ANTICIPATING A WILD - Welsh winter

In preparation for a wild winter in her Welsh hillside garden, Stephanie Hafferty is busy lifting roots, planting garlic and securing the polytunnel

- Stephanie Hafferty

When I moved to Wales in March almost everyone I met was keen to tell me about the winters here. I was warned about seemingly endless rain, the darkness even during the daytime, storms disconnecting power lines and snows that could cut me off from the nearby town, so I had best to be sure to stock up on plenty of food to see us through the dark times to come! So as the days shorten and my senses fill with October - damp earth, crisp frosty air, the smell of wood smoke - it is with some trepidation that I look towards my first winter.

I love the autumn - the richness of golden sunshine on fallen leaves and the busyness as nature prepares for winter (the squirrels here are working overtime!) We start the day wearing jumpers and woolly socks, can be in a T-shirt by lunchtime, then back to jumpers as the afternoon fades into evening, heading inside to turn the day's harvests into bowls of soup and warming stews.

I am delighted with how much the garden is producing, especially considering this was almost all lawn in April. As well as baskets of produce to eat, it's time to harvest the mangelwurzels. I've been growing these large root vegetables for around 25 years and although both the root and leaves are edible, I mostly grow them to make a country wine. This wine takes about two years to mature to a honey coloured brew and is delicious.

Mangelwurzel: isn't it a lovely name? Also called mangold, field beet and mangel beet, it's mostly grown on farms as a crop for feeding livestock. The roots are enormous, much bigger than swedes, and before pumpkins became widely available in the UK, children carved mangelwurzels to make Hallowe'en lanterns. You can cook the root just as you would any similar root vegetable and use the tasty leaves like chard.