Beginning, middle and end

The first spears of the autumn-planted garlic mark the beginning of the allotment
year for me. The autumn variety needs frost to get going, so I'm hoping for a
bumper crop from this frosty winter.

In the middle are the autumn-planted
Japanese onions, standing like troopers through all the frost and snow. I think
I'm meant to be feeding them around now to kick start further growth, but I have
no allotment time for the next couple of weeks. Let's hope they realise they're
in Scotland and still have a bit of the winter left.
And coming to an end are the Red Duke of York potatoes which we didn't have time to
lift in the autumn, and have taken a chance with leaving in the ground.
Amazingly they're mostly unaffected by the frost, with only one bad tuber in
every three or so shaws, and a good yield all round.
Right at the end, in terms of having had it, is the red clover sown in the summer as
green manure. Time to dig it in now. It's suppressed the weeds beautifully, and
I'll use it again in preference to field beans which allowed weed growth and
were then a pain to dig in.