How is it November already? I hope you all had a wonderful Samhain/Halloween. We have now entered the darker half of the year. How did you all celebrate? We spent our morning at the allotment and visited Kenilworth Castle later on – but I will post about that separately.

Our pumpkins did quite well, we were a little late putting them in so I am surprised that we ended up with 11! The skin on the majority of them hasn’t turned orange, but there is no rush for that to happen. They should last a while if they are stored correctly. I had to cut them off the vines earlier than I wanted, but the rain had battered the vines and left them mushy.

Traditionally, turnips were always used to carve Jack O’Lanterns, it is only in more recent years that pumpkins have been used. The tale of Jack I know is that he was cursed to walk between Earth and the afterlife, due to his less than honest lifestyle, with only a lump of coal for light. Jack hollowed out a turnip and placed the coal inside, ready to begin his eternal wander for a place to rest in peace.

Almost everything at our allotment has died off now, we just have a few herbs, celeriac and over wintering cabbage (if the bugs don’t eat them all beforehand). We have some ground work to do before the winter sets in, which we hope to do in the next couple of weeks.