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on the plot, it's time for the pre-Christmas dinner harvest - only I've cocked up a bit this year! After growing the most gorgeous little button sprouts last year, it dawned on me in September that I hadn't grown any at all this season. I've brassicas aplenty

.On the basis that next summer surely can't be any shorter or cooler than the one we had in 2008, I've sent off for some sweet potato slips. I'm hoping that we'll have the right conditions for producing a successful harvest this time around (last year it seemed

time, our damson tree has cropped. This seems to have been the best year for growing stone fruit in ages - the crop is enormous. Just today we were harvesting damsons, filling trugs to the brim with soft, superbly tasty fruits. It was worth the wait

suitable for using in home-made pesto (to help use up stacks of harvested garlic and basil!). I was so glad I did go, as I found a few more varieties of garlic, including three extremely plump bulbs of my current favourite, 'Albigensian'. I'd recommend

 I've never been able to grow a halfway decent crop of either of the two brassicas I do like: broccoli and cauliflower. But now I have managed it, and I'm so impressed with the results I feel inclined to boast!This year, I grew 'Ironman', an F1 variety

harvested potatoes, and sorting them into bags. But my approach to ornamental crops is much more random and haphazard: I just notice what has done well and what has been disappointing.This year, the pelargoniums growing in containers near our front steps

? Arm yourself with a good field guide to ensure you're not eating anything poisonous, and look on weeding as harvest time.

with bell cloches for my courgette plants has paid off. Planted before my recent trip to the Canaries and Madeira, the plants are now covered with flowers, and this morning I spotted the first tiny courgettes forming. I can’t wait for the harvest.I’ll plant

Sometimes wildlife crosses the line between welcome resident and unwanted nuisance. Perhaps it's my own fault for providing temptation, but when you grow your own fruit there's always something tempting on offer.Blackbirds certainly have an instinct

, studded with little fruits. To help it along I covered it with the largest cloche I could find.The strawberries, including the summer fruiters I mentioned in my last blog, are still producing fruit (unlike the raspberries). We harvest a cereal bowl full