Good gourd

A couple of gourd vines have established themselves and are producing fruit very similar to the first stages of a pumpkin or courgette.

Doubtful maturity

Whether this year's tomato crop ripens before blight arrives or summer departs remains doubtful.

Wildfire

This stuff multiplies and looks like wildfire. It's sold in garden centres for about a tenner a small clump, which is a rip off, but if you invest you'd double your money in a year, if you could find anyone to buy it off you. It always heralds late summer and despite the wonky timing of most other growing things this year, the crocosmia's kept in step with the seasons.

Onion low

A paltry crop of onions this year, grown from sets that didn't get enough and then got too much water. At least no sign of white rot, which I've had in previous years when there have been bumper crops but instead of being self sufficient until mid winter, this lot won't last a couple of months.

Fruits of the gloom

Quite a few of the courgette plants succumbed to rot or slug damage, but a couple survived and have been producing fruit, not all of which have been eaten by molluscs or unexpectedly shrivelled.

Bright and beautiful

Late earlies

Cut and roll

Scorecard

Match report

Flowery Twats (2)

Slug torn

A bit slug torn and tattered, but the sweetcorn's finally putting on some growth with the sunshine.

Let's get ready to crumble

One for me one for the bee

Blooming late

Little helper

Always a good sign to see a frog in your strawberry patch munching molluscs.

Late starters

The sweetcorn's finally putting on some growth but it's about three weeks behind on previous years. Hopefully there'll be enough sun around in September to ripen the cobs if they appear.

Good runners

With all the rain around, it could be a good year for runner beans.

Glass half full

Half a glass of redcurrants; they're so time consuming to pick, especially after you've already spent an hour bending and stretching to pick strawberries, but unlike strawberries, they don't demand to be picked lest they disintegrate into a squishy mess nor are they preyed upon by wee beasties.

Broadly speaking

Harvested the first of the broad beans which happily didn't succumb to an early blackfly infestation or become too adversely affected by tiny bites out of the leaves of the young plants made by wee beasties, believed to be weevils (sitona lineatus).

Forage

Sol sistere

The word solstice derives from the Latin 'sol' (sun) and 'sistere' (to stand still).

Currant berries

Nasty surprise

A shotgun cartridge and a Kinder Surprise toy casing - not the sort of juxtaposition usually encountered.

Transplant transport

Today's tricky-to-transport seedling for transplanting is the borlotti bean.

Mange non

Miraculously the molluscs haven't munched the first of the season's lettuce.

Bee friendly

Berry first

Mind your hands on the thorns as you harvest the first berry of the year, just beating the strawberry season by a week or two. You're supposed to prune out the centre of a gooseberry bush otherwise it's likely to become infested with saw flies whose larvae will strip the bush completely. I seem to have got away with it, but did get a few scratches, which is one of the reasons I've avoiding pruning it. Last year one of the low branches rooted in the ground producing another plant (much like strawberries) and at the end of this season I'll cut the gooseberry umbilical and sever it from the mother plant.

Bristol Green Capital

"Helping to create a Low Carbon City with a High Quality of Life for All"

(But don't go planting sunflowers, marigolds, dill, sweetcorn and broad beans or we'll rip it all out)

Architecturally significant

Zygoptera

Damselfly on a chilli plant.

Market for bunting

After many years of failure, I've finally got some dill to germinate and grow outdoors. Instead of horticultural seed it's culinary, which means lots more seed for your money. Wasn't sure if the experiment would work but now there are several clumps around the allotment.

Peas up

Growth forecast

Hot sun after the rain has meant that established plants, like spinach, chard, artichokes, parsnips, broad beans, strawberries, rhubarb, black and red currants, gooseberries and raspberries have put on loads of growth, but it's difficult to establish seedlings without attentive routine watering.



Weeds are growing well too, especially bindweed and poppies.



The tallest parsnip plants are running to seed and will be removed soon, but at the shady base there are lots of new seedlings for next winter.



The very last of the purple broccoli and white cauliflower shoots that heve been supplying the kitchen for the last few months. Time to sow some more.

Toxic Bloom

"The Azalea and Rhododendron were once so infamous for their toxicity that to receive a bouquet of their flowers in a black vase was a well-known death threat."

wikipedia.org

Flowering