Just a morning visit to do a big harvest, as a fair amount of rain was due in the afternoon. I pulled up a number of garlics, but they weren’t much to look at. I put some straight onto the compost as they seemed to be a little mouldy. The bulbs really aren’t very big, so I’m not expecting much from the rest now.

More cucumbers are coming and in the next bed over I do have a number of cobs coming on my sweetcorn, though not all yet. At least one of the plants has a wrinkled leaf, which might be rapid corn syndrome, or might just be weird. One of the volunteer tomatoes in the garlic bed has just started flowering.

The first JBL is really taking off too, though it’s a teardrop shape at the moment.

The garden’s producing quite well now. There will be more runner beans and tomatoes in a few days.

I didn’t feed at the weekend, but we had a good downpour of rain instead.

It was very windy yesterday, so only one plot day this weekend. Still pretty breezy, but nothing much out of place, just a bunch of sticks and leaves blown out of the elder.

I stirred up the leaf bin and disturbed a bunch of ants. I’m not sure any birds were around to be helpful, but I left it open for a few hours in case. The two remaining sacks of leaves – wet leaves from Mrs J and dry oak leaves from home – have now been added to the bin.

We did a good job of training the cucumbers upwards and adding more supports. Suddenly I can see the two huge marigolds again and I don’t need to wonder about needing to move one. There a lots of fruits coming, but nowhere near ready to pick yet. Thanks to all the successful backup sowing, I’ve gone from having no plants to too many, all in the smallest bed.

I’ve also tied up the JBL better for their increased growth. Only a couple of females so far. The sweetcorn is still weirdly short, but now has tassels and tiny signs of silks showing. No idea what it’s doing.

In order to keep a better eye on their growth, I’ve measured the pumpkins from stalk to base: 1 – 39cm; 2 – 36cm; 3 – 32cm;  4- 19cm. They were getting admired for their speedy growth by Ms D today. Number 1 has thrown out a new arm of growth.

I strimmed all the edges before lunch. The grass itself is keeping pretty short at the minute, which is helpful.

After lunch I did some concerted deadheading, pick weeding and tidying. That involved things like cutting back the apple tree a bit, properly cutting down the geums and finally ripping up all the grass that had filled the back of the front border. There’s still some bed to bed work I need to do, but I’ve made a good difference with buckets of deadheading and buckets of rubbish this afternoon.

The garlic’s getting towards harvest time. It’s a little rusty, but not all that yellow yet. A few of them have bolted though, so I’ve cut off the scapes and hopefully we’ll get a bit more growth from the bed before harvest.

It’s going to be very windy tomorrow, so I went down in the afternoon to make sure nothing was in danger of blowing over or being damaged. I think everything will be ok. There’s fairly heavy rain coming too, so I’ve put out 3 buckets and weighed them down with filled water bottles.

The pumpkins have grown a ridiculous amount in the last two weeks, from cupping in both hands to “could I lift that?”. The fourth plant now has a pumpkin, just starting to grow. The first JBL has started too.

The sun hasn’t been out a great deal recently, but the tomatoes have started to ripen and I was able to pick the first few.

The plants are now growing very well and even the leeks are starting to look a bit like leeks. I was meant to chop their tops when I planted them, but now I don’t know if the moment has passed or not.

The zinnias are still flowering and there are lots of buds to come. I’d forgotten how long lasting the blooms are.

I should have taken the basket with me as there was lots to harvest: runner beans, French beans, chard, and the first cucumber and tomatoes.

Watering time. I’ve given tomato feed to the pumpkins, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, zinnias and (not great) Bed 3 photos. Chicken pellets have been added to the sweetcorn, onions and garlic and then watered in. It turned out that there was lots of water in one of the butts, so it was no problem to make sure that the veg rows were well-watered.

The daisy and poppy by the compost bin were done and so I was finally able to get in and tidy up. I now have full access again and will most likely be able to add the bags of leaves to the bin.

We had a little more rain today. Enough that I don’t need to worry about watering until I feed tomorrow.

I’ve made more supports for the cucumber vines and there are several cucumbers on the way.

I’ve fed the leeks, giving them a top dressing of chicken pellets. Apart from water, that’s about all they need.

I don’t think this year is going to be a beetroot success. They must need far more water than they’re ever going to get from me.

I gave the grass a mow  tonight, some on 1, mostly on 2 to get rid of the long stalks. The edges haven’t shot up much yet.

I’ve managed to sort out the pumpkins for now. The one by the onions was suddenly long enough to simply loop back on to the bed. I’ll need to keep an eye on whether it scratches the pumpkin. A small piece of hessian may be enough to protect it.

I found a new stem on the pumpkin at the front, which looks promising, with female flowers. So I’ve simply cut off the stem that was heading onto the grass. Hopefully the other stem will step up in its place.

We’ve had some reasonable rain and I’ve fed the sweetcorn its general fertiliser now. It’s still behind, but looks healthy enough. Meanwhile the pumpkins are growing in front of my very eyes 🙂  

Two of the pumpkins have started growing the wrong way, despite my best efforts to set them in the right direction. They’re heading out of the bed with signs of good growth and female flowers, so I need to work out how to redirect them.

The first carrot came up – with a bit of digging as it had gone into the clay.

Everything’s been watered and all the fruiting/flowering plants have had tomato feed. I just need to give the sweetcorn some general feed in the next day or two so I don’t get out of kilter.

The runner beans have been nipped at the top and we’ve tied in all the vines that were failing to climb. Overall, netting is better for beans, so I’ll try and remember to use that next year. I’ll need new netting.

First runner bean – more to come soon.

We’ve had a little rain in the last week, which was a relief. The good downpours continue to avoid us though. There were some good developments in the plot. The first 3 pumpkins have arrived. It looks like on the plants is heading straight out of the bed. I need to plant them further in next time. One pumpkin was starting to squish itself against the wood, but I think I’ve saved that now having raised it up on some straw.

The first zinnia is open. It’s nice to have good zinnia plants again after a few years of failed plants. The self-sown candytuft in Bed 10 is huge.

I did lots of weeding and deadheading and pulled up lots more finished nigella. It’s made a few spaces in the beds, which is my usual problem at this time of year. I’ve done a good job of tying up the everlasting peas – in the trellis bed in particular. It’s made a great difference.

In the afternoon I put about 50 litres of compost into Bed 3 to bring the level up a bit and cover the exposed bulbs. I’ve now finally planted the petunias that I bought a couple of weeks ago. I’ve fed them too, so I hope they’ll get a bit bigger and give some reasonable colour in the bed.

The grass hasn’t grown much, which is a big relief and I strimmed all the edges, so it’s looking smart again.

The first harvest of the season: a few overdeveloped French beans and some chard.