We’ve not spend a lot of time on the plot for the past couple of weeks. The weather has been weird, I’ve been busy, Ma’s knee has been playing up.

The allotment feels like it’s been more productive in the last four weeks, than it’s been all summer.

We are still getting a couple of strawberries, the raspberries are producing, the summer squash and courgettes had a resurgence. The autumn crops are also starting (and finishing) cauliflowers grew and are done (next year, I’ll probably end up freezing some, this year they went into soup!), the cabbages, kale, chard and broccoli are producing. And we are getting turnips, which are much nicer than we expected!

Last week I also called time for the winter squash, back in June I was thinking that I might not get any winter squash, there were nine, and two little ones I’ve left and will pick up this week. It’s not a patch on last year’s haul but I’ll take it!

There is always work to do and we won’t get to any of it until the week after next but the main things to get done in October are:

• Build a polytunnel
• Repot the blueberries
• Sow garlic
• Sow onions
• Sow broad beans
• Weeding and tidying up

October is the time when lots of allotmenteers stop for the winter. That has never been how we do it and why we have always tried to have food plants to overwinter. Winter is time to get the structure of the plot sorted, we do less work but we still work. I’m hoping that this is the last year we’ll need to work too much on the structure, there’s the poly, replacing some of the beds and hopefully the last year of moving fruit bushes and roses. Then I would like at least a couple of years of calm and just gardening (famous last words!)