It must be nearly winter, I am sneaking chilli plants back inside…The 2 habaneros are home, because they fitted into my bike basket, but I need the car to get the rest tomorrow, before the colder weather comes. There are at least 2 meals of padron peppers on the plants and there is no way I want to lose those to the frost. After they are all away I can take down the culticave and start prepping the ground for the greenhouse – only almost a year since I got it!

It hammered down most of today, so the work party didn’t really happen. Not for me anyway, spent most of the day cooking and messing about in the flat and just went up for a couple of hours late afternoon. The plot is very squishy and none of the wet has so far made it down the new land drain.

Still, the broad beans are now all in and netted with varying degrees of finesse against the pesky birds. Fingers crossed they all come through – this is my first try at overwintering beans. The crimson ones have overspilled into the blue bed, and I found the most ENORMOUS spud when I was putting them in. How I missed it when I was digging the bed over is beyond me. One of the shallots is up – none of the others putting in an appearance yet. It also looks like the saffron has finished – about half the new bulbs flowered in the end, and I missed a few flowers because of my work schedule.

While I was there I moved the shed lock into the winter position (so it still locks when the doors expand as they get damper) and fixed the guttering, which the achocha had warped by growing enthusiastically all over it.

Harvested lots of beetroot and chillies. The flat smells of rosemary from the dehydrator and we’re having a squash roasted with dinner tonight. It’s supposed to be the Tonda Padana, but it’s so pretty I don’t really want to cut it open.