I mowed the grass today and – apart from under the apple tree – I was able to go straight to 1, which made the whole job much faster. I have to do it in a slightly haphazard order, but I’m getting better at doing the paths as long stretches.

I cleared the front bed of much of its rubbish today. It’s another bed that needs more soil and nutrition in it. The allium bulbs aren’t yet letting go of their stalks without pulling the bulbs out of the ground, which isn’t very helpful. The helianthus is now starting to flower, but I don’t have any lower end of season colour to come here. I need to sort that out.

I pulled up the last potatoes today. The one that had one one stalk of green haulm had only just started to grow and there was a barely touched original potato with just a few tiny new potatoes attached. The other potato gave a reasonable collection of potatoes. Oh, and the first pear fell off the tree today.

I focused on clearing up the trellis bed and by the end of the day, all the nigella was gone, brambles were cut back, grass pulled up and toadflax deadheaded / cut back. It looks much better as a result. There are all sorts of little weeds and brambles in the soil, so it needs a turn over and some manure at some point. And then probably fewer toadflax and nigella plants so they don’t take over.

There are loads of plum tomatoes yet to ripen and I’ve now propped up the tresses that had been lying on the ground.

The sunflower seeds are being eaten by something – hopefully a small bird, and not one of the crows coming in where it’s not welcome. So far the apples haven’t been touched. Perhaps if it is a crow eating the sunflower seeds, they’ll leave the apples alone?

I harvested a bunch of gourds where the vine had already died. They’re now curing in the grow house. There are lots more yet to come – not sure yet what I’m going to do with them all.

There was torrential rain last night – loud enough to wake me up – and then more heavy rain followed through the morning. I collected about 3 litres in my buckets at the plot and everything down there finally looked as though it had had a really good drenching.

Lots of the tomatoes have split and no doubt more will now. The worst ones are headed to the compost heap – although actually I left them on Bed 4, so I imagine something will eat them overnight and spread the seed everywhere. More of the beefsteak and plums have ripened and there are lots of the plum tomatoes yet to come. Hopefully they won’t take too long to ripen.

The potatoes had been a bit uncovered again, so I dug up the one plant that had completely died back. A pretty good harvest; I was turning up big potatoes quite a long way down.

The plum tomatoes have started to lie down a bit, but they seem safe and supported so far. Next year, another parallel fence not too close in should solve this.

I did some more clearing in the trellis bed, and trimmed off pods where I could reach on the everlasting peas. There was a monstrous piece of bramble that had come through and into the apple tree. It was about 12′ long. This bed needs some work – the soil needs feeding and I probably need to try and stick with nasturtiums and the peas, and reduce the amount of toadflax and nigella.

One of the gourd vines had died off, so I harvested the gourds and they’re now curing in the grow house – and not on my desk!

The volunteer tomato by the shed has suddenly taken off and now even has flowers. Chances are, it’ll develop some fruit!

The first helianthus is now out, towering above the fence.

Most of my time in the morning was spent doing harvesting. More beefsteaks and the first plums were ready and with the Ferlines, it was about 3kg of tomatoes.  I’ve finally opened the beefsteak cages, to give them a little room to spread out and make it easier to pick them.

All the onions have now been taken home to dry and only the big kalette plant remains in that dry bed. In the afternoon, I found the rest of the runner beans I’d meant to take home in the morning, sitting happily in the grass.

As well as making a start on tidying up the trellis bed, I took the front off the compost heap and dug out the little potato harvest from one of the volunteer plants.

Some rain at long last. Nothing super dramatic, but it put some water in the buckets I’d put out, so it must have helped the garden. I did a quick plot tour with A & T, which ultimately got the rain going at last. I did a quick harvest being shielded with two umbrellas. The beefsteak tomatoes are difficult to pick – I think they’re too tight in their cages – and I accidentally pulled off a truss, but we’ll put them near the bananas and see if they want to ripen.

We’ve not had any rain for ages  and are now in a drought. We might get some rain at the beginning of next week though. Fingers crossed. This was mainly a harvesting visit, but we gave the veg and potatoes some water to keep them going.

We’ve properly entered the tomato glut now, with plenty to harvest each visit. The plum tomatoes have just started to ripen and I picked the first two beefeater tomatoes. One was not very ripe and had some blossom end rot; the other was fairly ripe, but was somehow growing another tomato inside it.

Another heavy tomato harvest, plus the first beetroot to come home. I’m not sure how many others will follow as they’re all pretty small still.

A visit to water and feed. I’ve picked more onions for drying. The runner beans aren’t great at the moment, but more are coming.

I had a couple of boxes of coffee grounds from the office, which I’ve now put into my big bucket along with the rest I already had. I’m hoping to mix them in with leaf mould later in the year.

I did lots of tidying up today, something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while. I did lots of cutting down and deadheading. The everlasting peas all got a lot of attention except for the ledge ones, which will have to wait for another day. It’s another attempt to see if I can make them flower again.

Trellis bed gets a bit of a mess at this time of year and I want to make it more manageable somehow. The toadflax is ok for a while, but then just turns to seeds. The bramble takes over a bit and the everlasting peas have never really take off – and the geums are small and lost in there.  Some things may need to be dug up and replaced with something more shade-loving and evergreen.

The sunflower near the shed has opened now, resolutely facing the shed, not the sun.

The plum tomatoes are getting bigger – looking quite promising for making pizza sauce later in the year.