I’M a summer baby. I love the sunshine, sitting outside, long light evenings and seeing an allotment busting at the seams with life.

So this time of the year always fills me with a sense of doom.

I do have a remedy for my malaise, however. It is making jam, pickles and chutney; with a healthy dose of collecting seed and drying herbs.

I need to prepare my nest for the dark months.

So this month I will be sharing with you a few simple and I mean super simple ways to keep your fruit, veg, herbs and seed because “winter is coming”.

If you’ve been growing cucumbers why not pickle them for gherkins - it’s not complicated, you just need a fridge to keep them in.

All you need is two cucumbers, white pickling vinegar, salt, peppercorns, mustard seeds, some garlic cloves, a couple of heads of dill seeds and a few empty jars.

One pint of water goes into a pan with half a cup of the vinegar and quarter of a cup of salt then boil it up until the salt dissolves.

Slice the cucumbers anyway you like - I do them in lengths and I also add some carrot spears too.

Pack them with the garlic, mustard seeds, pepper corns and dill heads into your jar then top it up with the pickling solution. Put the lid on and it’s done. Easy!

Once it’s cooled leave it in the fridge and in a few weeks you will have some home made gherkins for your butties or burgers.

My allotment to do list:

Now is the perfect chance to sort out all those strawberry runners trailing around either pin them down into the soil or place them in tiny pots, don’t cut them from the mother plant until they have healthy roots.

Get ready to plant over wintering garlic, onions and broadbeans while the soil is still warm for them to put down roots.

Start having a look at seed heads to see what you’d like to save for next spring and maybe tie a piece of wool around the ones you want to keep.

Dig over your plot as you bring in each harvest, so you don’t have a massive job later on.

If you have any questions about your allotment, you can email vixlot@outlook.com