Christmas decorations started appearing in the streets, shops and house windows throughout December, but I’m pleased to report that I only spotted one house with Christmas lights ablaze before November was out. While Christmas preparations seem to start earlier each year, William Howitt, in his Rural Life of England published in 1840, reports that Christmas Eve was traditionally the day when the house was decorated.

Howitt describes Christmas as “the festival of the fireside; the most domestic and heartfelt carnival of the year”. Homes from stately houses to cottages were enthusiastically decorated, not with shop-bought ornaments of tinsel and foil but with the natural decorations of the English countryside. “Holly, ivy and mistletoe appear in vast quantities in the markets, and almost every housekeeper…furnishes herself with a quantity to decorate her windows”.

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable claims that the origin of Christmas decorations lies not with Christian celebrations but in the Roman feast of Saturnalia, held in December, which Brewer describes as a “time of licensed disorder and misrule”. But Folkard, writing in 1892, suggests that the practice of decorating houses with mistletoe and holly “is undoubtedly of Druidic origin…[when] the houses were decked with boughs in order that the spirits of the forest might seek shelter among them during the bleak winds and frosts of winter”. But the foliage had to be put out of doors before Candlemas (2 February) to allow the spirits to return to the forest ready for the spring. This belief, transferred from Candlemas to Twelfth Night, is said to be the origin of the superstition that it is unlucky to leave decorations up after Twelfth Night.

In fact, the period around the winter solstice, with its associated use of evergreen decorations, has been celebrated within many traditions. For both agricultural and hunter gatherer cultures, understanding the cycle of the year was critical to their survival, and winter was the hardest time of all. So the lengthening of days was something to be celebrated, and in the dead of winter, evergreen trees were a reminder that life continues and would return in spring.

Holly, in particular, was associated with the winter solstice. The holly king and the oak king are, respectively, the god of dark and god of light, ruling over the solar year. In early mummers’ plays the holly king fights the oak king for the hand of a fair maiden and is victorious at the summer solstice, ruling over the six months of the declining sun. But at the midwinter solstice he is defeated by the oak king, who rules for the following six months of lengthening days.

At this time of year the back garden is strewn with fallen quinces, the large, yellow and velvet-skinned fruit combining with fallen leaves and dried flower stems to create an enchanting autumnal scene. The old quince tree is no doubt a remnant of the time when the garden, together with land from adjoining properties, was an orchard. Despite its age it still produces an abundant crop.

The quince was once widely grown but then fell out of fashion. The eponymous author of Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book says “Not much good my giving advice on choosing quinces. You have to buy what you can find, and be thankful.” However, there are signs that interest is returning, and articles on the fruit in both cookery and gardening magazines are no longer uncommon.

The fruit was known to the ancient Greeks, who called it Chrysomelon, meaning “golden apple”. This may well have been the golden apple that was offered by Eris, the goddess of discord, to the most beautiful of the three goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. Paris gave judgement in favour of Aphrodite, an action that contributed to the Trojan war and the fall of the city of Troy. The quince was consecrated to Venus, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Aphrodite, and was considered a love token. It has also been suggested that quinces were the golden apples that grew in the Garden of the Hesperides and were protected by a dragon with a hundred heads. Hercules slew the dragon as the twelfth and last of his labours. The quince rather than the apple may also have been the fruit that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Quinces have been used in this country for many centuries. Dorothy Hartley, in Food in England, gives a recipe for quince honey that she says is a twelfth century English translation from the Greek. In addition, she includes a fourteenth century recipe for quince pie, and several eighteenth century recipes. A quince preserve is likely to have been the origin of our familiar marmalade. The Portuguese word for quince is marmelo, and marmelada is a preserve made from the fruit.

If you can get hold of some quinces, try stewing one with apples, where it will add a delicate flavour and a rose-coloured tint. You could also make the Spanish membrillo, which is a firm quince paste that can be cut in slices and eaten with cheese. Or just place a couple in a decorative bowl and leave to delicately scent the whole room with an aroma that is something between apples and roses.

With the early mists and slanting sunlight, the mornings are beginning to feel very autumnal. The leaves have not yet turned, but the hedgerows are full of fruits, and the birds have deserted my offered food for this abundant harvest. One of the most delicious and accessible of these hedgerow fruits is the blackberry. The plant is widespread, and an early flora, published in 1911, declares that a hedgerow without a blackberry bush “would seem to be sadly wanting”.

The blackberry or bramble, like the dandelion, is an apomictic plant. This means that, rather than a single species, there are a large number of slightly differing forms, which are sometimes called microspecies. A Handbook of the British Flora, published in 1858, notes the considerable variation, “especially in the prickles and hairs, and in the shape of the leaflets” leading to “an excessive multiplication of supposed species”. The later (1911) flora records the disagreement between botanists over the number of different forms. The author finds that “one text-book gives us the Blackberry pure and simple, one and indivisible, another tells of seven, another describes twenty-three, while yet another asks us to believe that in Great Britain there are six-and-thirty distinct types”. How amazed he would be to find that botanists now recognise nearly 400 different microspecies!

The bramble has sometimes been said to have been the burning bush seen by Moses, or to have formed the crown of thorns. It has been valued in the past as a medicinal plant. The Greeks used blackberries to treat gout, and both the fruit and flowers were considered effective against the bites of serpents. It was also used to soothe scalds and burns, and to fix loose teeth.

The bramble is shade tolerant, but heavy shade severely limits the production of flowers and fruit. So for productive blackberrying, look out for bushes in sunlit hedgerows, on the margins of woods or beneath gaps in the woodland tree canopy.

But make haste, and make the most of September’s crop, for after Old Michaelmas Day on 10 October they become inedible. The reason, according to country folk, is that on Old Michaelmas Day the devil fell from heaven into a bramble patch. So angry was he that, every year on the anniversary of his fall, he spits on the fruit and renders them inedible. The more down to earth explanation is probably that early frosts damage the fruits and render them vulnerable to mildew.

How are your gardening skills? Are you just starting out and confused about what to plant when? Or are you an expert with a wealth of knowledge built up from years of experience? If you answered ‘yes’ to either of these then the Master Gardener programme may interest you.

Master Gardeners are volunteers who help individuals and communities to grow their own food. They run events, give talks, write articles, and also mentor householders who are new to food growing. There are 95 of them in Norfolk, and they have committed nearly 3000 hours to nurturing new food-growing skills in the county. So successful are they that two Master Gardeners in Kings Lynn have just been crowned Local Food Heroes, an award that recognises outstanding contributions to developing community food-growing skills.

Master Gardeners offer advice through community growing spaces, events, talks, stalls, articles and other innovative ways that suit their skills and lifestyle. They also mentor 10 households each, offering 12 months of free support and seasonal advice to those just starting to grow their own food. So if you are just starting out and need help, find your nearest Master Gardener by going to the website, norfolk.mastergardeners.org.uk.

Researchers at Coventry University have evaluated the scheme and found that it had a significant impact on the food growing and consumption habits of those involved. The majority of the participants, both volunteers and householders, grew more food and a greater range of food, and also reduced their weekly food bill. But in addition, involvement in the scheme brought an increased sense of community and improved life satisfaction.

The Master Gardener scheme provides a practical model for a volunteer support network to encourage and mentor people and communities to grow fruit and vegetables in their gardens and on local communal land. The scheme is part of a three-year pilot programme run by Garden Organic, an organic growing charity that promotes organic gardening in homes, communities and schools. It uses “innovation and inspiration” to get people growing in the most sustainable way through the Master Gardener scheme and through other projects such as the Food for Life Partnership, the Master Composter scheme and the Heritage Seed Library.

The community farm’s next project is to set up a buying club. This is a simple form of food co-op where friends, neighbours or, in this case, community farm members get together to buy food from a small group of local suppliers. Products can include dry, tinned and bottled produce from wholesalers and producers, and fresh meat, fruit and vegetables from local farmers. It can also include non-food products such as basic cleaning materials (white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, for example).

Buying clubs have a number of benefits. We can use our combined buying power to buy in bulk, direct from suppliers and producers, at a more affordable price. But by splitting a case of, say, jars or tins, between members, we avoid having to purchase large quantities as individuals. Buying clubs reduce travelling because one member can collect for everyone or the supplier can deliver. And these benefits make it easier for us to support local and ethical suppliers who may have a limited number of outlets in the region.

In addition, members of buying clubs can share information about products, learn more about methods of production and their environmental impacts, share ideas and recipes for healthy eating, and work to reduce the ecological footprint of the club.

Buying wholefoods and other products with a long shelf life works well for many buying clubs that meet just once a month, but where members already meet regularly it becomes practical to also purchase fresh produce such as eggs and vegetables. And regular meetings also allow members to share surplus from their own gardens or allotments.

In Norfolk and Suffolk we are lucky to have a wide variety of local producers, from organic growers, organic dairies, traditional bakers and flour mills to producers of more unusual items such as rapeseed oil, chillies, pesto, hand-made chocolates and freshly roasted coffee (locally roasted and ground, though not locally grown of course).

A good way to start your own buying club is by finding interested neighbours using Streetlife. Streetlife is a website (www.streetlife.com) that helps you connect with people who live nearby. You can define your area of interest precisely – connect only to your own town or village or extend your interest over a larger area. So you could send a message around your immediate local area advertising your buying club. You don’t need a large membership – successful clubs have been set up with as few as six households, and the closer people live the easier it is to distribute the goods after purchase.

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The weather favoured us this week, and we accomplished a lot.  Look at that great harvest! The potatoes and the strawberries were really fabulous. I did a lot of weeding, first with an ordinary hoe and then with our new (actually very old) wheeled hoe, which is very much more efficient.

Driving home after dark last week, a beautiful barn owl flew ahead of me all the way along the Hinderclay Road, and then settled, with his back to me, on a fence post right by the road as I stopped beside him for a good look. After a few moments he looked over his shoulder at me as if to say “Oh, I wondered where you’d got to”, before flying off into the night.

My favourite bird artist, R B Talbot Kelly, wrote of a similar experience in the 1950s, when a barn owl flew 30 or 40 yards in the beam of his headlights. “I always feel there is something elfin about a barn owl,” he wrote, “its very colour is that of faerie.” He describes the barn owl’s flight as “of the same airy, floating nature as the harriers. In the half-light the bird resembles nothing so much as a large tuft of thistledown blown by some small, gusty wind.” Similarly, George Macbeth, in his poem Owl, describes him as “a feather duster in leafy corners ring-a-rosy-ing boles of mice.” Like all owls, its flight is silent, and Talbot Kelly describes how, one evening, the barn owl “passed within inches of my cheek with a silence and gentleness of a great snowflake. Seen thus, it is a most lovable bird with its eyes glowing darkly in a gnome-like face.”

In Norfolk the barn owl is known by many names including Billy wix, Madge howlet and Gilly howter, although my source, Provincial Names and Folk Lore of British Birds, published in 1885, doesn’t explain their derivation. In many countries its appearance foretells misfortune or even death, and this is reflected in the title of Margaret Craven’s novel, I Heard the Owl Call My Name, which tells of the Kwakwaka’wakw belief that an owl that calls your name is calling for your soul to rejoin the spirits in the other world. These associations no doubt derive from the bird’s nocturnal habits, its white plumage and its call, which that more down-to-earth authority, Witherby’s Handbook of British Birds, describes as “an eerie, long-drawn shriek, often in flight.” But the owl is also associated with wisdom and was sacred to Athene, the goddess of wisdom, who sees even in darkness.

Have you come across Flash mobs? These are events where a group of people assemble suddenly in public to sing, dance or provide some other form of entertainment, and then disperse as quickly as they assembled. They’re great fun, and you can find plenty of entertaining videos of flash mobs on the internet.

Flash mobs are purely for entertainment, but there is a similar event, known as a carrotmob, that has a definite purpose, which is to improve the environmental or social credentials of shops and businesses in a local area. We’re all familiar with the concept of boycotting certain stores or products when we are unhappy with their environmental or ethical performance. A good example is the very effective 1980s boycott of aerosols containing harmful CFCs. But although it may contribute to worthwhile changes, a boycott can be seen as negative, targeting things we don’t like and working against, rather than with, businesses. It relies on the stick rather than the carrot. By contrast, a carrotmob works with businesses to achieve positive change.

At its simplest, a carrotmob is a campaign where a group of people spend money to support a business that is making improvements that people care about. For example, in San Francisco, in one of the first carrotmobs, twenty-four shops bid against each other to attract the carrotmob, with the successful bidder committing 22% of the day’s takings to environmental improvements. On the day of the carrotmob, 300 shoppers spent over $9000, and the store owner spent over $2000 of this on improvements to lighting and hazardous waste disposal.

Carrotmobs are now taking place all over the world. They have been used to reduce the water footprint of a local café in Budapest, buy an energy efficient freezer for a food store in California, install energy efficient lighting in a shop in Antwerp, stop providing plastic carrier bags in a shop in Thailand, and create a vegetable patch and improve composting at a restaurant in Australia.

To organise your own carrotmob just choose an issue you care about, build a team to support the campaign, talk to local businesses to see who will take action, and then pick a time and date for the event. Possible issues include environmental improvements, increasing fair trade, increasing trade in organic, local or healthy food, boosting the local economy, and many more.

Is Diss ready for a carrotmob?