I thought it would be a good idea to check on the runner beans again, but happily they were still pretty vertical. Still looking rather poorly though.

The tomatoes are completely done for though and will be coming out soon. I picked a blushed blighted tomato and a couple of clear-looking tomatoes to take home and ripen in two bags, just to see if there’s anything to save. Pretty sure that won’t work though.

On the way out of the plot we suddenly noticed these new gladioli. These didn’t flower last year, and then we noticed some more in the beds. They’re all falling over as everything is this year, but it looks like I’ll get some new splashes of colour.

We had some mad rain earlier in the day, but I hadn’t really noticed how breezy it had been. So I perhaps should have expected the runner beans to be bent over again. The wind and weight of the frame had pulled the guy rope stakes through the wet ground. I’ve hammered everything back in and tried to stuff the enlarged holes with more canes.

The plants don’t look to happy, some dead leaves and a lot of droopy yellow ones. The cucumber leaves were yellow too, which I’m taking simply as all the rain having washed away all the nutrients. So I fed everything with tomato food, hoping that they’ll cheer up.

A couple of Jack Be Littles have now appeared, with more female flowers on the way.

Some more compost had been dragged out, so I took the front off the heap and scraped up what I could. At the moment I can’t see an obvious way in to the centre, so I’m hoping that there isn’t a nest in there, it’s just idle mess-making. I want to attach some of the fencing to the back of the pallet so there’s no longer an easy way in though.

I thought the gladioli were all going to be blind again, but I’ve noticed a couple of flower stems by the apple tree. I’ll have to keep an eye out for others around the place.

The evening after I went down on the 1st, the stream came running through the garden again, so I didn’t worry about going down to the allotment yesterday as it was sure to be too wet. I met C at the allotment tonight, he told me he’d been in his plot yesterday, baling water out of his raised beds. My grass was just a little squelchy here and there, nothing more.

The blight hadn’t progressed too much more, so I pulled up the cherry tomatoes to get them out of the way. The bed doesn’t look bad without them. The courgettes, nasturtium and marigolds are already filling the holes pretty well. I picked off a bad Ferline, and did another bucket of foliage removal from them and the Roma, but nothing more drastic.

The tomatoes may be on their way out, but the nasturtiums and the marigolds in particular are doing really well. The flowers on the marigolds are lasting so long that I’ve only deadheaded a couple of blooms so far.

This beautiful pumpkin is doing really well too. I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it up, so I’m not sure how green it still is underneath.

I took Suzy down to the plot for a viewing before I start pulling up the tomatoes soon. I think the cherry tomatoes will be going any minute, as they’ve turned quite black.

I’ve had a big clear up at home and added all kinds of mad dried food to the heap. Something else had been busy at the compost heap before I got there and had kicked out a bunch of compost. I’ve shovelled that up to keep it safe. I need to do two things: dig out more compost and keep it safe somehow; get the spare wire fencing attached to the back of the front panel so that’s no longer an easy way into heap.