Gardening is a great deliverer of surprises. A friend’s brother, Stephen, recently showed me a perfectly round courgette that had appeared amongst the more traditional longer shaped ones on his allotment. Known as ‘spherical courgettes’, I thought he had sown a new variety but he said they had all come from the same packet of seeds. Stephen’s sister, Helen, (recipient of said spherical courgette) reported that it tasted ‘tender, juicy and her black Labrador, Seren, also enjoyed it amongst her roasted veg’. And that ladies and gentlemen, is the calibre of my friends – roasting vegetables for their dogs.

The spherical varieties make nice compact plants, which are ideal for containerising, and people think they look more eye-catching in the garden than the traditional varieties. Popular varieties include One Ball F1 (yellow) and Tondo di Nizza or Brice (mottled green).

I have been slicing courgettes thinly to add to salads, and even ‘lightly pickling’ them as they are a vegetable that often ripen ‘en mass’ or as a ‘glut’ and it’s always good to find different ways to use them. One of my favourite ‘new’ recipes is to cook finely shaved courgettes on low heat in plenty of olive oil and garlic for 40 to 50 minutes. They break down into a sweet, silky spread that works nicely on toast, or stirred into pasta.

Another lovely surprise involved a client giving me some green tomatoes last week to make some Green Tomato Jam with (it’s delicious). I left them in the brown paper bag on the work surface in the kitchen until the weekend, when I was going to make the Jam. And when I went to use them, just 4-5 days later - lo and behold - the green tomatoes were all red. It was like a magician’s trick. I have tried to ripen tomatoes like this before and failed, so I have no idea what the difference was this time but I highly recommend you having a go, if you have a load of green tomatoes to use up. If they don’t ripen, you can still use them for ‘jam’ so it’s a win-win.

Meteorological autumn always begins on 1 September and ends on 30 November as this definition divides the year into four exact seasons, each lasting three complete calendar months. Meteorological autumn therefore neatly consists of September, October and November and this system is used by meteorologists as it aligns neatly with annual temperature cycles, making it easier to compare weather and climate statistics between different years and seasons.

Astronomical autumn, on the other hand, begins with the autumn equinox, which usually falls on 22 or 23 September - and is the 23rd this year. During the equinox, the Sun shines directly above the Earth's equator, resulting in day and night being nearly equal in length across the globe.

For me, autumn begins when the tree leaves start turning colour and falling, the valleys are full of ‘Dragon’s Breath’ (or morning mist formed by a thin layer of tiny water droplets hanging just above the ground early in the morning), and the evenings see you reluctantly reaching for a fleece. Therefore, in my world, it is autumn.

It has been said that autumn is a second spring with every leaf turning into a colourful flower. I can see that’s a nice way to look at it but for me autumn is autumn with it’s very own assets. As one famous philosopher said, “Autumn is a time of hot chocolatey mornings, hot stew and soupy evenings, and, best of all, leaping into leaves!”

The philosopher? Winnie the Pooh, of course.