Amy’s school had their harvest festival last week, which was good because we had a particular revolting brand of tinned spaghetti in the cupboard we needed to get shot of. I often think that there should be some sort of international UN or NATO version of harvest festival; where all the wealthy western nations could smugly come together and patronizingly foist off all their unwanted barrels of toxic waste and radioactive materials onto bewildered third world nations in the name of “charity”. Perhaps that’s what Trafigura was doing all along.
Anyway the point is that it’s harvest time, and so I’ve been out on Old McHughes’ farm bringing in my crops. Except I haven’t as I don’t really have many crops to bring in. The potatoes were gathered months ago, the peas were basically eaten raw straight from the vine as soon as they ripened, and the runner beans were polished off in a giant stew a couple of weeks ago. Our strawberry plants have all died from neglect (just like last year), and the sweetcorn never got enough sun to develop properly.
I have harvested one thing however. See if you can guess from the picture what it is. I’ll give you a clue, it’s not a cumquat:
I’ve a few plans for next year, including a grand strawberry pyramid. I also intend making an effort to grow veg that we’ll actually eat rather than ones that look good on the seed packet.
However for now I’m turning the plot over to the chickens to weed over the winter for me. With the days drawing in the hen’s egg production has started to slacken off to 3 or 4 a day rather than 5 or 6, so they are going to have to earn their keep somehow.
