Autumn has most definitely arrived in the garden. The passing of the equinox last week was confirmation of the change of seasons, which, as always, takes me by surprise.

I think it's because the year in the garden starts slow, then gets faster and faster and faster 'till you're in February and EVERYTHING needs to be done RIGHT NOW and then you hit the equinox and look around and say 'where did summer go?'.

And suddenly it's all done (or woe betide if it isn't), and there's less to do because a) growth is slowing so the mad dash of harvest-bed prep-sow is slower too; and b) because if the carrots, beets, leeks, kale and brassicas aren't in now, there's not a whole lot of point worrying about them until next year.

So there's time to do a bit of weeding, and to put up the portable poly tunnels over sowings of lettuce, rocket, endive and coriander.

There's also time to appraise how the tomatoes are progressing. Back in November, I planted my tomatoes and mulched them heavily with spoiled silage (see 'The Next Big Thing' below). 

The idea was to let the tomatoes sprawl over the mulch -- no nipping of shoots, no trellising or tying . So far this strategy has paid off, with plentiful tomatoes on the vines, but there are drawbacks. Firstly, allowing the tomatoes to sprawl means more bending over to harvest; secondly, the tomatoes are close to the ground and more open to slug attack.

My feeling is that the extra harvest work of bending over is more than made up for by not having to nip, trellis and tie. This is especially so as these activities come right at the start of the busy season where one less job is a godsend.

Again, with the sprawling vines, there are more damaged fruit than you'd see on a trellised plant, but...the net yield of the sprawling vines is still much greater even with the spoiled fruit. 

This successful algebra of waste is particularly apparent with the smaller-fruited tomato varieties, like these Stupice.

I reckon that for every ten kilo of Stupice I harvest, there's about half a kilo of damaged fruit (which goes into sauce). The game changes with the larger varieties, though. My Rouge de Marmande vines are busting out in small clusters of huge fruit, but the bigger the fruit the greater the likelihood of damage.

I have found a way around this, however: pick the fruit at first colour. The unripe tomatoes are not as attractive to pests, and they will ripen beautifully in a protected place.

Then all that remains is to spend a sunny afternoon sorting through the tomatoes, grading them into 'ripe' (centre left), 'spoilt/sauce' (top left), and 'leave to ripen further' (top right). The tubs at the front and in the tractor bucket are yet to be graded.

But then again, with the workload easing, some Autumn afternoons are so perfect......

...one simply must go boating on the Huon.

Here is a photo of me and various familiar Cygnet-ites (Cygnetians?) on a drizzly Sunday couple of years ago. I like the photo because everyone is smiling (Alan is smiling; you just can't tell from this angle).

The photo is also pertinent because it was taken on an off-market Sunday, and therefore answers several queries I've had on the blog in the last week, asking where to find my vegetables when the Cygnet Market is not on.

The Answer: I am in Cygnet with my stall every Sunday from 10-ish am. When the Cygnet Market isn't on, I set up on the lawn of Balfour House, next to the Red Velvet Lounge, and am usually there until 2-ish in the afternoon.

Cam the organic bread man sometimes joins me, but when he doesn't, I have a selection of his tasty sourdough loaves at my stall.

Hope to see you there!

In the photo above you can see the potato plants in their full glory, leaping upwards and shading out the weeds between the rows. That was a couple of months ago.

Now the plants have mostly died back and it is time to get on with the arduous work of digging out the spuds.

I start at the bottom of the row, as it is easier to work uphill than down. First I pull off the wilted vines and chuck them on the row that's already been dug. If the weather is dry, the vines wilt and become brittle and the hoe on the tractor chops them into the soil.

The spadework starts at the extremities of the row and works inward and up. Even so, I still manage to cut a few spuds in half as I go along (and why is it always the big ones?).  The potatoes in the picture are Nicolas, a variety favoured in the Mediterranean for its firm, waxy, sweet yellow flesh, and they have become a favourite of mine this year too.

The steel bucket is there for damaged or green potatoes. I remove these spuds to a separate pile where they wither and die in the sun. If the damaged potatoes are left in situ, they get hoed and chopped into the soil and become vigorous weed competition for the following crop (in this case brassicas; mostly broccoli for the winter, but also some cabbages and cauliflower. You can see a few seedlings in the rows to the right of the potatoes).

It's perfect potato digging weather right now. With the soil so dry, the potatoes crumble out of the earth almost clean enough to eat. I'm hoping that with the bulk of the winter plantings out the way, I can get stuck in over the next few weeks and dig most of the spuds before the autumn rains arrive....all I have to do now is to figure out where to store several tons of potatoes...ideas, anyone?