Jersey Tiger Moth

Three colours red

Slug Patrol

Mint hopper

          A grasshopper nearly perfectly camouflaged on a mint leaf.

Windfall

                  Last of the broad beans, first windfall apples.

Seasons in the sun

Plump pickings

New raspberry stock in their second season producing a plump crop.

Sweet brew

                     The more you pick, the more you get.

Peak plum

   Plums dropping from the sky. Stewing with raspberries and apples.

Just swell

          Waiting for the borlotti beans to swell to full maturity.

Self-sufficientish

King crimson

Autumn in the air for a while now and with it, the deep crimson of a gladioli; much less blousey than the pink and peach-coloured ones. The orange crocosmia spreads like fire despite the rain showers.

Late earlies

Late to be harvesting early potatoes, but the cold start to the season held them back. Without watering them through the drought, they wouldn't have grown to this size. For once, no sign of wireworm or blemishes on any of them.

BoJo tassle

Most, but not all of the sweetcorn plants have formed cobs, with tassles like unruly haircuts - BoJo? Sometimes, tapping the pollen from the flowers helps, though it's been windy enough for nature to take care of that. Perhaps a little too wet and windy.

The kitchen beckons

Runner bean plants are still climbing, quickly producing pods that dangle hopefully in their efforts to return to earth and start again - but the kitchen beckons.

Splodgenessabounds

The hot spell earlier in the year is now just a distant memory, like summers of youth. Torrential downpours have left everything soaked and near gale force winds have battered and blown over tall plants. 'At least you won't have to water the allotment', they say, not realising that that's part of the fun of it. After waiting in the wings, snails and slugs make the most of the damp, seeking out seedlings and horizontal sunflowers. Badgers dig more easily in the wet turf and soil, finding worms and crane fly larvae and not replacing their divots: worse, one took out an entire small crop of carrots, easily pushing aside some chicken wire. They'll be back for the sweetcorn before long.

Blooming Norah

Despite the phlox seedlings being nibbled by mice a couple of months ago, most of them survived and are now in bloom. This one might be 'Norah Leigh'.

Some like it swampy

Torrential rain for most of the day; not so good for insects and delicate blooms but the celery can't get enough of it.

Early autumn gold

Black gold

                Entering the rudbeckia and sunflower season.