There are a few bean flower buds, so maybe there will be a few beans before the season ends.

I cut down some more borage from the middle bed, as well as nigella and the cow parsley in the trellis bed. There are some new flower buds on some pieces of borage and I’m leaving those for now to keep the bees happy.

We’ve had some good rain recently, so I took the opportunity to start getting the mint out. It came out quite easily and brought with it an amount of grass root too. Two pieces of verbena came up and I’ve replanted them near the fence.

I’ve done some digging up in Bed 1, having done the cutting down before. With more rain around now, the digging is now possible and the notion of clearing up makes sense.

Not a bad little harvest, but this year has been a challenge. Mr B never got any runner beans after the blackfly and his carrots are small too. The really dry period wasn’t helpful, but we’re hopeful for next year!

Just more deadheading, more tomatoes and some cosmos for home.

Just a tiddly harvest today. No sign of new runner beans yet. I think I can see flowers, but I’m not sure they’ll have time to prodce beans.

Today marked the start of clearing up … for winter. There was a bucket of deadheading and cutting back and then a whole sack of cutting down borage and viper’s bugloss, plus the various weeds among them in Bed 1. I even found little sunflowers in that bed, yet to flower. There’s still plenty more borage to cut down, plus the cow parsley … and that’s to say nothing of digging them up. So in a way, mid-August seems a perfectly reasonable time to start preparing for winter.

We’ve had some good rain at last, but now there’s wind too! I popped down to pick tomatoes before they were blown off by the wind. Lots of Red Alerts as usual, and a good number of Ferline too.

Another relatively unproductive weekend. We went down to get the high, overgrown beans this morning. There were lots of Red Alerts and quite a few Ferline tomotoes. Happily, only one had blossom end rot, and nothing like as bad as the first one. I did some deadheading and then went home, intending to go back and feed, but then we had some pouring rain and I gave up on the idea.

I went down late to do some watering (still really hot and dry here) and deadheading. The first Ferline was about ready, but unfortunately has blossom end rot because the ground dried out – evidently completely! The Red Alerts were fine though.

The beans are not great, but I’m hopeful that the tiny buds on the vines will turn into flowers and more beans before it’s too late. The plants are all due a feed now too. Some water from the skies would really help though.

Nearly time for Ferline tomatoes and the Red Alerts are doing well.

The garden looks a bit done in on the whole. It’s really hot and there’s been no rain for ages. I’ve now watered and done the deadheading, which helps, but the cornflowers at the front are fairly done now. I can’t bring myself to stand in the heat and try and deadhead all those a the moment.

There have been far more animal holes than usual around the allotment and suddenly there are even more by the trellis bed. I think subterranean to-ing and fro-ing has meant that some of my new perennials haven’t done very well this year.

A little harvest when I went down this morning to do some watering and take a few photos. The carrot was delicious for lunch.

I went back in the evening to feed everything. I think the only beds I didn’t do were Bed 1, the sunflowers and the ledge.

My French marigolds with the delphiniums are so big. Clearly loving being fed. The ones in the boundaries are nothing in comparison.

I’ve clearly missed a number of sideshoots on the Ferline. Some of the plants have branches coming right from the base and I realise now that they’re not meant to be there. I’ve left a few as they already have good fruit on them, but I’ve cut off these two as an experiment. They’re now in water to see if they want to root. If so, I’ll see if they survive being planted somewhere.

I did hours of deadheading and a bucket of weeding along the way today. In the afternoon I did a bit more deadheading and then turned to photos.

I found a random little calendula on the right. Accidentally picked one, but a couple are left. No idea how it got there.

The dahlias are doing ok. Not huge blooms, but it’s very dry and I’ve not been watering like I should. Everything will be fed tomorrow though.

The Ferlines are doing very nicely, but are not particularly tall. Again, they’ll enjoy being fed. I’ve a feeling that I’ve missed the odd sideshoot and they now have fruit.