Garlic, shallots, beetroot and squash

I had ordered garlic, shallots and over-wintering onions but by the time they arrived the weather had turned wet. Even so, Al and I decided that we needed to get down to the plot to prepare the ground and get some of them in.

We set to work yesterday and, at first at least, we thought that the ground wasn't too bad. But our plot has some parts that are heavier than others and by close of play we felt that we had expended quite a bit of energy as we finished the work with one of them. That said, the soil looked good and the work was nothing like as hard as it was the first autumn we started to work the ground. We probably dug over more twice as ground much as we could have then.

Overnight it rained again but we have little free time and needed to get more done while we could. The ground was very sticky but we pressed on, planting garlic (three bulbs each of Provence Wight and Bella Italiano), shallot Biztro and Eschallotte Grise in reasonably neat rows. We covered it all with fleece to deter birds from throwing the sets and cloves all round the plot as they have in the past.

We still have onions to get in the ground but I am a bit less concerned about those. I have a lot of sets but will give about half away if I can. The over-wintered (Japanese) varieties keep less well than main crop onions. This year we found that we couldn't use them all before they became soft.

We were muddy when we had finished but we were able to take home something from the plot for dinner although my plans to combine broccoli (Early Purple) and globe artichoke came to nothing (although we ate the
h broccoli with salmon and hollandaise sause the next day). Instead, I baked carrot, beetroot (Pablo and a stripy orange Italian variety) and squash (Celebration) with goat's cheese. We must get a goat...