At this time of year there are still plenty of fresh vegetables in the garden to eat.
The freezer is still stocked with strawberries and other soft fruit for putting on the breakfast porridge, gooseberries for puddings and beans to have with dinner.
The storage shed still has a few apples left, potatoes, onions and garlic. We ate the one remaining squash last week.
From the garden we are eating overwintered celeriac, leeks, beetroot, carrots and winter cabbage. The last red cabbage was cooked at the weekend and the sprouting purple broccoli, one of my favourites, despite the problems in the very dry summer, has managed to supply us with a few meals this month.
The Swiss chard has perked up again as it does in early spring so a few more meals there before the weather really turns warmer and it goes to seed.
Then the first “new” harvest of the year, forced rhubarb. Beautiful bright pink stems which cook to a lovely pink juice. We cover a few of the rhubarb crowns with forcing pots to encourage these lovely pink stems. After one picking we remove the pots and let the plant recover and it produces more stalks later in the next few months.
