It would have been so much better if the rain of the past fortnight had fallen in August, but we must deal with what we get, which is to say the water butt is nicely full, despite the slightly ramshackle second hand guttering around the shed.

Shamefully, the weather has prevented me from going down there for a fortnight, so it was great this morning to be faced with my plum trees, finally bearing fruit. I tried one, which was delicious, but now have to figure out some recipes (and pronto!) to use our glut. There will be a lot of frozen stewed plums, I think.

I also dug up the last of the early potatoes (i know…) and reduced to food centimetres the journey my raspberries made between cane and mouth. I took some fallers from a friends tree (this is a year for blackberry and apple jam) and I’ve replanted all my leeks into newly dug soil.

Here are some pics:

The gooseberries which I left on the bush earlier in the year gave plumpened, ripened and have now been picked (scratched arms and all). The taste is amazing-no sugar required-with some flavoured almost like bubblegum. Odd! But tAsty.

Still too dry, still lots of potatoes to come…

Lots of strawberries straight off the plant.

Garlic nearly harvested, showing signs of rust and probably rot too, but look at the purple on this!

There I was getting quite depressed about the allotment. Probably something to do with the guilt that I haven’t actually gone down there tonight. It never seems to be as good or as well planned as other people’s, or it lacks imagination and planning (ironic given my job title has ‘planning’ in it). But then I look back at just three month blog posts and go… ooh.. those dried out potatoes have given us our first meal now, those strawberry plants are fruiting now (hoepfully they’ll not all have been munched by the slugs), those raspberry plants are (a bit) deweeded and growing well, and, well, maybe there is hope. And this is despite weather that has been against us. So hopefully when I go down tomorrow, I won’t find my newly transplanted seedlings munched to oblivion, and there will be other hope.

First lot of strawberries from the back garden munched on tonight! Something’s eaten a couple of them, but the netting on them seems to be keeping off the worst of the intruders.

A very early trip tot he allotment – 4:45 – last week got some weeding done, and we’ve got plans for fish and chips and a trip down there tomorrow night. Really ought to take the strimmer too but I think we’ll be down on our bikes instead, its more fun and definitely greener that way!

First peas might be ready to go with our fish and chips too… though not mushy (hooray!)

Spent a productive two hours this morning in the sunshine. Reassured by a more experienced grower who came over to commiserate on the size of my garlic (all growth, no action) saying that its been a really bad year, and the weather has been against us. He lost most of his early garlic – so at least I’ve got something, even if it is tiny. Onoins are looking good.

Round #2 of beans have gone in – this time dwarf borlotti and black-and-white kidney. These were started in the back garden and have been planted with lots of slug pellets. Hopefully this should deter the pests.

The soil really hasn’t recovered from the dry April we had. Despite digging in loads of organic matter, the rain doesn’t seem to stay in the soil, leaving it dry and very clumpy. Oh well.

Dug up the first couple of potato plants, and at least they are showing signs of something, there will be potatos for tea Strawberries are also ripening (hooray) both on the allotment at home.

And finally, I’ve put in my squash and pumpkin plants which were being ignored at the bottom of the mini greenhouse.

On the plus side, whilst untidy, this year at least the backgarden has flowers!

An hour on the plot this evening spent making the most of the rain last night. Earthed up the potatoes, planted marigolds and strimmed the edges before the strimmer ran out of juice. The ground is still desperately hard, I must be one of the few people hoping for a wet bank holiday!

Oh, and signs of *lots* of plums!