A crystal ball would be useful to see what’s in store
Gone are those evening forays to the plot to grab vegetables for the evening meal. After the clocks go back tonight, sunset will be before 5pm and getting earlier.
I feel a tinge of sadness picking the last brambles off an almost leafless bush, cutting down the autumn raspberries and the now yellow and dying asparagus ferns.
Winter is fast approaching. I’ve been waiting for a hard frost to knock back the foliage on my oca or New Zealand yam. This easy-to-grow root vegetable has been edging my plot path with its decorative clover-like leaves and pretty flowers all summer and now at last it’s time to harvest it. The pink tubers barely need any preparation, just a wash before cooking. Our family likes them best roasted but some people enjoy the intense lemony flavour of them raw.
The colder it gets, the better some of the winter vegetables thrive. It’s said that parsnips taste better after some frost. Red cabbage and the startlingly lovely crinkly leaves of cavalo nero kale become even more highly coloured as the winter wears on. Garlic and shallots need a cold spell to do their best next summer.
Hard frost is welcome too for the good it does to the soil. It breaks down clods of earth left after forking over the plot and it finishes off some of the unwelcome insect pests lingering on after the recent exceptionally warm summer.
A crystal ball would be useful to see what the season holds in store for us. Last winter’s cold and damp made preparing the plot for the following season difficult and a lot of us struggled to catch up. I like to get to the plot as often as I can, even if it’s only for half an hour with a modest ambition of getting just one job accomplished. One thing leads to another. So often what looks like a rather unpromising day from inside the house, actually turns out to be much better outside and the halfhour gets stretched.
Frequent short trips to the plot throughout the winter are an essential part of feeling connected to it and make it an easier job to start in earnest in spring. Sometimes it’s just a bit of troubleshooting that needs doing. For example the netting over the brassica bed begins to sag and needs tightening up to prevent pigeons from devastating the crop.
I feel a tinge of sadness picking the last brambles off an almost leafless bush
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