FROM PATCH TO PLATE Matthew Fort

My garden is winding down. As we head into late autumn, the glory days are all gone: the peas and broad beans, courgettes, French beans, beetroots, potatoes and tomatoes, the gooseberries and blackcurrants, and above all the greengages. What a year is was for greengages – scented as honeysuckle and as sweet as honey itself. Comice pears, too – the ones that the rude winds of August didn’t shake from the branches. Grated quinces are resting quietly in tall