A meagre but mealworthy midwinter harvest

A couple of years ago, before we got ourselves the allotment, the idea that it would be possible to be feeding ourselves from veg harvested at this time of year would've seemed pretty daft. I have vague memories of eating autumn-harvested kale from the garden when I was a kid, but that would be about it; Dad was, for the most part, a summer gardener only and as far as I knew, winter was for staying inside, and not for pulling up leeks

So, despite us not having nearly as much winter-harvestable veg as we might've done - no kale for example - it was great to make a meal that at least partly consisted of home grown stuff. That, for us at the moment,  basically means leeks and chard, for former of which are still in fine condition and the latter has seen better days but still has plenty of edible growth. We also nicked some sprouts from our plot-buddy Toni, which will get used another day. Leek, chard and chorizo frittata was what fed us on Sunday night. I would put the recipe up here but I forgot to take any pics and you can probably more or less figure it out for yourself. It involves eggs...

Sunday was the start of the current cold snap, with quite a thorough ground frost having settled overnight. I had planned to do some weeding, not that there's a great deal to do, but the ground was frosted enough to render it pointless, tiles of topsoil coming away in one lump, threatening to rip up the plants I wanted to protect.

It is great to see small signs of future life springing up. On close inspection, the first blush of pink on a couple of our rhubarb crowns could be discerned. We might try forcing them next year, but as last summer was the first one in which they did any real growth, we'll let them do their own thing again this year.

I'm getting impatient for the growing season now; as I said, we haven't grown a lot of winter crops, so there's not a huge amount we can do until things warm up a bit. We've got a polytunnel to put up and maybe a raised bed or two to build at some point. Maybe, like my dad, I'm just not a great winter gardener, but even these tasks will be getting left a little while longer.