We use a lot of onions and so I thought I would have a go at putting in some overwinter ones, today I planted some lines of Shakespeare onion sets. I did this in the bed I prepared the other week, covering in mushroom compost having first dug out a load of bindweed roots. Before I did that, I had a couple of weeks worth of tidying up to do after constant wind and rain. The netting on the sprouts and cabbage and kale had been battered about which needed putting back together again.

The sprouts and the swedes seem to be suffering from something nibbling their leaves. Not pigeons as they are both covered, so maybe lots of small slugs which I saw on some of the leaves.

A lot of hoeing and weeding, pulling out bindweed roots and I also had chance to fork over the compost.

I pulled up the dead bean plants and took down the poles. Dug out weeds, covered in mushroom compost and raked over. Next week I will plant some rows of garlic. I have previously done this on the shortest day of the year but this year they didn’t really divide up very well which could had been the lack of any real freezing weather early on in the year. Planting them earlier this year will give them a bit more of a change.

I was surprised to see the potato plants still looking fresh and growing, we have had some cold and wet days and so I expected them to look a bit black and manky in places. Good job too as I want them to grow for some more weeks before the green plant gets killed off by cold.

I was also surprised by how many tomatoes were ready for picking. The plants look tired now but were loaded with many tomatoes. This must be the last picking of them in any great number. The plants at home have had their last picking, I’ll give them another week or two before I pull them up. Lesson for next year is grow them at the allotment where they get a lot of sun all day, and not in our north facing garden.

I took home:

• lots of beetroot to make space for preparing the garlic bed
• white cabbage
• millions of tomatoes
• carrots, all long and straight
• small bits of broccoli

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