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.

I did some good tidying up in the garden, as I’ve felt that the boundaries have been looking a bit scraggy recently now that a number of the flowers have gone over. I even discovered a blooming malope in Plum Corner. I cut down the foxglove spikes and seed went everywhere.

Over by the trellis I cut the purple loosestrife down to new flower buds, so that looks much nicer. I’ve also weeded and done pull up edging here, at the front and around all sorts of edges. There’s still more to do, but the place looks better already.

The blight has unfortunately definitely reached the Ferlines 🙁 Affected foliage and fruit is going straight in the rubbish, with the hope that I might just buy enough time for some tomatoes to ripen.

The borlotto beans are really taking off now. There are lots of pods and lots of great colour among the huge leaves.

The Canterbury bells are having their second flush of flowering thanks to having deadheaded them properly. What a win! The donated flowers in the front bed are just starting to get flower buds too.

I hid from one lot of rain in the shed, before getting to work round the back of the compost bin. I have cleared out buckets of nettles and bindweed. There’s still work to be done to get done the side of the shed. Hopefully, I can get to that before the first lot has grown back again. By this point it was pouring with rain, so I had to head home without pausing to do a panorama.

We’ve been having gusts from the edge of Storm Evert and this was how my runner beans greeted me when I got to the plot to check the tomatoes. They were waving happily up and down and I picked the beans while I waited for help to arrive. In the end, help came from JG up the path, who brought a couple of big poles and some nylon twine to make some heft guy ropes.  Soon enough the beans were back upright and the only injuries were a couple of the canes, which had snapped but were still holding together.

The sweetcorn suddenly has cobs on it, and I’ve finally found the first broccoli head developing among all the huge leaves.

There are lots of flowers coming on the French beans now, and the final seedling has also appeared. So there will be beans, just not quite yet.

I’ve pulled up the poppies in the veg bed. There weren’t many flowers left and they were getting in the way of the development of the second set.

I went down to the plot after work and was very glad that I did, as the Roma tomatoes were showing signs of blight. I wasn’t really surprised, as before I’d even seen them, walking round by the apple tree and ledge seemed very dark and full.

More than just brown marks on the stems, some of the foliage had dark damaged patches with white underneath. I stripped off all the foliage with any sign of damage and then moved on to just taking off most of the foliage, making lots of airflow.

I’ll work on taking a lot more foliage off the cherry tomatoes too. There’s a brown mark on the stem, but nothing more yet. Seeing as the Ferlines have made pretty good trusses, I hope they manage to avoid the blight.

Every time I think I’m going to pull up the poppies, they do this. If they don’t stop soon, I’ll have to make myself pull them up while they’re in bloom.

Lexi and family came to inspect the plot. Lexi may not have been let in to mine, but still managed to zoom in and out of next door while C and V were getting through their gate.

I picked the first cherry tomato. It was nice, but could have been sweeter. I’ll leave the other one a little longer before picking.

Mum came down to pick the high beans and cut the long stems back. Together we put in four firm guy ropes to stop the frame blowing about in the breeze. Two are on the fence side, attached about ⅔ of the way up, leading down pegs hammered into the ground and then secured with another peg hammered in over the top (as the first pegs came straight back out with the strength of the wind). The other two guy ropes are on the other side, nearer the edges and at a less acute angle. Now the frame barely moves if you give it a shake. This will be our new MO for cane trellises.

I did another round of tomato pruning – particularly trying to get a bit of air among the Romas. I discovered more fruit coming on those too.

The compost area had become pretty overgrown, so I’ve made a start on clearing it, cutting back the geum, pulling up yards and yards of bindweed. I wasn’t dressed for tackling the nettles and the sun was too hot for my hoodie, so they’ll have to be cut down another day. I really need to get at all the canes down there and see what’s worth keeping.

The few ants that were on the compost bin earlier in the afternoon became a load of flying ants a couple of hours later. With no kettle of boiling water available, I spritzed them all with bug spray, just in case that at least annoyed them.

Pretty sure this is my tallest ever sunflower.

I’ve stood up the yarrow, which hd completely flopped out from its centre. I’ve put short canes in all the way round, so hopefully tomorrow’s heavy rain won’t immediately undo all that work.

Having seen how many runner beans are coming this year, I think I’ll simply keep feeding the borlotto beans, but leave them for a dried bean harvest.

The sweetcorn are still short, but suddenly have cobs and tassels.

I couldn’t find a support tall enough for the uchiki kuri to sit on, but it’ll be resting on this pot before long. It doesn’t need to get much bigger.

The first Gold Nugget is almost ready to pick and the first Roma plum tomato has appeared.

The runner beans were waving about far too precariously in the gusts. The soil is really soft and dry, so the canes are moving about in their holes, which doesn’t help. I did what I could on my own to support them. At least another cane needs to go in the other side. Beans need picking too, and the vines need a bit of pruning at the top, not least to take off a tiny bit of weight.

New female flowers are appearing on the pumpkin and one was on the grass, which I guided back in. There’s also a great pumpkin growing in the middle.

After some big old rainstorms, we went down to the plot to check if everything was ok. The yarrow has fallen out from the centre somewhat, but needs a more concerted effort to get it back up than I had time for.

The two middle supports on the uchiki kuri had snapped – not from the weather, but under the weight of the fruits. I had no idea they’d get this big. We managed to push the frame up a bit and put in new canes and bind them up. But there’s no question that it’s all much lower than it started.

Other than that there wasn’t a great deal to do. I staked up a few tomatoes, and a broccoli and also took a limb off the pumpkin in order to get it out of the way of the current pumpkin. It feels a bit sacrilegious to cut off a female flower, but there are others.

I did a lot of tomato pruning on all the plants today, trying to get some good air flow, as well as reducing the sheer weight of the plants on their supports.

The sweetcorn suddenly looks bigger, though still smaller than other people’s. I also weeded this bed, the broccoli, the tomatoes and the French beans, some of which was very overdue. Looks much better now.