Looking ahead - 2013

Now we are more than half way through the year I like to start planning for Christmas. Posh note book has been bought for plans/gifts, Christmas books & magazines unearthed for re-reading for ideas.

I will now start buying dried fruit, nuts & suet each month so the shock of the huge pre Christmas shop does not hit me when the nice lady on the till at Tesco asks me for several hundred pounds. I would also like to buy the spirits & wine in advance. That would be dangerous as i would drink them well before the festivities begin..

Anyhoo, before Christmas comes Autumn. In Autumn what do we get apart from some sun after summer, we get seed catalogues.

Oh how happily i skip home from work, if indeed i go to the office rather than log on from home. I can spend hours reading the seed catalogues & reading them again & again making plans for the following year.

Potatoes, garlic & shallots are definate plans for 2013. 2012 is the first year since growing our own that we did not plant any of them.

I have a fancy for the butternut squash that can be grown in large tubs & the patty pan squash with its peculiar shape. Spinach will be grown round the apple trees like the mixed leaf salad has been this year. Mange tout is also a possibility along with some sweetcorn. A new asparagus bed is being built soon, so 10 new crowns will be ordered. Which variety is yet to be known. I shall have to wait for those catalogues to come through the letterbox.