Fresh Veg from the November garden

I was just looking through my garden diary and noticed that I am still cropping food from the garden even now in mid November.  The other night I picked a winter salad to accompany some shepherds pie and last night I was picking chard for a curry.

In fact the garden has been feeding me steadily and hasn't taken a week off since April - thank you garden!

Considering I have a small patio garden and my growing is in pots,  I don't suffer gluts very often, but I am finding with time and learning about what works through trial and error that I have a steady supply of salad greens and these haven't had a week off for about 7-8 months, which I would never have guessed would happen in a small container garden, but what a blessing it is.

I am sure it is also thanks to this strange year of weather we've been having and we haven't had a frost in South West London yet.

The types of things that I am still cropping are:

• Chillies & Peppers (from the plastic greenhouse)
• Kale
• Chard
• Beetroot
• Cabbage
• Rapa de Senza (turnip green eaten as a salad leaf)
• Kai Lan (delicious raw in salad or lightly stir fried)
• Nasturtium (will definitely be popping these seeds around the garden anyway I find a spare bit of soil - such a versatile crop for pesto, salad, pickled seeds, flavour and it grows so easily in the UK.  So far from May - November)
• Mustard Leaf
• Garlic Chives (from last summer's garlic bulbs - I missed a few when harvesting and now have garlic chives popping up in a few places...delicious!)

Last night we made a flavourful curry with the chard from the garden and some potatoes and free range chicken.  It was simply delicious, made even more delicious by the garden chard and fresh from the plant chillies.  Even the mustard seed was saved from the garden.

I would never have guessed that even in November the garden would be inspiring evening meals.