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.