Home-grown bounty

A beautiful late autumn afternoon for digging, sky blue sunshine still warm. We turned the turf, and covered the whole area up with plastic last December on Boxing day – 10 months later – perfect digging, beautiful rich soil! Blackcurrant, gooseberry, raspberry and rhubarb will all be going in next month to boost stocks of delicius home grown fruit.

Once back indoors, I have been making Christmas mincemeat using the Seville oranges that have been soaking in rum for a year. Think it's going to be great, but I may need to make some test pies...