Trevor's Kitchen Garden How I grow my own food and how you can too.

Last chance before political work takes over to store up the beetroot and courgette crop. I need the ground where the beetroot has been growing to plant autumn onion sets. It suits me therefore to harvest the lot, boil and bottle them in vinegar with some onion and herbs from the garden in each jar. After giving away some beetroots at the Cool Earth exhibition in Dun Laoghaire last weekend, I have enough to make 14 jars full. I shall see how they keep in the cool athmosphere of the attic in the months ahead.

The glut of courgettes growing on my patio requires them to be cooked and stored also. The simplest thing for me to do was just make soup. Again the onions from the garden came in handy and the soup is tasty. The bulk I will freeze for re-heating during the colder days of winter ahead.

Even though the days are drawing in, there is still good light for sowing  my weekly few radish seeds alongside the autumn lettuce I planted out. Meanwhile, I’m on the look out for the Radar variety of onion sets which are specifically for autumn planting. I have covered the former beetroot patch with old carpet to keep the soil weed free and warm in readiness for the trusty Radar sets when I can get some.