Harvest

In the world of vegetable gardening September is a wonderful month - no planting required, only the very fulfilling job of harvesting. The only problem is what to do with it all when its picked, and you can't eat it all in one day.... This year the turnips are doing very well - they are lovely and sweet - we have an abundance of beans - Runner, French, Yellow Climbing, Borlotti, - the onions are all picked and drying out, an Italian green vegetable called l'agretto has gone mad and we can't keep up with it, as has the chard and beet leaf, the caterpillars have attacked the kale and the cabbages though, but there is hope, and enough time to re-sow the kale before the winter, last year we were cutting from September through to the following March before it gave out, it survived the snow and frost without ever needing covering; so as winter veg goes kale is my favorite - its green and needs hardly any fussing about. On the fruit front the apples and plums are ripening up nicely and we even have some pears this year.

And at work things are somewhat the same - almost all the books have arrived, and the festival is a month away, which means further temptations for this blogger. Christopher Hope's new novel has arrived - My Mother's Lovers published by Atlantic - as has Victor Sebestyen's book on the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 - Twelve Days published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

The trouble is that I have no time to read them. But come November when the nights have drawn in my time will be devoted to reading books, instead of just talking about them.