Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

Early September, and there is still much you can do in the vegetable garden. That’s if the weather lets you. Our new term at gardening club got off to a bumpy start because of heavy rain, and it was not until the middle of the month that it was dry enough for our first meet.

I was impressed by the turnout, however: lots of new recruits from years one and two, and a few from higher up the school There were familiar faces from last term, too. But the favourable numbers only made me more anxious that what I planned would not interest them. A six-week holiday (for which read ‘neglect’) had left our raised beds in need of a good weeding — and weeding, I reckoned, would hardly get pulses racing. There were no vegetables to pick or dig up (the slugs had got the beans and the pumpkins left from last term), no time to sow any seeds if we were going to clear some space. These children were getting the boring stuff before the fun: like having to clean out the rabbit hutch before you can cuddle your new bunny, or wash up before you can eat your fish and chips.

I reckoned wrong. The children got stuck in, ripping away dead cornflowers and sow thistles, and in 45 minutes, we cleared two beds. Admittedly, the soil got trampled and a lot of roots got left in the ground, but it was a start. The following week, I simply arrived a little earlier to give me time to get one of the beds into shape, and we were ready to plant.

But what to put in? I have never been excited by growing cabbage. It is always cheap to buy in the shops, and I probably have some lingering prejudice against it that goes back to soggy school dinners (I should add that having learned to cook it properly, I now enjoy eating it). But at this time of year, when the growing season is as good as over and gardeners are looking to fill that bare patch of earth, young cabbage plants (or ‘plugs’) take on a different hue. No longer are they the dull staples of the vegetable world, but an OPTION.

So I bought some plugs from our local garden centre, and we have planted a whole bed of these brassicas, criss-crossing it with string to keep pigeons off. I am watching out for other pests, too, as the warm weather over the last week has brought out the cabbage white butterfly, whose caterpillars would soon trash our new planting. And I am trying not to think about slugs, who did so much damage to our garden last term. Soon, they will be gone for the winter and our new babies will be relatively safe. I never thought I’d feel so strongly about cabbages, but here’s hoping they make it through to that day.