It was a week of sunshine mixed with showers, and gusts of strong winds followed by stillness. It’s hard to imagine another frost but the data and all of our friends and neighbours assure us it’s coming. Our deciduous trees are no longer bare, instead covered in buds, blossoms or leaves. Happily, some plants that we thought were killed by frost – like the comfrey and caraway – are emerging from the ground. Insects are multiplying and I’m trying to pay attention. The bees, flies and spiders are welcome (I learned that flies are pollinators!). But there is a huge array of insects that I’ve never paid much attention to before. I’m wishing I’d followed through on my intention to learn the lifecycle of five pests. We are, however, very good at identifying slugs.

Having clicked over to September. we’re sowing a wider variety of seeds, which is fun. It does mean that there are a lot of seed trays around, which is not ideal but it works. Part of the reason is that we are propagating a lot of plants – like peas and radish – that other people sow directly. This is partly to thwart the seed-eating visitors and partly because plants should grow faster in warmer soil – i.e. inside. The radish that we sowed outside in late July (when friends had already harvested some) has already taken three weeks longer than the seed packet guide of 30 days (presumably based on summer). So far the peas that we’ve transplanted over the past week seem to have escaped attacks from small visitors. Soon we’ll put rows of lettuce down the sides, which should make the soil and plants healthier. But at the moment we’re loving watching the lettuce in the tunnel grow bigger every day and I want to keep putting new seedlings in there. It’s really quite remarkable and I’m quietly optimistic now that we will have a continuous supply of lettuce to sell from here on.

Another aspect of planning that has proved tricky for us as first-timers is that the change in weather and day length makes plants want to flower. So everything we planted before winter is at risk of starting to bolt. I had planned to sell kale during September but it’s flowering, which is interesting to see but not in my spreadsheet. And now the rainbow chard in the tunnel – which has been so reliable for months – is showing the first signs of bolting while the new seedlings are still tiny. Time will tell. I’ve almost accepted that I might be eating brussels sprout leaves, rather than sprouts, as I watch what seem to be flower heads appear.

New mysteries continue to develop, which I could think of as “learning opportunities”, if only I could find the answers! A little like our lettuce conundrum back in May, the broad beans along the fence have developed in two halves, with the top half of the row reaching full height and flowering while the other half seem to be stuck at half the size. Of more concern was that some seedlings in the tunnel had begun began turning yellow and so had some of the radish outside (even Alex was worried!). But I think we’ve solved those puzzles now: we had been overwatering some of the trays in the tunnel and the radish probably had transplant shock since we may have forgotten to spend a week hardening them off (i.e. putting them outside in the daytime to acclimatise). The learning continues. Hopefully we can at least avoid making the same mistakes twice!