I’m glad I decided to grow turnips this year as I really fancied a meal with turnips, maybe to help me feel that the summer came and went without much announcement and we are now very much into autumn. It hasn’t felt like that as the weather has been better and more summer like than the summer. Harvesting a turnip though does show that it is indeed autumn time. I was pleased to see they were starting to become ready and so I pulled up a couple and we will have those for tea.

Another sign that it is no longer summer is that I planted out garlic gloves. I pulled out the old cucumber plants to make space for these while also digging up some of the path so that I have a bit more bed space. The paths were the width they were originally in order to get a wheelbarrow along them, but there are no longer any wheelbarrows available for anyone to use on the site and so having them a bit thinner to give more growing space is no longer a problem. I mixed in old compost to the soil and gave it a light watering before putting in the cloves.

The broadbeans that I sowed the other week are now mostly showing, and I bought up some more bottles to use as protection against mice and things during the winter. Onions planted out last week have some starting to sprout.

I did some weeding and took home:

• raspberries
• courgette
• turnips
• carrots

Before I left, I went round to the field, climbed the tree and cut down some more branches. I’ll keep doing this until I’ve cut down as much as I can that is covering the plot.