Forgot my phone today, so sadly there are no pictures of the now rather natty looking shed, with its guttering painstakingly re-fitted and the level measured to make sure water flows the right way. That sounds obvious I know, but for the last 10 months one end has been listing a bit pathetically.

Now that’s done, I’ve marked and de-turfed the space for the quince tree to go. I plan to underplant it with something, as the spot is quite sheltered, and have been thinking about lavender – mainly because I made my 3rd (and final!) batch of strawberry and lavender jam today. There is still blackberry jelly to go, but I need a break from jam-making. Himself is loudly complaining that all fruit coming into the house either ends up as compote or jam.

The spot for the new pear will take some more thought. Where I originally wanted to put it is half a metre from an established plum tree planted on my neighbour’s plot. I might be able to shift it down a bit, and fill the space with one of my tayberries.

Everything else seems to be growing well, bar the aubergines, which are flowering but then go manky. I spent 20 minutes picking off brown caterpillars from the tomatoes, but they don’t seem to have done much damage. The 100s&1000s are going red nicely and a massive Black Russian is just on the turn. S*d’s law is it ripens while I am away this week! My strawberries are still flowering madly and giving a handful of fruit per week. I really must get around to sorting out the runners!

My mystery squash isn’t a patty pan as I thought, but something stripey and acorn-shaped (currently). So either it’s a Sweet Dumpling or ….pass. What I thought were Kabocha are very definitely Potimarron. This is why I should put LABELS on!

Fed everything this evening. I’d left some potato fertiliser (essentially chicken manure) in a bottle with some water. Next time I will remember a) to leave the cap a little loose so gas can escape and b) UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHAKE THE BOTTLE!!! It was like brown, stinky champagne. Went ev-ery-where. Mostly over me. Smells worse than comfrey, and that’s saying a lot.

After a long shower, took advantage of the free delivery weekend on the mainstream seed sites and have ordered £40 of supplies, including Lady Christl & Charlotte potatoes, Provence & Carcassone Wight garlic, purple artichokes, baby leeks, honeydew sweetcorn, and loretta celery -next year’s experiment, since it likes boggy ground and I have an embarrassment of riches as far as bogginess goes. Plus some snazzy black markers and a white pen as a treat (I have changed A Lot since taking on the plot – before all this a treat would have been new shoes!)  I am going to try and keep track of spend vs produce in 2013/14, just to see what I am bringing home – all this investment must be paying off by now.