Unprofessional

 Right then. Before I get on to anything else this week, I need to have a proper moan about the plasterer, because if I don't get it out of my system in the first paragraph I'll only be muttering about it under my breath for the rest of the post, and none of us want that.

This will be the third time now. Third. Since May. Every few weeks a text arrives, always terribly not  apologetic, always promising the ceiling will finally get sorted "very soon," and every few weeks that soon slides a bit further down the calendar. The latest one landed this week, and I'll be honest, I read it twice because I thought I must have misunderstood it. October. We are now looking at October, for a job that was meant to take a couple of days back in spring. At this rate the ceiling will still be waiting for its plaster by the time the grandchildren are old enough to have a go at it themselves, and given how patient I'm not naturally, that's saying something. Sara's taken to just laughing whenever the phone buzzes now, which I think is either admirable resilience or the first sign she's given up entirely, and I honestly can't tell you which.

Anyway. Rant over. On with the actual gardening, which is a good deal more cooperative than council contractors, even in a week when the weather had other ideas too.

Rained Off More Than We'd Like

It rained a fair bit this week, the steady sort that soaks right in rather than blowing through in twenty minutes, and it cost us more allotment time than I'd have liked. There's only so much you can do standing under an umbrella holding a hoe, and precisely none of it is useful, so several jobs got pushed back a day or two waiting for a dry enough spell to actually get stuck in. We got there in the end, but it was a week of grabbing an hour here and there between showers rather than the long, unhurried sessions I much prefer.

Saying Goodbye to the Sweetcorn and Cucumbers

Sam and I spent a good part of one of the drier spells clearing away the sweetcorn and cucumbers, both of which finally called it a day this week. I say that with real fondness, because they've been absolute stars all summer, some of the best cobs and cucumbers we've had off that plot in years, and it always feels a bit like saying goodbye to an old friend when you pull plants that have fed you all season and lay the ground bare where they stood. Sara's already got a fair few cobs blanched and bagged in the freezer, and there's a jar or two of pickled cucumber going through the process on her worktop as I write this, so none of that good summer flavour's going to waste, even with the plants themselves gone.

While we were at it, we took out the plastic fencing I'd had up for the French beans as well. It does its job well enough, keeps the worst of the wind off young plants and gives them something to climb on to if they need it, but it's not something you want lying about all winter getting brittle in the frost, so down it came, rolled up and put away in the shed ready to go back up again next year.

Winter Onions: Why I've Given Up on Sets

The winter onions are doing well and will be ready for planting out in a couple of weeks. For the first time in a good few years I did the whole lot from seed rather than sets, which is a habit I'm rather pleased with myself for finally breaking. Sets, if you've not come across them, are just those small, part-grown onion bulbs you push straight into the ground and let carry on growing, and for years they were all I used, because they're quick, easy, and about as close to foolproof as onions get. The trouble is, an overwintering set has already started forming a bulb before it's even gone in the ground, and a good cold snap partway through winter can trick it into thinking it's already had its winter and it's time to flower, which is exactly what bolting is. You end up with a tough, woody flower spike shooting up the middle and a bulb that's barely worth lifting.

Seed doesn't have that problem nearly as often, because the young plants haven't started bulbing up at all when the cold arrives, so there's nothing there yet for the cold to confuse. I sow mine under cover in August, prick the seedlings out into modules once they're big enough to handle, and get them out onto the plot by late September, roughly where we are now. It's a bit more faff than shoving a bag of sets in the ground over an afternoon, and you do need to plan ahead for it, but after losing more onions than I care to admit to bolting sets over the years, I'll happily do the extra work for a crop I can actually rely on come next summer.

Little Gem, All Year Round and Winter Density: Filling the Hungry Gap

Alongside the onions, I've got trays of Little Gem, All Year Round, and Winter Density lettuce coming on nicely, and all three should be ready to go up to the allotment shortly. If you've never bothered with lettuce this late in the year, it's worth having a go, because these three between them cover a stretch of the calendar when there's precious little else fresh coming off the plot.

Little Gem's a lovely little compact cos type, sweet and crunchy, and quick enough to mature that you can tuck it into odd gaps between other crops without it taking up much room or much time. All Year Round does exactly what it says, a reliable, unfussy variety that'll germinate in all sorts of conditions and isn't fussy about being sown a bit later than the seed packet might suggest. Winter Density is the real workhorse of the three though, a hardy cos type bred to shrug off proper cold and just carry on sitting there looking perfectly happy while everything else on the plot's gone over for the year.

The way I grow all three is much the same. I sow them into trays or modules under cover, rather than straight into the ground, because it gives them a proper start away from slugs while they're small and vulnerable, and it means I've got sturdy little plants ready to go the moment there's a gap to fill. Once they've got a few true leaves and have had a week or so hardening off, getting used to the outside air, I plant them out about nine inches apart, and for the Winter Density in particular I'll often pop a cloche or a bit of fleece over them once the really cold nights arrive, more to keep the worst of the wet and wind off than out of any worry about the cold itself. Do that, and you can be picking fresh salad leaves well into the darker months, right when a bit of green on the plate feels like it's been properly earned.

Saving Our Own Seed with Iris

One of the nicer jobs this week, weather allowing, was going round with Iris collecting seed off the petunias, zinnias, dahlias, marigolds and scotch marigold, something we've made a habit of doing together every year about this time. It's a job that suits a slightly overcast afternoon far better than a scorching one, if I'm honest, and it's the sort of quiet, fiddly little task that's actually rather nice to do with somebody else for company.

The trick with all of them is patience, more than anything else. You have to let the seed heads go properly brown and dry right there on the plant before you touch them, which goes against every instinct that tells you to deadhead and keep things tidy. Pick too early and the seed inside hasn't ripened properly and won't come to much. So we leave the spent flower heads well alone until they've gone crisp and papery, then snip the whole head off into a paper bag rather than a plastic one, because plastic traps moisture and you'll open the bag a fortnight later to a nasty surprise of mould rather than seed.

Once we're indoors, Iris does most of the rubbing out these days, working each head over a tray with her fingers to break it up and separate the actual seed from all the dry petal and husk that comes with it. Dahlia seed's always the most fun of the lot, because most of ours are hybrids rather than pure varieties, which means whatever grows from that seed next year is a bit of a lottery, could be spot on for its parent or could be something entirely different, and there's something rather appealing about not quite knowing what you're going to get. We spread everything out on newspaper for a few more days to make sure it's bone dry, then it all goes into labelled envelopes, variety and date on the front in my terrible handwriting, and gets stored in an old biscuit tin somewhere cool and dry until it's needed again come spring.

Doing it this way costs us nothing but a bit of time, and by the time you've collected seed off half a dozen different flowers, that's a fair chunk of money saved on next year's seed order, plus you keep hold of exactly the plants that did well for you on your own patch, which a shop-bought packet can never quite promise.

At Home: The Ivy That Had to Go

Back at the house, I've spent a fair bit of time this week cutting back the ivy that's taken over our fences, which has genuinely got out of hand at the back where the new big shed's going in. It had crept right along the top of the fence and was starting to work its way into places it had no business being, so it's had a proper hard cutting back, harsher than I'd normally go at it, purely because it needs to be well out of the way before the new shed base goes down.

I'll admit I felt a bit brutal doing it. Ivy's generally good stuff to have about the place for the birds and the insects, and I'm not normally one for ripping things out just for the sake of tidiness, but needs must when there's a shed on order. It's filled two green bins so far, and I've a horrible feeling that's not the end of it, there always seems to be another few feet of the stuff hiding round the back once you think you've finished. The good news, if you can call it that, is that ivy's about as forgiving a plant as you'll find. Cut it back that hard and it'll sulk for a season and then come back just as thick as before, so I've no worries about having done any lasting harm, whatever Fern had to say about the state of the garden looking "like a bomb's hit it" when she wandered past with the bins.

Iris's First Proper Shift

The bit of news I'm most pleased about this week, though, has nothing to do with plants at all. Iris came to work with me on Thursday night, her first proper taste of what the working world actually looks like once the sun's gone down and everyone else is tucked up at home. I do most of my hours evenings through to the early hours, which is a rhythm that takes some getting used to if you've never done it, and I honestly wasn't sure how she'd find it.

I needn't have worried. She took to it like a duck to water, got stuck straight in, asked sensible questions rather than just standing about waiting to be told what to do, and by the end of the shift I'd genuinely forgotten it was her first time doing anything of the sort. There's a particular kind of pride that comes from watching one of your own hold their own in a proper working environment, quite separate from the pride of watching them grow a good row of onions, and I felt a fair bit of it on Thursday night. Whether it's something she'll want to carry on with long-term, who knows, that's very much up to her, but if Thursday's anything to go by, she's more than capable of it, and I'd love to see where she takes it.

Because I Can't Resist a Recipe

Between all that, Saturday still happened, same as it always does, and this week's batch was sandwich thins again, properly established now as a fixture rather than the experiment they started out as a few weeks back. They've gone down an absolute treat with everyone in this house, freeze beautifully, and take up a fraction of the space in the freezer that a full-size loaf does, so as far as I'm concerned they've earned their permanent place in the Saturday rotation. I'm entirely self-taught when it comes to baking, picked up over years of trial, quite a lot of error, and more doorstop loaves than I'd like to admit to, and whatever else has happened that week, bread of some sort goes in that oven every single Saturday without fail. Here's how I do mine.

Simon's Sandwich Thins

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 7g fast-action dried yeast
• 1½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Around 320ml warm water
• A few sesame seeds, if you fancy them on top

Mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar together in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle, add the oil, then gradually work in the warm water until it comes together into a soft, slightly tacky dough. Turn it out and knead for a good eight to ten minutes, until it's smooth and springs back when you poke it. Pop it in an oiled bowl, cover, and leave somewhere warm for about an hour, until it's doubled in size.

Knock the dough back and divide it into eight to ten equal pieces, depending on how big you like them. Shape each one into a smooth ball, then flatten it gently with the palm of your hand into a disc about a centimetre thick, more a fat little pancake than a round roll, that's what gives you the flat "thin" shape rather than a dome. Place them on floured baking trays, cover loosely, and leave to prove again for about thirty minutes, until they've puffed up slightly. Scatter a few sesame seeds on top now if you're using them, pressing them on very gently so they stick.

Bake at 190°C (170°C fan) for twelve to fifteen minutes, until they're a light golden colour, then leave them to cool completely on a wire rack. Once they're properly cold, split each one horizontally through the middle with a bread knife, and that's your thin, ready for whatever filling takes your fancy, straight away or wrapped up and into the freezer for another day. Iris will tell you they're better than my usual cobs. I'm not sure I'm ready to fully concede that point, but I'll admit it's a close-run thing.

So that's the week in a nutshell: two allotment favourites cleared and thanked for their trouble, winter onions in as seed rather than sets for the first time in years, seed saved for next year's flowers, entirely too much ivy removed, one daughter making a rather promising start in the world of proper work, and a plasterer who's apparently decided October's a reasonable answer to a job promised in May.

Has anyone else finally given up on onion sets in favour of seed, or am I about thirty years behind everyone else on that one? And if your own plasterer, builder, or any other contractor's ever strung you along quite this spectacularly, I'd love to hear I'm not the only one waiting on empty promises. Let me know in the comments.

Happy growing, everyone. See you on the plot.