Our garden is under several inches of snow as I write, so we haven't had a lot out of it in the last few days.  I managed to pick some parsley and thyme which was frozen solid; the parsley will be mush when it thaws out.  I kept meaning to dig up a plant and put it in a pot on the porch windowsill but now it's too late. The cut & come again lettuces have finally gone to seed, but I'm hoping the Arctic King and Winter Density will survive under the snow.  Lois came back from university with a craving for all the foods she can't afford on a student budget.  I made her a big bowl of salad including claytonia, land cress and corn salad. We are picking tomatoes - we can grow them virtually all year round as they are in the same greenhouse as the tomato plants. The nursery is full of commercial orders of tomatoes and peppers. We are burning 200 cubic metres (50 tonnes) of woodchip per week. This is from thinnings and trimmings which are a by-product of timber production.

John has been digging carrots (Autumn King) but the flavour is not as good as it was. My parents arrived yesterday evening for Christmas and I'd asked Dad to bring a swede from his garden but he couldn't get the spade in the ground!  We have been eating a lot of roasted root vegetables. Ele made the left-over roasted squash into a wonderful soup.

We hope to have our usual 'low food miles' Christmas dinner.  The meat arrived today from an organic farm about 15 miles away. The potatoes travel 4 miles but they car-share with Dawn.  Carrots, parsnips and sprouts will come from our garden, as will the redcurrant jelly. The ingredients for the Christmas pudding and Lois's nut roast are more exotic, but they will be home made.  I made the wreath for the front door out of greenery from the garden. I use a ring of oasis from which must be 10 years old now.  It is so much easier to stick the stems into oasis rather than weaving them or tying them to a wire frame.  When the oasis gets too holey you can buy a new piece that fits inside the ring.  If you soak it thoroughly with water the foliage will look good for at least two weeks.  If you make two you can use the second one as a table centrepiece with a large candle or several smaller ones in the middle. (see picture; I'm sure it had more berries on it when I hung it up - I think the birds have been helping themselves).

I have made a Christmas pudding for the birds.  You just melt lard or vegetable fat and add wild bird seed mix plus any left-overs from the store cupboard that are past their sell-by date: dried fruit, last-years nuts, oatmeal, stale biscuits, etc.  Put it into empty plastic tubs and leave it to harden.  Remove from the tubs before putting it on the bird table (run it under the hot tap for a few minutes if it won't come out).  I made two and put the spare in the freezer for later. There are hardly any hawthorn berries left in the hedges and the fieldfares are busy finishing them off.

Snow!	Festive wreath	Christmas pudding for the birds