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.