I've had to pull out the tomatoes in the garden. They were beginning to look blight struck. The stems were turning black and so too were the tomatoes. I probably could have treated them but it might well have been too late and there are lots of tomatoes in the greenhouse. It may be just as well I did - there were zucchini hiding underneath them which ambitions to be marrows!

The Builder and I disagree about the success of the runner beans. He says we've not had all that many and that there won't now be all that many to come. We've been eating them in some quantity for a while now and I've got at least two packets of them in the freezer - sort of the size that you buy in the supermarket, if you see what I mean. And there are still quite a few flowers. I reckon we'll get some more. It's only just September. I'm not anticipating frosts just yet (though this may be tempting fate, bearing in mind the late frosts we had at the end of spring!) I think he's just grumbling because he only ended up with 12 plants instead of the 18 or 24 he usually has!! (some seeds didn't germinate; a couple of plants vanished when very small)

We had one of the baby pumpkins on Monday. I've never eaten a young pumpkin before; they're usually mature and "cured" with a hard skin by the time I get my hands on them. The young pumpkin was surprisingly soft and succulent and moist, more like a zucchini. Which makes sense when you think about it, given that they are of the same family and have similar habits. Speaking of which, there appear to be (finally!) a couple of female flowers on one of the melon plants in the greenhouse. I must go up on Saturday morning and paint them with male pollen. They were only very tiny when I was there on Monday so Saturday may be in time. Reading my vegetable books has informed me that all the cucurbits need pollinating apart from some varieties of cucumbers. But I think that next year I may not put them in the greenhouses. THey seem to be perfectly happy out in the open (apart from the one melon plant which I planted with the cucumbers and pumpkins in the garden and which was very rapidly smothered to death!) And I won't put any tomatoes outside. I wonder if I could persuade The Builder to put up a large Victorian hot house on the "wild" bit of the allotment ....

However, if the tomatoes in the garden are blighted, then this would suggest the potatoes on the allotment are also under threat. I think we will try dodging the showers at the weekend and dig the rest up. It's mostly the Arran Victory and the Pink Fir apples left, plus half a bed where I just shoved all the left over potatoes at random. And then all the stray potatoes that are self invited from last year! So quite a lot really. I hope there are lots of spaces between the showers!

The caterpillars are still making merry with the cabbages. Spraying is holding some of them back. The cabbage whites have been replaced by small green ones! We had a very tiny cauli last night. It was small but very flavoursome

I really need to sort out the flower garden. I may need a month's gardening leave!!!

Oh - and there is one, solitary, lonely bog sage strand gamely flowering. I didn't think there were any this year. I must buy new ones next spring