Lots to harvest after being away for a couple of days. Everything looked good, heavily-laden and nice and damp after some rain. I’ve pulled up all the garlic now. Not a good harvest, but it now leaves the volunteer tomatoes room to do whatever it is they want to do. I’m still waiting for my green manure seeds to turn up, so there’s no point in pulling those up yet.

The cucumbers are doing their own thing again, so come next weekend I’ll have to do some more support-making. The semi-strange corn has one plant where a cob seems to be forming up  by the tassel.

The non-standard JBL is getting bigger and bigger, but now I have some proper-shaped ones coming at the other end of the bed. Plenty more flowers coming too.

The beans are going mad still.

Just some photos to take with me for admiration in Austria. The green stripes on the big pumpkins have almost disappeared in just a few days.

It was super muggy today, so I’ll feed when in a day or two when it’s cooler. Only the smallest pumpkin has grown a noticeable amount, but the big ones are starting to turn beautifully orange. Compared to last week, they’re now at:

• 1 – 39cm (0)
• 2 – 37cm (+1)
• 3 – 34cm (+2) 
• 4 – 28cm (+11)

I did some good weeding and tidying along the ledge, under the apple tree and particularly in the trellis bed. I really must do some good renovation on this bed in particular to get a proper distinction between tall at the back and short at the front. Too many different things are crammed in here and they’re not helping each other. There are a feed gladioli, but it looks like they’ll be blind.

Although we’d done a good harvest yesterday, there were more beans and tomatoes today.

In the afternoon I did a quick mow on 2, so that it’s not too long when I come back after next weekend away.

I’m always pulling up the oxalis as it crops up all over the plot. When I first moved in, it filled the front border. I’ve never let it flower before, but this little patch in the sweetcorn bed escaped my attention and suddenly I feel quite differently about it. Low-growing patches of pink flowers in July, when so much has finished, could well be a useful addition. So I’ll look at letting it grow here and there in the borders.

Just a morning visit to do a big harvest, as a fair amount of rain was due in the afternoon. I pulled up a number of garlics, but they weren’t much to look at. I put some straight onto the compost as they seemed to be a little mouldy. The bulbs really aren’t very big, so I’m not expecting much from the rest now.

More cucumbers are coming and in the next bed over I do have a number of cobs coming on my sweetcorn, though not all yet. At least one of the plants has a wrinkled leaf, which might be rapid corn syndrome, or might just be weird. One of the volunteer tomatoes in the garlic bed has just started flowering.

The first JBL is really taking off too, though it’s a teardrop shape at the moment.

The garden’s producing quite well now. There will be more runner beans and tomatoes in a few days.

I didn’t feed at the weekend, but we had a good downpour of rain instead.

It was very windy yesterday, so only one plot day this weekend. Still pretty breezy, but nothing much out of place, just a bunch of sticks and leaves blown out of the elder.

I stirred up the leaf bin and disturbed a bunch of ants. I’m not sure any birds were around to be helpful, but I left it open for a few hours in case. The two remaining sacks of leaves – wet leaves from Mrs J and dry oak leaves from home – have now been added to the bin.

We did a good job of training the cucumbers upwards and adding more supports. Suddenly I can see the two huge marigolds again and I don’t need to wonder about needing to move one. There a lots of fruits coming, but nowhere near ready to pick yet. Thanks to all the successful backup sowing, I’ve gone from having no plants to too many, all in the smallest bed.

I’ve also tied up the JBL better for their increased growth. Only a couple of females so far. The sweetcorn is still weirdly short, but now has tassels and tiny signs of silks showing. No idea what it’s doing.

In order to keep a better eye on their growth, I’ve measured the pumpkins from stalk to base: 1 – 39cm; 2 – 36cm; 3 – 32cm;  4- 19cm. They were getting admired for their speedy growth by Ms D today. Number 1 has thrown out a new arm of growth.

I strimmed all the edges before lunch. The grass itself is keeping pretty short at the minute, which is helpful.

After lunch I did some concerted deadheading, pick weeding and tidying. That involved things like cutting back the apple tree a bit, properly cutting down the geums and finally ripping up all the grass that had filled the back of the front border. There’s still some bed to bed work I need to do, but I’ve made a good difference with buckets of deadheading and buckets of rubbish this afternoon.

The garlic’s getting towards harvest time. It’s a little rusty, but not all that yellow yet. A few of them have bolted though, so I’ve cut off the scapes and hopefully we’ll get a bit more growth from the bed before harvest.

It’s going to be very windy tomorrow, so I went down in the afternoon to make sure nothing was in danger of blowing over or being damaged. I think everything will be ok. There’s fairly heavy rain coming too, so I’ve put out 3 buckets and weighed them down with filled water bottles.

The pumpkins have grown a ridiculous amount in the last two weeks, from cupping in both hands to “could I lift that?”. The fourth plant now has a pumpkin, just starting to grow. The first JBL has started too.

The sun hasn’t been out a great deal recently, but the tomatoes have started to ripen and I was able to pick the first few.

The plants are now growing very well and even the leeks are starting to look a bit like leeks. I was meant to chop their tops when I planted them, but now I don’t know if the moment has passed or not.

The zinnias are still flowering and there are lots of buds to come. I’d forgotten how long lasting the blooms are.

I should have taken the basket with me as there was lots to harvest: runner beans, French beans, chard, and the first cucumber and tomatoes.

Watering time. I’ve given tomato feed to the pumpkins, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, zinnias and (not great) Bed 3 photos. Chicken pellets have been added to the sweetcorn, onions and garlic and then watered in. It turned out that there was lots of water in one of the butts, so it was no problem to make sure that the veg rows were well-watered.

The daisy and poppy by the compost bin were done and so I was finally able to get in and tidy up. I now have full access again and will most likely be able to add the bags of leaves to the bin.

We had a little more rain today. Enough that I don’t need to worry about watering until I feed tomorrow.

I’ve made more supports for the cucumber vines and there are several cucumbers on the way.

I’ve fed the leeks, giving them a top dressing of chicken pellets. Apart from water, that’s about all they need.

I don’t think this year is going to be a beetroot success. They must need far more water than they’re ever going to get from me.

I gave the grass a mow  tonight, some on 1, mostly on 2 to get rid of the long stalks. The edges haven’t shot up much yet.

I’ve managed to sort out the pumpkins for now. The one by the onions was suddenly long enough to simply loop back on to the bed. I’ll need to keep an eye on whether it scratches the pumpkin. A small piece of hessian may be enough to protect it.

I found a new stem on the pumpkin at the front, which looks promising, with female flowers. So I’ve simply cut off the stem that was heading onto the grass. Hopefully the other stem will step up in its place.