I harvested the Cara potatoes today. It was a nice little harvest and Mum sautéed the smallest potatoes, which was a great way to use them. Most of the straw went to the compost bin, bits and pieces were left on the soil to rot, and a bucketful is going to help the planter at the house.

I pulled up lots of dead plants and weeds. I’ve now emptied and dismantled one  wigwam. The sweet peas are still trying to flower and the nasturtiums are all coming back for another go. I forgot that they do this for some autumn colour.

The grass is way too long at the minute. I’m going to have to strim it before attempting to mow it.

The/a robin appeared after a long absence and seemed please with the fact that I had moved some logs from under the apple tree and revealed food. for it. The reserved logs are now on their way to the new house.

Rust has returned to the pear tree, leaving these strange marks on the leaves. I also found a stinkbug nymph, which I’ve only ID’d 4 days later and found that they are a pest and cause damage to tomatoes. I also found that all the many dandelions were smothered in aphids, but the internet says that’s fine if that’s all they were interested in eating.

We delivered the first round of 5 bags of manure to the plot for the rejuvenation. One or two more rounds will definitely be needed. It’s a balance between being effective and not spending too much. Time to pile on the leaves too.

I did a quick harvest of lots of Roma, but I ignored the few small tomatoes. Those shop-bought cherry tomatoes were just tiny. Red Alert is so much better. I picked all the pears but one too, beating the birds to at least some.

The sweetcorn had been decimated, so none for us. The millet was also gone, which was a shame; I rather liked the idea of growing my own bird food. I imagine it’s just bold crows doing all this damage. I might have to do a bit more crop protection now that photography beauty isn’t as necessary.

There was a big harvest today, with lots of tomatoes, some pears, and the remaining onions. The beds are like dustbowls really, so they certainly need feeding. I’m not digging up the potatoes just yet as the haulms haven’t completely died down.

I did a lot of cutting down in Bed 1 and pulled up almost all the corn marigolds. In turn they shed their seeds everywhere, so when they inevitably come up next year, I’ll pull them up or dig them in as green manure.

My millet is coming along nicely, but not ready to harvest yet.

There was a damselfly over the pond for a while. There’s been loads of rain, but it’s still not done much to the earth or the water level in the pond.

There was an amount to harvest this morning: small tomatoes, some larger, and a bunch of Romas too. I picked some more onions; only one had the root plate missing, and one was my prize onion. Only a few are left in Bed 8 now.

The pear tree has lots of fruit, but they’re not quite ready yet. One had fallen, which was a bit yellower and riper-looking. The Cara potatoes have died back a bit, but similarly they’re not quite ready to be harvested yet.

The one sweetcorn cob isn’t ready yet and the same plant has done the weird thing at the top where it tries to grow a cob in the tassel too.

The ground has been tunnelled all over the place by the vole / mole. Along with the need to be scarified, it really needs some sorting.

I cut down some of the nettles by the compost bin, so I could get around the end and pull off some of the bindweed on the frame. This allowed me to spread out the heap of compost somewhat, as I’d been trying to keep the new stuff away from the bindweed.

I did some lupin deadheading and cutting back, pull up bits of runner beans and clumps of nasturtiums, and made a start on demolishing all the corn marigolds. They’ll already have shed so much seed, but at least I know what the seedlings look like now. Next year they’ll just get hoed back in. It looks like a real forest when you’re sat next to it.

We’ve had some rain, but it’s made no difference to the pond water level, which is still below the bird bowl.

Somehow an anise hyssop has kept growing this year, neglected in a pot in Bed 6. Now the trick is to keep it alive – I think it might need to get a bit bigger yet before I let it out into a border.

I added more water into the pond, including a watering can from a water butt. It’s still super low though, with no rain in sight.

I did lots of tidying up today, pulling up dead poppies and nasturtiums. The compost heap is now absolutely heaving with dry material.  In Bed 1, two of my nursery plants – the burnet and fuchsia – look pretty dead, but I gave them some water just in case they can be saved. The physostegia looks pretty poorly, so even my established perennials are suffering with so little water.

My millet is doing well and there are a few ears of wheat coming from the straw around the potatoes in Bed 7.

I’ve collected some candytuft, poppy and cornflower seeds for the new garden (completing in 2 weeks!) A bunch of teasel plants have been revealed in Bed 6  and there’s one in Bed 7 too. Next decision is whether to leave them or not. I’ve cleared the parsnips from Bed 7. I crumbled the really brittle leaves onto the soil to add the vaguest organic material.

I picked lots of tomatoes and the first pears. I’m leaving the remaining onions for at least another week.  The runner beans are done now and so is the second wigwam of sweet peas. They’ll be next in line for tidying up.

In the back bed I ripped up the nasturtiums for the compost. There’s one sweetcorn that might be a future harvest, plus next season’s parsnips. As well as a lot of verbena seedlings that need to come up.

I have a few fairly short sunflowers out now, which should act as a reminder that even if I only manage to raise crappy seedlings, they get stronger when planted out.

I dug up the King Edward potatoes, which had a small harvest between the two plants, none of which was very far down. We’ll see how the Caras do from better seed potatoes, but the same growing conditions.

I’ve decided to start tidying up now, pulling up more onions, and cutting down the dried parsnip trees. The furthermost sweet peas were done, so I’ve taken them down, letting bits of dry leaves just sit on the soil. My plan this year is to get cheap horse compost (5 for £25) and add a reasonable layer to all the beds. I haven’t really fed the beds at all for a while. I might add some content from the leaf bins, and then in the spring I’ll see if I can add some compost too. Generally, bulk the beds up and stop them being such dust bowls. Then that will be a better setup for trying the allotment while at the house, without spending too much to do so.

I’ve saved some parsnip seed, but I don’t know if I’ll keep it. The ground is littered with dropped seed, so this will be an experiment in whether the birds eat it or whether they germinate more freely than when they’re deliberately sown.

It’s earlier than usual to start tidying, but with a house on the horizon, I might as well start and draw a line under such a hot, dry, difficult year.

The birds were probably mostly hiding from the heat, but I heard a buzzard and a whitethroat.

After work, we rallied ourselves and went to the plot to pick some beans. Some Roma tomatoes and small cherry tomatoes were ready too. The small tumbling ones from the garden centre are really small and not worth it. Red Alerts are so much better.

I watered the beans, the struggling nursery plants and put a little on the surviving sweet peas. There are no more onions yet; they’re still quite firm in the ground. Lots of plants in the allotment are crispy or suffering. We haven’t had measurable rain for well over a month.

I also found the battery, which was just sitting in the grass, not in the shed. I’d only moved it a few metres.

I’d left the battery at the allotment, so went to get it and do some deadheading. I found the battery under the ash tree, put it in the shed – and then left it there. (4/8/26 spoiler alert: no, I didn’t)

I deadheaded the sweet peas, did most of the coreopsis and tidied up a bit more of the everlasting peas.

Some of the onions looked pretty dry, so I harvested all the ones that came up easily. However, loads of them were soft on the bottom. All to do with drought / irregular watering. Damn lack of rain. The first runner beans and a bunch of tomatoes were harvested too.

I added butt and tap water to the pond and cleared out a pile of weed to make a little clear water. It’s still very low though and needs a major refill. I saw another damselfy larva. Apparently some species can take a few years to go through this stage.

I did a mow on 2 to keep things tidy. That didn’t take long as there were no stops and starts. I fed the birds and there are lots of pears on the tree. I also noted a number of bees and insects on the mint flowers, so keeping a pot of that is worth considering for the house.

I fed all the tomatoes and beans, and gave a bit to the sweet peas too. I need to deadhead them, but they look good nonetheless. The everlasting peas have already gone over and I need to get up on the ladder to just tidy them up.

The next job was to tackle the bramble on the trellis border. Every time I’ve been down, it’s seemed like another huge stalk has come over the fence. It had really gone wild and looked like it was pushing the fence over. I was at the plot for 5 hours and about 3 of those hours were spent on the bramble. Up on the ladder, I could see that Mr B’s old plot is now completely overgrown, so I didn’t feel bad about cutting beyond my boundary.

There’s a little bit left in the corner that I won’t be able to reach until autumn/winter. That’s going to be some very thick stalks that need cutting back. I got the multiple huge limbs out of the apple tree though, so they won’t be able to root down. The next job is to prop up the fencepost as simply as possible; it can definitely go more vertical than it is. 

I took home a flowerpot of blackberries and the first beetroot. There are maybe 3 more to come.

There was lots of colour in the plot when I arrived this morning. So, in spite of all the little problems around the place, it did look pretty good with nasturtiums flowering, and the sweet peas blooming.

In Bed 11, there are some deep pink and pale pink poppies from which I need to collect seed. The King Edward haulms have died down. I doubt there will be much of a harvest, but I’ll dig them up in a couple of weeks. The Caras are still going quite well.

It turns out that the volunteer sweetcorn in Bed 4 is actually millet, which I’ll leave and see if I can harvest it.

The Roma tomatoes are coming along. The small cherry tomatoes in Bed 1 were completely drowned by corn marigolds, so I’ve trimmed and removed plants to try and give them some space. Another ring of my supports has broken; they may need a rethink given their age. The cherry tomatoes are also really low plants, so they don’t suit the rings really.

There were 5 tiny cherry tomatoes to pick. I should feed the plants again. Or at least make it rain.

After a lot of weeding and deadheading, I was about done – and then noticed that I’d still not tied up the runner beans and sweet peas. That’s now finally done. I won’t bother doing sweet peas on wigwams again, it’s too difficult. I just need to get the post back up so I can do my nettings again.