Vegetables

New Covent Garden generally promises Brussels sprouts by the middle of the month (mostly for the catering trade). And so, with parsnips, kohlrabi and the days getting shorter, we might as well get used to the idea of autumn.

But hang on! There are beans first – many English varieties will be in glut this month, homegrown peas should come properly into their own, cauliflowers are also looking healthy enough to eat raw, and a good heavy second crop of ‘early’ potatoes will keep up the salad supplies. Maris Peer is a particularly good scraper, but the most delectable in flavour – the potato equivalent of the truffle – is the pink fir apple: expensive, grown in relatively small quantities but now widely distributed through the supermarkets.