The first day of a sunny and hot bank holiday weekend. My boundaries might not be quite how I want them, but there are patches of flowers adding splashes of colour. The asters are opening now and they’re beautiful. They’re clearly the new pompon aster seeds, rather than the 2018 ones.

The big gourd is doing well and its junior is also pretty big – and has turned out to be a Turk’s turban! I guess it’s just come from the warted gourd mix, or from a sowing mixup. The big gourd also has a very small opening on its base, but with any luck it’ll just stay that way so I can treat it like a standard pumpkin.

The bitter melons are amazing. I have four big ones like this and a few small ones, which may yet grow. Now to see whether there’s enough time for them to ripen – not least because a couple of them are on the shady side of the trellis.

Sone new yin yang beans have appeared. Most of them are fattening up and turning yellow, but it looks like I’ll get a few more to eat. The French beans are still producing – a good bit slower, but then there’s also the odd new flower appearing.

Some of the beans have been eaten by something, so the particularly bad ones go onto the compost heap, rather than into the basket. I added a fair amount to the compost bin today, with finished plants, gourd vine trimming and dropped apples.

The carrots in front of the runner beans are looking good and I pulled up a few thinnings and a proper sized one.