Our local long timer left last autumn , he had two meticulous plots, one of them got taken over by someone who didn’t bother after a couple of visits. It’s now a jungle and infested with foxes who have dug dens all over, it’s actually dangerous to walk on it now

Should be given the Order of the Boot. I am not sure why management committees are so slow to act.

Yes I think this has been a year to forget. Brilliant asparagus and a few onions but lots of crops didn’t germinate well or succumbed to the ****** slugs and snails. Now to top it off my tomatoes at home and at the plot have both had blight. Fingers crossed for a better season next year.

Despite what  Marcus Waring says, most farmers don't cut off potato flowers, as it makes no appreciable difference to the yield, but increases their work & costs.....
Flowering usually indicates that tubers are beginning to fatten up beneath the soil, so if you cut the tops off then, you'll only have small sized tubers....perhaps that is what Marcus/you want, for salads?
If you want them a normal size or  main-crop potatoes for storing, leave them until the top growth dies back, before digging.

18°C mostly sunny & cloudless, a truly lovely late summer/early autumn day.
I could happily take a month of this.

Lazy tea, of tinned tuna & sweetcorn, coleslaw and salad bits