Shall I or shall I not?

I've been doing some overdue leaf clearing and digging over the soil before the frosts and really bad weather strike. Not much of a job really in my little space and I don't know why I haven't got round to it before.

Thoughts turned to next year and what to plant as I was working. I had been intending to ditch the space right at the back of the garden where the sun hardly shines. The combination of the leylandii in the neighbouring garden and our shed have combined to make it a dodgy spot for growing anything. The spuds of 2009 were meagre and the beans of this year failed to take off.

My relatively new compost bin now sits in part of this patch, but I was wondering if I should make use of part of the ground. Garlic could go there, I thought. Also, my eye has been caught by a short piece about shallots in the Yorkshire Post gardening column. Both the garlic and shallots could be planted now.

Mmm, I wonder. Should I give this spot another chance? Wouldn't do any harm, I suppose.

Well, we tried some

We've started buying potatoes again after using up the modest stocks of Lady Balfour spuds which I grew this year in the garden.

Our eye was caught the other day by Albert Bartlett Purple Majesty potatoes. That's right, purple. A novelty we could not resist and so we duly trotted off to home from Sainsbury's with a bag.

It was our suspicion that this potato was genetically modified. But not so, says Perthshire-based Albert Bartlett, who reveal it was developed at Colorado State University from a traditional variety. The benefits? According to the growers, the purple potato is healthier than the standard variety of white potato because it contains up to 10 times the level of antioxidants.

All very well, but the proof of the pudding is always in the eating. They didn't taste bad, but we decided the producers have got a mountain to climb because of the colour. First impression on opening up the bag was that they looked like beetroot (no bad thing), but on cooking the outcome is that they take on the appearance of a grey sludge. It didn't look good.

An interesting experiment, but I'm afraid we won't be buying again.

I thought so

The mystery object turned out to be parsley after all. And very nice too in a little parsley & lemon butter I cobbled up at teatime tonight.

At least I hope it was parsley. Come back in a few hours and I'll let you know.

Today's mystery object is...

A real autumn mist pervaded our neighbourhood for most of yesterday morning, the first day on which the clocks had gone back. The days are cracking on now and even I am starting to think of Christmas, have previously slated the shops for starting the season too early. I've succumbed already to buying some bottles of Christmas ale, an offer at the Co-op being too good to refuse. They are sitting there on the shelf now. Will I resist temptation, I wonder?

Among the presents I got last year from my daughter was what I described at the time as a teabag full of herb seeds, bought at the Imperial War Museum North. You had to place it in a bowl of water for a day, then plant under a thin layer of soil.

The label said the bag was embedded with a mix of herbs including parsley, chives and basil. I don't know what has happened to the mixture, but I have succeeded in getting one herb only after about four months of growing very slowly in the pot. But what is it?

Susan suspects it's parsley. In truth, so do I. But I'm not totally sure. I am a dunce, aren't I?