We’ve had quite a few frosts these last few days. There’s a thermometer on the same pole as the garden clock and it’s been showing -1 when we’ve got up. The sun has come out nice and warmly later in the morning, but it does mean that the zucchinis and the runner beans are taking a bit of a hammering.

So I’ve pulled the zucchini and sort of weeded the bed it was in. The top bit had already been weeded and has autumn planting broad beans in it. I’ll hoe the rest of it and sow some more, though I could do with another packet.

The Builder has pulled the runner beans. I have a basket full of them, some of which have the most beautiful bean seeds in them. Pink and speckled and shiny. He’s kept back 24 of the prettiest of them, for sowing next spring. I’m gradually sorting them out into big beans and little beans ready for winter casseroles. (On a related note, I’ve also sorted out the veg freezer so that things are more or less together and I have some hope of finding things!)

The cabbages and broccoli are doing ok. We’re eating the cabbages and the bright green calabresi; some of the plants are producing sprouting bits now as well. We’re also beginning to get some carrot thinnings. Was a lovely veg collection last evening: little carrots, little zucchini (the last from the plants) and little florets of broccoli. Went very well with the roast beef, roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings.

The Builder has turned his attention to the front of the house. The little “rockery” by the back gate, which had been filled with ivy and a tree which flowered for about a week every spring but otherwise was unremarkable, has now gone, to open up a bit of space around the gate (which will eventually be the door into the porch). He’s intending to cut back the wall in front of the house by a bit and to remove the front rockery. A much larger undertaking than the back one!!

There are still squillions of little fish in the pond, along with the 6 big ones. I wonder how many of them will survive the winter. I wonder what sort of a winter we’ll have. I seem to recall it being milder than this last October (a quick squizz of the Meanderings blog for last October suggests that it was milder and damper and greyer but I wasn’t really keeping a weather report).

I’ve been very impressed with this season’s produce from the garden, the orchard and the allotment. It was the first year for all of them, it hasn’t been particularly good weather for growing food – and the vegetable freezer is full to capacity and we continue to eat from the greenhouses and from the veg garden. True, only brassicas from the veg plots, but I’m not sneezing at cabbages and broccoli.

And here’s looking towards next season.