Damsons, blackberries and cobnuts all arrive in the hedgerows around my house at the same time. It’s as if Nature if giving you a hint. And, never one to ignore her, I am happy to oblige.

It’s soup weather. And I’m quite fussy about soups. There is no room, in my mind, for a bland bowl of sameness just warmed and slopped into a dish. A good soup must have layers: a splash of sour, a crunch of salt, a swirl of cold against the hot foundation, so that every mouthful is alive with interest…

If you have a greenhouse you will currently, most likely, find yourself besieged by chillies. Too many cold nights will have forced you to uproot the greenhouse plants and bring in what harvest you can. And so you have a lot of chillies to deal with. Well, there is relief for the chilli-swamped amongst us. And it is harissa.

When the rain starts and the temperature falls and the nights draw in, my mind turns to soup. Specifically, tomato soup. Perhaps because tomato soup is, to me, the cure for all ills. As a child, a tin of Heinz tomato soup was like penicillin in our house: it could remedy almost any ailment from a grazed knee to a chill caught after a reckless trip in a rowing boat during a rainstorm. It was what you took on caravan holidays, where succour was always necessary. It was where you turned when you wanted satisfying, flavoursome coziness but couldn’t find anything to eat in the kitchen. It was what you stuck in the microwave to eat on a Sunday afternoon in front of Star Wars videos.

Last year a friend offered me some of her grape glut. Delighted (such a harvest feels especially exotic and precious in England), I went over to her house to pick a bowlful. But there were so many grapes that my pickings didn’t even put a dent in the crop and I wished for more bowls. (For the full story, and recipes, see here and here.) This year though, I have learnt my lesson, and when the grape glut call came once again I returned with all the bowls I could find and none of my English-restraint. So now I have eight kilos of grapes.

Chard. Honestly, if you grow nothing else, grow chard. It is bullet proof, prolific, long lasting, beautiful and, most importantly of all, tasty. Sow anytime between March and August in shallow drills, thin the seedlings to around 20cm apart and wait. Just wait. Untroubled by slugs, snails, gales or hail, chard will rocket skyward in a matter of weeks.