This winter we planted a vegetable garden. I say "we", it was Mr Glitterati who did the backbreaking stuff, while I did the really important "capturing it for posterity" bit.

We planted potatoes, onions, broad beans and cauliflowers. The cauliflowers got eaten by something pretty early on (not too sad about that cos I hate cauliflower - was also thinking of flicking a few black fly onto the broad beans for the same reason) but everything else soldiered on bravely. Mr G took to going out to the patch in all weathers to tend it and prod it and generally fuss around it like men do. And then yesterday, he dug up some potatoes.

That's just one plant! We have another 20 or so still in the patch! They smelt extraordinary, sort of sweetish. I've never smelt potatoes like that before, presumably cos I've never cooked with anything that fresh before. They were 20 minutes from being in the ground to going in the pan. Granted, a lot of the nutritional advantage of having such fresh food was lost because of my habit of boiling the bejesus out of everything (a habit picked up from my mum. All green veg was served up a sort of khaki colour when I was growing up) but even so they tasted great and the kids gobbled them up.

I love my garden, it was one of the main reasons we bought this house. It is long and narrow and surrounded by oak trees, which are a bugger in the autumn, with the leaves dropping everywhere, but in full bloom they look majestic.

We have a lovely gnarled old apple tree which will start to drop apples in about three weeks. They are too tart to eat raw, but great for apple crumbles and pies and um, errr... (Truth be told we give most of them away, but I am determined to do lots of scrummy projects with this year's crop).