Not so much gardening but a little work in the kitchen

  This is going to be a short entry as it has been a very quiet week on the garden front. The short days and the weather have made doing very much outside very difficult. Mind you on the couple of days that were sunny I entertained the youngest grandson, Toby! Ha! Still, I managed to pick some apples from the neighbour's tree and collected up the butternut squash to put into winter storage. We continue to enjoy the buttercup squash. The garlic is now up so hopefully the chickens will leave it alone!
   So, leaving the garden behind we have been collecting sweet chestnuts. It is a great year for them. They are big and the recent high winds have brought them down and are therefore easy to collect. That means I have made sweet chestnut stuffing for Christmas and I have also made a sweet chestnut truffle cake! The truffle cake was excellent and despite the pain of have to peel the sweet chestnuts I expect to make it again.
   In the poly tunnel the Christmas potatoes continue to grow well. I will need to cover them up soon as the first frost cannot be that far away. I have sown spring onions to overwinter and the "18 Day" radish are up and looking like they will be the best radish of the year! Man! I continue to crop sweet peppers,  green, red and orange! The chilli pepper is still alive and there are a few more yet to pick.

Sweet Chestnut and Apricot stuffing

Sweet Chestnut Truffle Cake