October: Celebration merry berry or sad slip into winter?

Katie's birthday berry cake with fruit fresh from the allotment

October is one of those love-them-or-hate them months. I have a friend who enjoys this time of year above all others, which is unusual but autumn is traditionally a time of celebration when we welcome the harvest and celebrate the year's achievements.

And what a year it has been! We had months of warm rain and grey skies that wiped out our tomatoes and much besides, with everything else coming in late. But the upside of the early summer carnage was a late blooming as the sun finally came out and the sweet peas, runner beans and berries came into their own.

I should report that I came first in the blackberry category again this year, thanks to my allotment neighbour who went to the extraordinary kindness of entering them in my absence. I am afraid I can't tell you the variety as I grew them from a cutting from a now retired fellow allotment holder who didn't know their origin. But they are huge, prodigious and taste like a good claret, the only downside being their flesh tearing, surgically sharp thorns.

With berries a plenty and late squash, pumpkins, beetroot, brassicas and spinach, we have a great deal to help us move on from the worst summer in terms of productivity that I have ever known.

In contrast, I have been watching the party conferences and I am disappointed by the obvious fatigue of our political leaders. I know we remain in the teeth of economic hardship – oh don't I know it – but how are we to move on, out and up if there is nothing to show for the year's hard work? A sense of achievement feeds the human soul just as a well-kept larder feeds the stomach, but have we not got anything right? Have hard-pressed public sector workers sacrificed benefits and pay for a better-run service? Have the private sector employees experienced a year of job insecurity for the greater good and have our young people waited for their chance to make their mark with hope now, that a late sun will bring them opportunity? I jolly well hope so and I want to hear it, I want to hear congratulations and celebration of all that people have relinquished to a hard year with plans for the harvest to come, albeit it a late one.

Tonight I made my redcurrent jelly, enough for the winter as long as I can keep the children from spreading it on their roasts by the tablespoons. I write this listening to the satisfying pop as the lids of the jars, one by one, spring up to accomodate the temperature change and create a seal that will keep the jelly fresh all year. For those interested I use the master's formula – Christopher Lloyds – of 500g of sugar to each pint of boiled juice. Regardless of past disappointment, we will be hunkering down for log fires, blackberry jam on toasted teacakes and our family favourite, The Great British Bake Off'(what about last week's gingerbread sculptures!?) and that feeling that all in all, despite everything 2012 was a job well done. My hope is that others can feel that they too have something to celebrate, despite the long wait.

All in apple pie order

I had an amazing day on the allotment yesterday with my nephew Tom Woodford. He did some serious heavy lifting of wood chip mulch and manure and I pruned for Britain. Starting at the front, I cleared back the asparagus, autumn-fruiting raspberries, gooseberries, Jerusalem artichokes, blackberries and grapevine.

Tom mulched the paths with the free wood chip that the council leaves at the site gates and also helped me bring 28 bags of manure down to No 31 to feed and protect the soil.

Tom, glad its's the last bag!

Tom is a keen rugby player and used to play for his university team in Newcastle but he still found that gardening is more than a little physically challenging. Watching him, I was hit by those thoughts that all adults feel when looking at children who have grown up around them. How do they get so big? Gardening, like family, is all about lifecycle and in preparing for winter we are making way for the next generation, the life yet to come.

It was a real treat to have a bit of muscle and I made the most of it. At this time of year I really enjoy putting my allotment to bed, but it is a brutal job involving very heavy lifting. I now have an 8ft tall pile of cut vegetation that will need burning when it has dried out a little and some serious digging to do.

So, thanks to Tom, I have made a great start towards my annual pre-Christmas goal of having the whole site tidy, fed and dormant for the big freeze. I have long since modified my ambitions for winter harvesting as the slugs, wind, birds and snow usually deplete anything I have tried to grow in the past, other than horseradish, Jerusalem artichokes, cavello nero and beetroot. This year I haven't even put in broad beans as the snow really knocked back last year's autumn-planted crop, which was greatly outperformed by those that went in later in the following spring. Gardening is all about learning lessons, and I have learnt mine, which is: don't fight the weather.

Yesterday was also very special because of the heat, we actually caught a little sun and for near December that is extraordinary! And as for my apples, despite taking baskets to SEL and giving bags away, we are still nowhere near working our way through them. So today I will be making an apple pie which, if it is any good I will post a picture of.