Much cooler at the allotments this week. The tomatoes are starting to go orange finally but the 100s&1000s are very thick skinned.

I’ve had to evict the aubergines from the culticave – no room at the inn for them now the chillies are rocketing up. (though I might stick them back in and turf out the cape gooseberries as they are even bigger) I’ve re-potted the jalapenos as they seem to have stopped flowering, and I want more chillies! We had one of the chenzos in veggie soup last night and, despite being still black, it was fiery! Yum! The habaneros have a few fruit forming, but I think that they might have been a little late starting. Lemon drops have quite a few flowers and mini-chillies so far. I will be overwintering as many as I can so I get a headstart next year. It seems a bit depressing to be thinking about next year already…

Giving away the courgettes was a very cunning idea – I am now back to manageable quantities, though Him Indoors has been in the doghouse for eating the one I had earmarked for stuffing and baking.

I’ve taken off the top leaves of the sweetcorn to try and encourage the lower silks to get pollinated. They look strange, but more and more of the cob silks are turning brown so maybe it works.

The broccoli and others have recovered from being planted out and are putting on a growth spurt. I’ve taken off most of the leaves from the celeriac and they are looking pretty happy. I’m not sure that the broccoli will come to anything this year now, but perhaps it will survive over winter and produce in spring – fingers crossed! Cabbage whites are fluttering about, but there is no getting through these defences! I’ve learned from last year’s efforts and not planted near the netting, so there are no leaves they can get to this time!

The soil is turning concrete-y so digging is off till after it rains. I have 8 beds to dig/move for next year and then the plot transformation will be complete. I might give the Back to Eden method a go on one or 2 of them, and under my fruit trees – need to watch this all the way through:

I’ve started re-painting the shed to get it all ship-shape for winter. It’s pretty time-consuming as the paint doesn’t want to go on at first, it stays on the surface in beads for quite a while. The new coat does make quite a difference though – it started to look a bit tatty in front with all the blue peeling off the doors. There are still loads of bits of wood that should be on/in it, but the destructions weren’t all that clear on where they go…

This weekend is allotment swaps with Michelle. 1 day working on hers in High Wycombe, 1 day working on mine. I do like our swaps – she’s got such a different approach and soil to mine (plus isn’t allowed any structures at all) and I find it really useful to see how hers works.