Update from last night:

Took out 2/3 of the broad beans in the green bed. The ground is very compacted and rock hard, so will need digging over before anything else goes in it. Filled the trug with 5.6kg of pods. This harvest is about the same time as last year, and I’ll try overwintering this year to try and get an earlier crop.

Another 1.2kg of strawberries, mostly from the lower bed. These don’t seem to be as nice as the ones in the top bed, and I don’t know why. They have less flavour and are smaller. Both beds have had the same treatment (ie total neglect) and have been watered twice this year, other than the stuff falling from the sky. The plants originally come from the same bed so it must be the soil conditions. Both beds are starting to throw off runners and I probably need to go to the garden centre for some free pots. The picked strawberries were dehydrated last night and are now stowed away in the larder for later in the year so Him Indoors’s sticky paws don’t find them.

Watered all pots, but the beds with spuds and squashes in could probably do with a good soaking. My sweetcorn is out and hopefully will soon look less spindly. Also out are the final 2 squashes who are so fed up of being in pots that they have started forming baby fruits. Hopefully those won’t fall off! Again, comparing to last year, I put out squashes at this time and got a harvest – though not as much I suspect as if I had fed them…

The surviving tomatillos have their feet in soil, as do the cape gooseberries – latter being staked. The achocha are most of the way up the trellis – the replacement 2 are still tiny and will have a job to fight for space – despite being planted at generous spacing. I didn’t realise they were such thugs!

Something is pulling out the salsify.  I may only have 9 this year. Need to net the tub. Topped up the bag with 4 oca in it. The foliage looks so lovely, it’s like a massive pom-pom. I keep being asked if I am growing giant clover!