An plot inspection on Saturday afternoon proved what we thought: summer really is over.

So, we set about cutting down the tomato vines and digging up some more of the carrots to see whether they’d all been affected by the black veins we’d seen in the last batch. The answer, so far, is ‘don’t know’, as we’ll be peeling them tonight.

The tomatoes were far further gone than I’d suspected. They’ve not been ripening for a week or two now, and once we’d picked off the last kilo or so of edible fruits we disposed of the green ones. I’d had half a mind to pickle or fry them, but up close it didn’t look like they’d be much good for either.

The greenhouse is now almost empty, and it looks enormous.

By value alone the tomatoes were the biggest success of the summer, turning in a massive £90.68 and, apart from gracing the plates of countless meals, they have also provided the raw ingredients for over 20 jars of chutney, which are now maturing in an outhouse cupboard.

The herbs, universally, were a disappointment, and in light of Rich’s success at growing them indoors I’m inclined to make them a little winter project for the kitchen windowsill.

Lettuces and leaf salad, likewise. Not a great success, although they should have been among the easiest crops to grow, and in producing only 24 fruits at a value of £1, the strawberry plants were the only crop to actually make a loss.

So what lessons can be learned from summer 2007? Well, the first would be to plant earlier in the season next year. Not getting the house / plot / greenhouse until the growing season had already begun was an issue this time around that shouldn’t present itself next spring, so the crops should be a lot happier.

The second would be that beans are best when planted in the ground rather than pots. Again, though, this was done more through necessity than choice as the plot was in such a state that it couldn’t be used when they were ready for transplanting from the greenhouse to the outdoor world.

All in all, though, it’s been a good first season of experimentation, and despite the problems, mistakes and lack of experience the garden has yielded £162.54 of edible produce, with some more beetroot, peppers and carrots to come, as well as the sprouts, squash and leeks that we’ve not even touched yet.

The target for 2008 would be to increase that by at least 50% which, with a little bit of thought and planning, I don’t think should be too hard.

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garden, gardening, self sufficiency, vegetables

The nights have really drawn in now, and it’s difficult to find time, during the week, to devote to the plot. You can’t very well go rooting up carrots or pruning back the rambling brambles in the dark, and as a result it’s starting to get a little battered.

Two of the sprout plants are now looking quite lame where they have fallen over, although they are still strong and thick enough to make walking sticks from the stems. The sprouts themselves - at the bottom of the stalks, at least - are now large enough to pick and eat, so we only need wait for the frost to set their flavour and then we can take the first of the crop. I don’t think that will be long.

But the butternut squash is more of a concern, as after a promising start it seems to have stalled. I thought that planting all 12 seeds in the packet had been rather extravagant, but it’s as well I did, as at least half have since died and of those that survived only one is truly thriving. There are two in trugs and four in the plot. Of those in the plot two have quietly withered to the point where they’re little more than yellowing sticks, and the two others are sitting around enjoying the cool autumn air but making no real effort to grow any larger than a cabbage. No actual flowers or fruits on them yet.

And so the best bet for any squash this winter lies with the prize specimen growing in a trug behind the greenhouse. That’s probably because it was planted in compost and manure rather than regular earth so it’s having a richer feed.

The tomatoes, meanwhile, have pretty much run their course. After the glut we had at the end of September things have slowed right down. There are still some green fruits on the vines, but very few are turning yellow or red, and I don’t think many of the others will be changing colour now, so we’ll have to come up with a green tomato recipe for them. I think it’s maybe time to cut them down and clear some space in the greenhouse anyway (which is currently doubling as a shed while the outhouse has a new floor laid) so I could move in that other trug-bound squash to see if a couple of degrees of warmth would chivvy it along a bit.

This marks a definite turning point in the garden, though, and a very marked end of the first growing season there, so it’s probably time to tally up the value of the fruit and veg we’ve harvested so far and draw a line under summer. Going ahead, our experiments will shift focus onto the stodgy, comfort vegetables of winter.

A week in and the sloe gin is turning a wonderful red colour. I’ve only shaken mine once since making it, but Rich and Andrew (with his sloe vodka) have been shaking on a daily basis, and theirs are even redder than this.

Sloes in the bottles

There are half a dozen blackthorn trees in the horses’ field, absolutely covered with sloe. There is very little you can do with sloes, as they’re so bitter, apart from bottle them with gin and wait for them to ferment.

So over the weekend we headed out with mud-proof shoes and carrier bags, climbed through the electric fence and spent half an hour picking them from the trees. There were so many that in that short time we managed to harvest a kilo and a half, which was enough for two litres of gin, the best part of a litre of vodka (as an experiment) and some left over to freeze.

It’s very simple to make. You just have to be patient. For several months.

If the sloes haven’t already been exposed to frost, which will start to rot the skins, you have to first pierce each one with a skewer or pin. This lets the gin into the fruit, and the juices of the fruit out into the gin. It takes a long time, as there is a small stone in the middle of each one, but you need to do enough to half fill each of your bottles.

Sloes with sugar

Weigh how much you’ve put in each one and add half that weight again of sugar, then top up the bottle with gin. We were using half litre bottles, with half a pound of sloes and quarter of a pound of sugar in each one, which left room for around a third of a litre of gin.

Screw on an airtight lid, give it a good shake to mix it all about and then put it on a shelf for at least two months to brew, shaking it again every week or so. By Christmas we should have a wonderful bright pink liqueur ready for drinking.

Already they are turning a kind of burgundy, but the vodka one, interestingly, went from clear to beetroot red in just four or five hours, suggesting the alcohol in vodka reacts more violently with sloes than gin does.

Pouring gin onto the sloes

Mouldy carrot

Something is up with the carrots. We pulled some to eat tonight, and when we peeled them they had black patches beneath the skin, almost like something had been in there eating them.

I don’t know whether it’s the whole run of just the ones we pulled today, but I suspect this is an attack of carrot fly. Considering we planted a carrot fly-resistant variety, that’s very disappointing.

On a more positive note, the peppers are going great guns, and we took the first from one of the trees today. There are another six or so on the same bush, and plenty more to come, even before looking at the other plants.

First pepper