Runner beans are doing well Two pots with a dozen in each. Picking every other day. Watering  Morning and evening.  

Biggest ever harvest of walnuts, chillies and cucumbers. Tomatoes are dire.

Hazelnuts also very good - could be just because the squirrels didn't find their way across from the Park this year!

OK help me out here please folks.

Bought a tomatillo plant late spring from Waitrose. In August the flowers started setting fruit. Now, in October the fruit have swelled and nearly filled the lanterns. Never grown this plant before.

I sliced and ate one raw yesterday; I'm still here.

I (foolishly, perhaps, as retrospectively) researched the plant and discovered that unripe and not washed properly it can be highly toxic; and... it won't set fruit unless you have 2 or more plants, which I didn't, but they have. Any authentic knowledge?

Perhaps we should go on to a totally carnivorous diet

http://refrigerators.reviewed.com/features/in-the-wrong-hands-these-vegetables-are-deadly

There seem to be an unexpectedly large number of web recipes for green tomatillos for something allegedly toxic. Everyone agrees on the poisonous nature of the rest of the plant so I wonder if any reports of poisoning are due to cross-contamination?

I've not grown tomatillo (Physalis philadelphica) but I have had success with the related cape gooseberry (P. peruviana) outside in warm summers. Cape gooseberry seems to be much less toxic, if at all, and is said to have a much sweeter taste. It is also self-fertile.

This fecund year has brought me record crops of walnut, chilli, redcurrant, rhubarb, full-sized corn and cucumber.

Don't know if I'll bother with tomatoes again, having grown them every year for nearly 20. Just not worth the hassle. Hundreds of fruit set this year, but I was able to harvest only a couple of dozen. Crap August and September weather brings the blight in too quickly.

The large whites got the cabbages, an unseen parasite ruined the gooseberries and the sparrows snipped off all but the earliest runners at the flowering stage.

Had about fifty ripe tomatillos- first time we've tried these- then read horror stories about toxicity.

Just keeping to the herbs now. Wee chilies have grown but no wrinklies. Like my heather in front garden. Did buy 3 small conifer trees to replace a straggly Hebe. Got 3 indoor Terrarium with succulents doing well. 

Picked the last of the runner beans today, never had them so late in the season so I'll be sowing some late again next year.

Envy

I'll plant a whole bed of corn next year.

Nothing left to harvest now except nasturtium seeds for homemade capers. Still bright with flowers though. S'pose I'll have to start emptying pots. Still a lot of leaves to come off the walnut so I'll leave that a while.

Despite the frost last week, a long-overdue pop into the garden today revealed almost all the nasturtiums flowering happily. I wonder what the air-min threshold is for these jolly flowers. I expected them to be wilted. We had nearly -1.

Made the most of todays dry and warmish conditions so that's the grass cut and probably the last time this year  

Musa all wrapped up too 

If you haven’t done so yet, plant your garlic cloves now for harvesting next summer.  

Thanks for that reminder, Caz.

We have an orange tree that has often flowered, rarely fruited, never produced large (eg 5cm+) fruits, as it's outside, although south facing. This year we have a handful of fruits of a good size and in the last few days- they've actually started to turn orange. Can you believe it- outside all year, no glass. Happy.

Well, the frost finally got the nasturtiums. Now the garden is returning to a dearthful, if still green, state.

Just cleared the allotment beds, transplanted baby beets and cabbages and planted the garlic. Pulled up one potato and four carrots and recovered two spring onions. Have had one flowering crocus which was already a gonner when we found it- slugged at the stem. Here goes the gardening year again.

Winter-flowering clematis in full swing, also winter-flowering honeysuckle, not to mention a hazel tree full of catkins blowing

Marigolds , Fuchsia, Geranium still flowering. Heather doing well.  Snowdrops are out.Herbs are lasting well. 

no sign of the snowdrops up north yet. I was in London early December and they were in flower in Hyde Park.....

It’s usually February when the snowdrops are out here. If anyone’s around this neck of the woods next month, I can highly recommend a visit to Hodsock Priory, renowned for its carpets of snowdrops!  

That's worth noting, Caz, especially for those in the area. Indeed, February is the peak time in the south too- Warnford Church in Hampshire and 'Snowdrop Valley' on Exmoor are two worth a visit.

https://www.hugofox.com/community/warnford-village-7802/events/snowdrop-sunday-70700?preview=c6e9cbf82c734a19963bf542bfe85e48

http://www.wheddoncross.org.uk/snowdropvalley.htm

Just coming into flower out in the Weald near Petworth, well away from any heat island effect.

The grass is longish and tatty, but I'm frightened to cut it so as to see the progress of the crocuses, because I know they're up and I'll trim them too!