I can’t believe we are into November already. My head is still somewhere in September, where it always is at this time of year. I think I am in denial that Christmas is just around the corner, not my most favourite time of the year.

I love the spring and summer. Being out in the garden, amongst the plants and coming home from work and spending just a few moments in the garden, to see what new has come up or gone over. Now it’s dark on my drive time commute, so I only have the weekends to spend in the garden, squeezed in amongst all the chores, which beckon.

The saving grace, of this time of year, is the autumnal colours and the trees are looking particular magnificent at the moment.

During the dark evenings, there’s time to reflect on the highs and lows of the garden this year. What new plants have been grown, what to repeat next year and what I should not do or grow next year.

This has been the first year I have had a greenhouse where I grew tomato Legend. It is a bush variety and grew absolutely enormous, so at first I thought next year I would grow a cordon variety instead, to give me more space but Legend was so large and delicious and definitely a tomato you could never buy in the shops, that I have decided I am going to grow that one again next year but maybe train it better.

Also in the greenhouse I grew chillies. A huge success but I definitely grew far too many of them. Even after giving lots of plants away, the amount of chillies, which grew per plant was eye watering – literally! I will grow them again next year but not so many.

My outdoor tomatoes were also a huge success, although I planted them too close together (next year read the instructions and more importantly, don’t ignore them). Whilst I was picking them I thought that next year I wouldn’t grow so many but the result of all these tomatoes has been the most delicious homemade sauce, which has been perfect in pasta dishes, so much more tasty than the tinned tomatoes we usually use and sun dried, well oven dried really, in olive oil.

My first crop of lettuce in my wooden planter was a success but the second lot just didn’t seem to do much, which puzzled me until I spotted the cat sitting in the soil, well you can guess the rest, suffice to say, next year I am going to cover it with chicken wire.

I think I asked too much of my little plot, planting things too close together. I grew sweet peas and a few flowers, which is good for encouraging beneficial insects but I just don’t have the room, so next year I will stick with nasturtiums and calendula. These can be dotted around the edge, although I expect they will have self-seeded from this year’s plants, so I need to be brave and pull up the seedlings which are in the wrong place, which I am hopeless at. I hate the thought of cutting these young plants lives short!

I am in a quandary with the butternut squash. My three sisters bed worked well, (sweetcorn, climbing beans and squash growing together in harmony) but I think it could have been better with more nourishment in the soil. The problem with squashes is that they take up so much room but I would have to say that my family love this vegetable more than any other, so I think that’s a keeper for next year.

In conclusion the lessons I have learnt from this year are:

· Not to pack so much into my vegetable plot.

· Take heed of the planting distances.

· Be more vigilant with tying in the tomatoes.

· Pull up seedlings not wanted.

My parsnips are looking good (well on the surface anyway) and my plan is to have them with our Christmas dinner.

The three purple sprouting broccoli plants are still hanging on in there. I am still picking off caterpillars and I have no idea where they are coming from. Last year I grew about 20 plants, so it didn’t matter too much if a couple of plants bit the dust but this year with only 3 plants, each one is precious.

I have just planted my garlic, another plant we use almost every day in our cooking and this time I planted the bulbs at the required distance!

Over the coming weeks the garden needs to be weeded and tidied. Lots of leaves to be collected and when my apple tree has been delivered, that will need planting up. Also I am going to make my vegetable bed a little bigger and improve the soil with lots of well rotted manure.

The garden may be slowing down but I definitely am not.

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