Late Season Gardening in Slow Motion

A suitably crisp autumnal day off work, and the first visit to the plot in nearly a month. If we were still in the midst of summer, I'd have been full of guilty trepidation at the prospect of the weed-fest our neglect would have dealt us. At this time of year however growth has slowed down to comparative slow motion which, after the frantic dash of the high season, comes as something of a relief and allows you the pleasure of just wandering round a bit and realising that things are much as you had left them. With a couple of notable exceptions.

Recipe: Chinese Style Knackered Sweetcorn Soup

Rescued corn

Since we harvested the underdeveloped cobs of corn  from our sweetcorn plants nearly a month ago, they've sat in a cupboard awaiting instruction. The need to do something with them became a bit more urgent yesterday when I noticed fluffy growths of mould growing over some of the cobs. Most of the cobs were retrievable; the smallest ones were like baby corn and I chopped the whole things up. I stripped the corn off the larger ones, it came away quite easily. If you don't have any knackered old sweetcorn for this recipe, I'm sure fresh stuff would be just as good...