An early visit today due to impending heavy rain. I still haven’t got round to doing more to the ledge that is a strange mix of healthy plants and insistent weeds.

My buckets had blown around a bit after Storm Ali had been partying a bit through the week. The front of my first compost bin has also come off, so I am sure there is some animal in there, making themselves cosy. There’s been an entrance hole at the back for a long time, with material kicked out, but liberties are being taken now, so I really do need to redesign my compost setup.

Lots of the green tomatoes have had a chance to start ripening now and we came home with a very heavy basket full of Red Alerts and Pink Bumblebees. One PB plant had a branch that was definitely hit by blight. I cut it off and put it in the rubbish. We’ll see how much longer the plants go before the blight really sets in. I’ve cleared out more foliage and dying branches from all the tomato plants to let the air and sun in.

While the flowers are still blooming pretty spectacularly, I’ve collected my first calendula seeds; a couple of heads had dried out properly. I’m deadheading in full in bed 1 and some and some in bed 7. I also picked some seed heads from the malope and threw the little poppy seed heads into the front flower bed, as not many seeds were forthcoming. The round flax seed heads are not quite ready yet. A bit of investigation shows that I need to wait until the round head starts opening.

The quinoa is still a slightly unknown quantity. Much of it has turned a deadish beige colour and some that I uncovered in indeed unable to be dented with a fingernail, but some was still soft. So I think next weekend, weather allowing, I’ll cut it down and put it in paper bags to carry on doing whatever it’s doing.