I gave the plot the promised soaking yesterday as the rain we had didn’t get far down.

I’ve taken all the deformed leaves & flower stalks off the runners, and there were more normal ones there than I thought, so perhaps it won’t be catastrophic. One plant had to be binned, which probably still leaves me enough.

Took down the Kent Blue I had been growing for one of the seed circles. The earlier sowing had fewer but larger peas. I might try one last lot to boost the numbers of seeds. I’m not sure I will keep any – they are beautiful, but I prefer peas to mangetout.

Pollinated a few more squash and bagged another for tomorrow. They are nearly all selfed but I doubt that will cause any inbreeding issues in the first generation. I should have the following squashes for seed:

• 1 x Muscat de Provence
• 1 x Queensland Blue
• 3 x Thelma Sanders
• 2 x Potimarron
• 2 x Black Futsu

I don’t know why insects are ignoring my watermelons, but they do seem to be. And my efforts the other day must have been with male flowers that were too old/had already been stripped of pollen. Anyway, I picked off the unpollinated fruits and found 3 female flowers newly opened and stepped in… Another is due to open tomorrow.

I have pegged down one of the Jonkheer van Tets branches and a couple of the red gooseberries to get a few more bushes. Mum would like some to replace the ancient bushes I am digging out of her garden this winter.

Going over to Mum’s later in the week to pillage hibiscus flowers to make cordial with – I had some at Wahaca the other day and it’s gorgeous! I found the recipe here.