Winter armageddon postponed: return to your plots

We may be at Hallowe'en but there's nothing dark and foreboding down at the plot. The very brief cold snap has given way to a dry balmy October. Our proximity to the warm of the Firth means summer flowers, leafy veg, globe artichokes, strawberries and raspberries are coasting through frost-free to November. As keen students of the weather, you will have noticed that, thanks to the local warming wind, the Grampian chinook if you like, this has often been the warmest place in the UK this last week, unless you're counting the Greater London heat island effect. But this is no time to sunbathe. Winter salads, garlic and onions are in, along with some experimental peas. Broad beans probably next week. Nitrogen fixing green manures are covering the exhausted potato patch. You will all also have your pigeon and deer protection on your Christmas dinner sprouts, January King cabbages and spring cauliflowers, I expect. But you will have to wait for the next in the series of exotic crops because I have to wait for the first frost to kill them off.

Four Seasons Veg in One Day

We seem to have skipped autumn here, following up the best weather of the year only a week or so back with a maximum of 6 deg yesterday. The relentless march of the seasons signals a shift in the diet for the struggle through winter. My orderly ranks of celeriac look up for the fight. Unlike most vegetables, there is no advantage in growing small celeriac. These are my biggest yet.The key, apart from abundant natural watering, is space and I have plenty of both of those commodities. I'll let you know if I think of any recipes for it. My neeps, your Swedish turnip, I will treat as a learning curve. Transplanting, like I did successfully with the rest of my brassica, has set them back, although not quite following the trend in microveg. Next year I will sow direct, thin slightly and leave plenty for the mice over winter. It's not all wintry harvest though. We continue to be weighed down with alpine strawberries. They have a fragrant sweetness that sets them apart from the overbred versions but leave them too long and they start to taste like dolcelatte. I have nothing against blue cheese but it's probably not what you aim for in a strawberry. These were destined for Scotland's finest culinary invention, Cranachan, of toasted oatmeal, cream and a splash of the finest Glen Rothes 12yo, or more soberly with the oatmeal, plain yogurt and maple syrup. To complete the annual cycle, we also have a taste of spring with the purple sprouting broccoli.That's not what it said on the tin but we must just give thanks for a freezer-full of broccoli soup.

Aid Aid

As I'm sure you know, there are over 20,000 species of edible plants, but humans choose to restrict themselves to a small fraction of them. Only 20 species provide 90 per cent of human food. There is an apocalyptic strand of thinking that the burgeoning world population will lead to food shortages and escalating price of staples. Aside from the increasing cost of stationery, we will all be forced to get our food from whatever is available. It makes sense to research the options early, spread yourself more thinly and have a few unusual sources of nourishment up your sleeve. You'll then be the one turning away the hungry hordes from your door when the famine hits, rather than rooting around in the bins on Botley Road. To do my bit in this quest, I am pushing the plot boundary with a new series illustrating alternative or exotic crops that grow prodigiously - or otherwise - in the difficult north.

First up is the achocha. This grows like a cucumber but is much more fond of cooler climates it would seem, running rampant over the willow tower we stingily bring inside to use as a Christmas tree. The support has now buckled under a combination of the weight of the vine and our omnipresent wind - such potential effects on Christmas decorations need to be considered in the solution to the coming world food crisis. Its bite-sized fruit are the size of a quail's egg, if that is not too bourgeois a comparison. Its hairy features give it something of a human personality but, if you can bring yourself to eat it, it tastes somewhere between a cucumber and green pepper for use in salads, sandwiches, pizza topping etc. Coming to a soup kitchen near you soon.

Hope squashed but no cauli wobbles

I've been out harvesting my potatoes this week wearing only a hat. Seven sackfuls, sweaty stuff! Best weather of the year here, but it's come too late to save my pumpkins. I had one sizable specimen but it has taken to impersonating a squash. When I poked it the other day, it dented like my new football after a huge black labrador attacked it on the local rec when I was 10. Inside turned out to be a gooey mass. The plant was still healthy; I think the fruit must have just shivered to death for absence of sunshine to ripen it. It's a tricky business growing pumpkins this far north. Last year, you'll remember my infeasibly bountiful wheelbarrow, but many of them had been softened by an early frost at the end of September, and they didnt keep too well. One can only learn from such setbacks.
My brassicae offer a good case study. Last year, I lost half the crop to root fly. Answer: grow more and prepare for repalcements. Strangely no root fly this year, so my nursery bed is still heaving leaves. Then the survivors were decimated by caterpillars. Answer: inspect your nether regions and squash any yellow growths. The neeps were then eaten by mice and/or deer in the November snow. Answer: err... no snow? And to cap it all, the supposedly hard cavolo nero and sprouting broccoli didn't survive the December ice age - leaving me with only the trusty curly kale for the dark months. Answer: I'll be ready with the polytunnel. This year, my patch has made it through to the season of mellow fruitfulness in very good heart. Only one thorny issue to deal with now: how to tell my dear pumpkin she's in for a season of clapshot and rumbledethump suppers.