Much rain has fallen. From being nearly empty the water butt’s full again and the part-dug bed is a pond – I bailed out 18 2-gallon watering cans with a rusty tin. I am stunned at how much rain we’ve had this month. I thought this was supposed to be summer?!

I took off the Desiree foliage, which was weird. It fell over a month or more ago and looked like it was dying back, but then got new leaves on the stems, except they came out of purple nodules. Where the stems had been buried under some mulch from the old potato bags there were some baby spuds. All a bit odd, though I like having extra spuds.

Lots of the tomatoes have split, but the squashes and  watermelon are fine. Phew! I would have been gutted if the melon had gone, I’m so proud of having got one to grow outside. Lots of runners on the beans, but none are even faintly purple. Not had much luck with the Aeron Purple Star so I won’t bother again. Bagged 6 flower stalks on the trail of tears beans so they come true for the seed circle.

Also picked half the sweetcorn. It tasted great, but would definitely have won a prize as Most Pathetic Cob Collection!

Cleared up some of the grass on the bordering paths and in the process an evil biting thing got me on the eyelid, so I am rocking the one-eyed pirate look tonight. Hopefully it will ease up overnight or tomorrow’s work meetings will be just wonderful.

Edit to add: the sweetcorn DID win a prize! I entered the photo in a ‘Best Failure’ competition and it came first – clear validation of how rubbish it was.