now; my body yearns for homely, inexpensive, peasanty cooking. Yesterday, whilst stocking up on essential supplies I even found myself sneaking turnips into the trolly. Turnips! They found their way into a simple long-braised stew, rich with root vegetables and just a scrap of meat, served steaming in deep bowls with a few stodgy-yet-crunchy dumplings.

The trick to this is cutting your foundation vegetables – the onions, celery, leeks – quite small so that they melt into the stock, but the hero veg – the parsnips, carrots and the like – big. That way you get a smooth silky soupy base with interesting chunks to chew on.

This is what I call National Trust cookery. Autumn is here.

Autumn beef & vegetable stew
serves 4, generously

500g braising steak, diced
oil or dripping
2 small onions, peeled and finely sliced
2 large sticks of celery, trimmed and finely sliced
1 leek, cleaned, trimmed and finely sliced
2 large carrots, peeled and diced into large-ish chunks
2 small turnips, peeled and diced into large-ish chunks
2 parsnips, peeled and diced into large-ish chunks
5 mid-sized new potatoes, halved or quartered (if you have tiny ones leave them whole and just use a few more)
4 or so fat cloves of garlic, peeled and bashed but left whole
4-5 bay leaves
few springs of thyme
1 tablespoon flour
salt and pepper
2 beef stock cubes (I use Kallo organic low-salt)
boiling water

For the dumplings:
250g self-raising flour
125g suet
cold water
salt and pepper

Set the oven to 160c. Warm a heavy-weight frying pan and when hot, brown the meat on all sides until burnished – I do this in batches, without any extra oil as I dislike all the splatters. Remove the meat to a very large casserole pot.

Turn the heat on the frying pan down, add a little oil or dripping, then soften the onions, leeks and celery for about five minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper, then tip the lot into the casserole with the meat – the onions should pick up any crusty bits left from browning your beef. The frying pan can now go in the sink to be washed up.

Put your casserole pan onto the heat, add the remaining vegetables and turn them over with the onions and beef for five minutes or so, just to slightly soften. Add the herbs, flour and the stock cubes, and stir again for a few more minutes so that everything is well distributed. Tip in enough boiling water to cover the meat, bring it all to a slow simmer and give everything another good stir – we need the stock cubes to fully dissolve and for there to be no lumps of flour.

Pop the lid on and transfer to the oven, where it should putter away for two hours. Top the water up if it looks dry.

For the dumplings, stir the suet, flour, salt and pepper together using a table knife, then add enough cold water to bring it together to a rough dough – maybe 3 tablespoons. Shape into however many dumplings you require – this mixture makes 5 BIG ones or rather more smaller ones.

After two hours, turn the heat up to 180c. Remove the lid of the casserole, pop the dumplings on top of the stew and return to the oven, cooking uncovered for 30 minutes or so until the dumplings are puffy and crunchy on the top.

Enjoy in a deep bowl with a dollop of hot horseradish. No other accompaniment is required.

Also this week:
Cooking and eating: Braised rabbit with rose wine, rosemary and bacon (found an independent rural butcher selling wild rabbits for £3, which is an offer I can not refuse); pasties, scampi, chips, fudge etc etc; a tot of sloe gin from Chappers’ 2017 vintage. Buying up apples and pears, some for eating now, some to be sliced and frozen for future pies.

Reading: Two Kitchens by Rachel Roddy, wonderfully evocative writing; A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, which I’ve been putting off because it is literally the size of a brick, but when on holiday there is no excuse.

August 27, 2019 by Helen Stallard

Plum torte

Despite the fact that this weekend was the hottest August bank holiday on record, I’m sticking my neck out to say that it’s not summer anymore. This afternoon on the allotment – although it was still warm – the sun was low enough in the sky to cast softened light and the air had the voluptuousness to it that comes as we teeter into autumn. Leaves look slightly tired; sunflowers set seed. Apples ripen. Without fail at this time of year I wonder what happened to my summer (answer, I am usually working flat out all through it) and whilst that’s true enough this year, we have tried our best to seize the season. This Sunday even saw a barbecue (Morroccan lamb shoulder with griddled courgettes, tabbouleh, tzatziki and flatbreads from the halal shop).

Produce is showing the shift in season. My allotment is at least a month behind my mother’s veg patch, so we’re only now getting going with the runner beans and the bulk of the cut flowers. My folks keep us going with baskets of green peppers, tomatoes, potatoes and sweetcorn. In the farm shops, the first apples are in and there are boxes of greengages, plums and damsons to be had.

Season’s change at Clives: crates of early apples plus damsons and plums

The white dahlias are phenomenal this year

I’m particularly pleased with today’s cut flower pickings – the orange chrysanthemums provide a great foil to the golden sunflower and dahlia, picked out with purple verbena bonariensis, achillea and cosmos. The little pincushion-headed flower is a self-seeded weed that I consider pretty-enough to make it to the vase.

The pinks of June and July have given way to fiery yellows, purples and oranges

What has slipped a bit is the cooking. In the hot weather we eat a lot of salads (interesting ones, obvs) plus Matt’s been cooking loads more lately whilst I’ve had my head buried in a laptop. And although he’s a great cook, one thing I definitely beat him at is the time-honoured (female) skill of opening the fridge door, seeing what needs eating, then doing something with it. Like my japple pudding – the ends of a jam pot covered with sponge then topped with sliced apples that were on the wrinkly side.

Japple pudding: jam topped with sponge topped with sliced apple

This plum torte comes from a similar need. I had a load of black plums from Aldi that were on the edge of going over, plus some nectarines, and I wanted to make a pudding. The Tuscan Plum Torte recipe in Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook provided a base recipe – instead of just plums I added in the nectarines, and also a bit of lemon for a citrus edge. The Italians have a fine tradition of cake that isn’t too rich but is actually more biscuity-bread like, and often eaten for breakfast. This one is easy enough, just go easy on the caramel – I took mine too dark and it made for a sponge that tasted of treacle rather than syrup.

First, simply whizz together self-raising flour, unsalted butter, caster sugar, zest of 1 lemon and a squeeze of juice in the food processor until well combined. Add in 3 eggs, one at a time, and whizz until smooth.

Whizz butter, flour, sugar, eggs and lemon in the food processor

Meanwhile, in the pan that you plan to bake your torte in, melt together sugar and water until completely dissolved, then simmer until you have a pale caramel (I took this too dark for my taste).

Melt sugar with water to make a light caramel (this is slightly too dark)

Add in sliced plums, nectarines or peaches. When you do this the caramel will bubble alarmingly and go several shades darker, be warned. Although mine looks burnt it actually isn’t, but the flavour was slightly too far on the treacly-side for my liking.

Add in plums and nectarines; be aware that your caramel will turn several shades darker when you do this

Then smooth the batter on top of the fruit, and bake for about 45 minutes until risen. Leave to stand for a few minutes before turning out and be warned – caramel is HOT HOT HOT. Nice on its own, with cream or plain ice cream.

After baking, turn the torte out onto a large plate. This isn’t burnt I promise; I simply used black plums!

Tuscan Plum Torte
Adapted from Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook

For the caramel:
275g granulated sugar
150ml water

For the topping:
Up to 900g stone fruit – plums, nectarines, peaches
175g caster sugar
150g unsalted butter, softened
200g self-raising flour
3 eggs
Zest and juice from 1 lemon

Pre-heat the oven to 170c and have ready a 25cm sauté pan that is oven-proof.

Whizz together the caster sugar, butter, flour, lemon zest and juice in a food processor until combined. Add in the eggs one at a time and whizz until smooth.

For the caramel, melt together the sugar and water in your sauté pan until totally dissolved. Bring to a simmer and cook until a pale caramel is achieve. Meanwhile stone and slice your fruit.

Place the sliced fruit onto the caramel – it will bubble and turn several shades darker, so be careful that you don’t burn yourself. Spread the batter on top of the caramel and smooth to the edges. Bake for about 45 minutes until risen and cooked through. Leave to stand in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out.

Also this week:

Harvesting: First runner and climbing beans, courgettes, first raspberries, last blueberries, chard, spinach beet, courgette, chrysanthemums, dahlia, sunflower, cosmos, achillea, verbena bonariensis, strawflower. Hops have set flower.

Cooking and eating: Japple pudding, only barbecue of the summer (lamb shoulder), a lot of home-made curry. First purchase of a half-case of wine since before pregnancy.

Out and About: Chatsworth; Cotswold Farm Park; Matt’s building the shed.

October 3, 2016 by Helen Stallard

Autumn is here

Thank God, the season has turned. Our new house has turned out to be a Victorian ice-box and I’m having to wear cashmere jumpers in my office to keep the chill off (no hardship there). The bright October mornings start with a bite, the windows are covered in condensation until about 2pm in the afternoon and I’m spotting several local squirrels in the back garden as they build their winter nut store.

But what a glorious September; bright and warm but fresh. The apple harvest is in full swing and last weekend I filled two carrier bags at Clive’s Fruit Farm – one with cookers, one with eaters – and the fruits are now making a still-life display of voluptuousness alongside the last of the greenhouse tomatoes.

Apples, pears and the final greenhouse tomatoes

More excitingly, the first of the spring bulbs arrived this morning! I was perhaps a little, erm, exuberant in my ordering: there’s 240 bulbs here with more on the way. I’ve a combination of tulips, narcissi and allium with a mixture of jewel-bright and neutral, calm shade. Most are destined for the allotment, some for the back garden, and some for pots. I’ll keep you posted how I get on.

Spring bulbs arrived this morning!

On the allotment, life is slowing down but is definitely not yet finished for the year. The greenhouse is empty now, other than the final chilli plants, but the gourds are providing never-ending club-shaped green fruit. I actually planted a gourd mix but only one type seems to have thrived, and to my mind it is the least attractive, so next year I’ll go back to the drawing board with some properly orange, gnarled and suitably witch-y varieties.

A pile of gourds are seasoning on the drying rack

The sunflowers are elegantly dying back but they will stay in the ground for a few weeks for their seeds to ripen. Why pay tuppence a bag to feed the birds when you can grown your own seed-heads for free? I love the statuesque height of these browning heads, swaying in the early autumn wind. There’s still plenty of smaller blooms to pick, and they’re going in the vase with the pumpkin, bronze and lemon-coloured chrysanthemums.

Sunflowers are ageing gracefully

I am leaving the heads on so that the seeds ripen: free food for the birds

The dahlias are the gift that keeps on giving. In the last few weeks this yellow bloom has popped up: left in the ground last summer to over-winter, it has taken its own sweet time to grow but now that it has, what a shade it is! Dahlias Labyrinth (the fat one) and Totally Tangerine (the daisy shaped one) evoke the shades of sunset but Labyrinth, I discover, is an anomaly: it should be a compacted anenome-shape but ours has turned out with a curious mis-shaped centre. There is, of course, great beauty in the ‘fault’.

Bright brash colour from the dahlias

Labyrinth is meant to be far more compact than this

The sea of zinnia and cosmos

But what is there to eat? Well, the chicory, spinach and winter leaves are going great and I pulled the last of the sweetcorn to freeze for another day. The borlotti are fattening nicely and, believe it or not, I’m STILL pulling the sodding courgettes. As for the raspberries: I am now so sick of them I’m afraid they are rotting on the canes.

Borlotti beans approaching harvest time

Raspberries are now rotting on the vine, they are so prolific

The trombocino (aka Sea Monster) squash

Season’s eatings

It’s not all great news. The brassicas, once the plat-du-jour of our foe the slug, has now become a des-res for billions of whitefly. That is not an exaggeration. The leaves are covered in egg sacks and sticky black sooty mould, essentially rendering them inedible. The RHS says to spray them with a weak washing-up liquid solution, which I did, but it has made not the slightest difference.

Billions of white fly have taken up residence in the brassicas, leaving sooty mould on the leaves

And then there’s the rosemary, which had grown far too great for its station in life and received a well-deserved hack. The compost bin is now even more of a disaster then before.

Will someone help sort out the compost heap please?!

Apparently this is the time to slow down, but the jobs are piling up in my head: get the grass edges tidied up, pull out the summer planting, sort out the back garden at the house (a MASSIVE JOB), get the bulbs planted, remember to actually cook some stuff, try and think creatively for next year (a contradiction in terms of course).

The new terms begins.

Planted out: Seedlings of winter lettuce and greens gifted by Natalie Schwarz
Sowed: Autumn sowings of hardy annuals (ammi, cornflower, sweetpeas, calendula, nigella); greenhouse sowing of winter leaves (Tuscan mix, SR Winter mix, spinach Mediana)
Harvesting: Final stick beans, all the sweetcorn, first borlotti beans, final tomatoes, final aubergines, final courgettes (but I’ve been saying that for a month), gourds, trombocino, raspberries, chicory, chard, spinach, winter salad mix, salad rocket, wild rocket, beets, dahlias, sunflowers, zinnia, chrysanthemums. Would be picking cavolo nero if it weren’t covered in whitefly.
Cleaned out: Tomatoes, sweetpea sticks, trimmed the massive rosemary and oregano bushes

November 20, 2015 by Helen Stallard

The November allotment

Growing, like cooking, is such a grounding activity. The newsfeeds this week filled our laptops and phones with constant information about the dire state of the world, and it’s easy amidst this barrage to lose one’s steadiness. As the days suddenly grow shorter, so the world seems to grow darker (metaphorically and literally: sunset at 4.08pm now). But there is always the promise of longer days and of light to come. There is a lovely quote attributed to Mother Teresa that reads, ‘In this world we can not always do great things, but we can do small things with great love’. As individuals we might feel powerless but we can at least do our best, according to our own means, to spread a little kindness in our world. Ten years of yoga practice has taught me the importance of at least attempting to keep my equilibrium.

And so, when the sun shone this afternoon for what must be the first time in weeks, I seized the opportunity to get out and top up my Vitamin D levels. The skies have slid into a washed out, wintery blue.

Winter skies are upon us

Oh allotment, I have abandoned ye! The grass that I meant to strim a month ago is now shaggy and long, but still too wet to get near. There are darned weeds growing everywhere (three trug-fulls today), we’ve yet to actually have that bonfire, and everywhere there is the sense that life has slooooooowed right dooooooown, ready for the cold months.

The allotment is a soggy, grassy state

Unusually energised, I dug over the old raspberry patch – this is the one that’s been under black matting since early spring. I think this ground has not been broken for the best part of 15 years and consequently was full of stones, roots and twigs. Some of the raspberry roots eluded me; someone with greater upper body strength than I will need to get rid of them (Matt, please take the hint). With this ground reclaimed I have a good few extra metres of space to grow pretty flowers in the spring. Hurray!

The old raspberry patch has been forked over, finally

The bean poles finally got taken up and the worst of the grassy weeds taken out of the beds. All the ground needs manuring now before settling down for a winter kip.

The beanpoles, corn and sunflowers are a distant memory

The blackcurrant may be dormant but it’s gone down fighting: its buds are clear to see, showing the intent to resurrect itself come April. And those greens – amazingly, the chard, spinach and sorrel are still crisp, croppable, thriving.

The blackcurrant has set its buds ready for next spring

The sorrel, spinach and chard deserve medals for long service

The allotments have all faded into subdued shades of brown, with the occasional shot of colour. A neighbour’s apple tree has lost all its leaves but the golden fruit remain, bobbing in the breeze like baubles on a Christmas tree. By the stream, a spray of rosehips are enticingly out of reach, gorgeous and plump.

Final shot of autumnal floral colour

Apples on a neighbour’s tree resemble golden baubles in the low afternoon sun

I love this spray of red rosehips by the stream

Will we ever get around to visiting Chappers to collect her horse manure? Will the bonfire have to wait until next year? Only time will tell.

Harvesting: Winter lettuce, mustard spinach, chard, spinach, sorrel, chicory, leeks, carrots, parsnips, crysanths. Also forked over old raspberry patch, weeded, took out bean and sweetpea canes.

October 5, 2015 by Helen Stallard

October pickings

The proper autumn harvest has begun. I was in Stratford upon Avon last week for work and popped to Charlecote Plants on the way back, which is essentially a wooden shack next to a National Trust property. Don’t be fooled though, for the shack is home to treasure. Charlecote are known for their October display of squash and visitors are welcomed by mountains of knobbly, gnarly, stripy, weird, wonderful veggies.

The squash display at Charlecote, Warwickshire

Custard squash!

If I’d have known, I’d have flogged my gourds for £6 a basket

Squash aside, the produce here is brilliantly good. I picked up golden beets, local red cabbage, russet spring onions and admired the baskets of princely quince and cobnuts. The carrots, which are the same variety as we “grow”, made me sick with envy.

Exquisite rainbow carrots at Charlecote…

…and the less-than-exquisite ones from our allotment

Yesterday marked a momentous day at Veg Patch: the pulling of the first parsnip! What’s more, it actually looked like a parsnip! Nothing can beat that spicy earthy scent of a freshly dug ‘snip, though in truth they need a bit more time in the soil to bulk out.

First parsnip of the year with all it’s gnarly perfumed glory

The leeks are ready now but they’ve been affected by a rot of some kind, and the outer leaves are beginning to disintegrate. Can leeks be frozen? Something to look up. The onions, meanwhile, have been drying out for the past fortnight, making the most of the unseasonably warm September.

Onions are drying beautifully

We missed the optimal moment for the hop harvest; they’re no good for beer now. But they are pretty enough so perhaps will have a second life as a decoration somewhere, though preferably not in my kitchen as the papery petals shed everywhere and generally make a right mess.

Hops: too far gone for beer now, but still pretty enough

The sunflowers are now fading, though the bees are still drinking their fill of nectar. The prize for October colour goes to the crysanths, now blooming with incredibly long-lived stems. I love the clash of orange, purple and pink: it seems the essence of autumn in a vase.

Can’t get enough of these fiery shades

The cosmos is still holding firm

This beauty has come up out of nowhere

So we have an autumn harvest. No brassicas (yet, but I live in hope), so I’ve taken to stealing cavalo nero from my mother’s veg patch. Blanched then tossed in olive oil and garlic, it lifts a plate of roasted roots to new dimensions. Autumn is definitely here.

A car boot of booty

Elegant stems of cavalo nero

Harvest of season’s change

Gourds, squash, dahlia, crysanths: autumnal table display

Harvest: Dahlia, cosmos, crysanths, leeks, carrots, parsnip, courgette, chard, spinach, last tomatoes, last chillies

September 16, 2015 by Helen Stallard

September pickings

Summer comes late to a Birmingham allotment, the first flowers not really blooming until June. They are white, pale and gentle: cosmos, foxglove, sweet-pea, forget-me-not. Then the season slips to autumn and WHAM BAM! Colour is everywhere! The sunflowers blaze and the blueberries turn a majestic russet; there are golden tomatoes, green peppers, red raspberries and purple beans. Not to be outdone, the artichoke still lures drunk bees to its violet spikes.

There are still drunk bees on the artichoke flowers

The colours of the autumn flowers work together incredibly well, but it’s due to luck rather than judgment. The yellow, red and orange dahlias contrast against the peach calendula, in turn providing foil for the sunflowers.

Sunshine yellow dahlias

One of the last calendula

Speaking of sunflowers…they’re proving themselves to be showy madams. I think there are six different varieties – can’t quite remember – and the more I pick, the more they keep coming. The issue now is height: the best blooms are a foot taller than I can reach.

The sunflowers, frankly, are showing off

And they’re beyond reach. This is as tall as I go!

Truth be told, I’m getting a little bored of these late summer flowers (I know, it’s a terrible thing to say). Eyes now are on the crysanthemums, which hint at blooming daily but then never quite get around to it.

The crysanths are thinking about putting on a show

The beans are starting to fade now, or at least the purple ones are. I’ve purposefully left a load of pods on the vine to fatten up, the beans inside perfect for winter soups and stews. Meanwhile, I discovered yesterday that one borlotti plant made it through the slug assault! We have pods, slim and mottled with pink, which in a month or so will be full of marbled borlottis.

Swelling bean pods amidst autumnal leaves

Joy! One borlotti plant made it through and now there are pods

Next to the beans I’ve allowed the bishop’s flower (or ammi) to fade, its seed heads just as pretty as the white fluff of flower.

Flower head and seed head coexist on the ammi

Speaking of fading: the berries are long gone, but the blueberry delivers again with a show-stopping storm of autumn colour.

Blazing blueberry bush

I’ve been forgetting that the allotment is meant to be about harvesting, and harvesting things to eat at that. The hops are nearly ready to come down (Matt’s in charge of that bit), and that favourite autumn delight – corn – has come up trumps. 18 ears are ready to cut!

The hops are ready to harvest

So too the corn, 18 ears and counting

The fennel started life with promise but has now had a hissy fit and bolted. I’ll pull it nonetheless, it’s anise flavour will come in useful somewhere in the kitchen.

The fennel is deeply unimpressed with the weather and has bolted

The chicory I thinned the other week has relaxed into itself and started to hearten up. I love the flicks of purple, as if a paintbrush has been splattered over the leaves.

Chicory is heartening up

The chard deserves a special medal for longevity. I planted this row back in March and it’s a bit hole-y now – that’s the slugs for you – but it’s still cropping and tender. The spinach will make it through to winter and, under cover, the mustard leaves and cavalo nero are relatively intact.

The chard is still going strong, despite slug damage

The raspberries keep coming and, weather permitting, will do so for a few more weeks I expect.

Luscious autumn raspberries

Amidst the loot, there are the interlopers. I couldn’t bring myself to shift this weed, which has seeded itself under a brick – no soil required.

This brave plant has rooted itself under a brick on top of plastic. No soil here. It gets marks for perseverance.

I harvest carrots (wonky but tasty), leeks, beans, tomatoes, chillies, courgettes, sunflowers and dahlias, a trug which brightens a grey September day.

Straight leeks, wonky carrots

Colourful pickings

Harvesting: Beans, chillies, courgettes, raspberries, tomatoes, chard, corns, carrots, leeks, dahlias, sunflowers, cosmos, last calendula

Planted under cover: chard, kale, mustard spinach, winter lettuce

August 14, 2015 by Helen Stallard

Thinking ahead

My time and attention has been sucked into a brochure-shaped vortex. It’s like that when you work on festivals. Rather like the pain of childbirth (so I’m told), you forget the intensity of concentration and negotiation and emails and headaches (both literal and metaphorical), start work on a new one, then fall into the rabbit hole once more until it’s all over and you emerge back into the light blinking. To organise an arts festival requires at least eight hands spinning 80 plates. There are perks to brochure creation though: I get to be pernickety about the placing of commas and apostrophes, and designers feed me fish-finger sandwiches and key lime pie.

Key lime pie whilst brochure editing

It’s at these times when the allotment is a god-send: after a full-on day, the knowledge that I have to go and water the tomatoes gives a bit of structure, makes me step away from the computer. Fresh air blows a hole through the most hideous of bad heads. In these late afternoon wanderings, I’ve been spotting season’s changing: Autumn is rearing its head.

Plumping blackberries

Swelling hips

At the weekend, the fruit farm had the first plums and apples of the season. The plums gave off that particularly plummy-smell, at once sweet and spicy and vaguely rotting, but in a good way. The wasps buzzed around hoping for their next meal.

The first plums are ready

So too the first apples

On the allotment, our dahlias are out and that pesky artichoke has come good with particularly brilliant flowers. The bees dive into the purple spikes and get drunk on pollen, sloping around-and-around on their bellies in a satisfied stupor.

Our first zingy lemon meringue dahlia

Artichoke shows its punk credentials

First tomato from the greenhouse

I’ve been thinking about my winter culinary wardrobe. The cavalo nero seedlings are plump and healthy, the thinnings great when wilted into chunky courgettes.

Cavalo nero thinnings, lovely wilted with hot salty courgettes

Those rubbish corns were ripped out to make space for the cavalo nero, which I’ll plant out in a couple of weeks. Next to them I’ve put in more chard and spring onions, and in seed-trays I’ve sowed winter lettuce, mustard mix, mustard-spinach and red Russian kale. Fingers crossed for a decent crop to take us through the cold months.

Winter lettuce, mustard, mustard-spinach & red Russian kale

Sowed: Winter lettuce, mustard mix, mustard-spinach, Red Russian kale, white stemmed chard, spring onion

Harvesting: Sunflowers, sweetpeas, calendula, green and purple beans, spinach, chard, red Russian kale, courgettes, blueberries, raspberries, first tomato

Notes from the Veg Patch

autumn

Autumn beef & vegetable stew

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Plum torte

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Autumn is here

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The November allotment

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October pickings

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September pickings

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Thinking ahead

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