8th August...

Geronimoooo!!!!  Just got back from the plot and I have A runner bean.  It's a start 

Managed to get OH his first handful of beans on Tuesday and the Courgettes - well didn't think they were going to do anything but they have gone to marrow .  And so many (sorry  ) I'm going have to make Courgette chocolate cake and may be some muffins.  Wish the toms would go red - got loads of them in the green house.  I don't grow them outside after I lost 24 plants in one go due to blight.

My Super Chillis are storming away, but then they always do regardless of weather. I've got red chillis on them and dozens of green. The habanero are only just thinking about flowers

I've had a steady crop of courgettes for weeks now from my Parthenon.  The outside courgettes have only just started holding onto the fruit as opposed to them rotting and dropping off, but they're cropping well now. I've had a huge crop of mange tout, just finishing now, not too many garden peas, and they're late because I had seed disaster with my local plague of mice, but they are swelling up nicely now. The French beans are just starting to form beans, again they're late but looking like triffids. And the runner beans have suddenly sprouted dozens of pods, some of which are just about big enough to pick; although later it's a much better crop than I had last year. The sweet peppers and aubergines are doing very well in my tunnel, and I've started picking Gartenperle tomatoes in the last week, again very late for them. I've been eating calabrese, carrots, chard, beet, kohlrabi, kale, lettuce, spring onion, cucumber for weeks.

It's been a difficult year for weather, and a lot of my crops are later than normal, but I have to say it's been a much better year for me than I had last year. The outside tomato crop is much smaller than usual and not even thinking about turning red yet, apart from Gartenperle, but other than that it's been a good year for me so far.

First courgette spotted on one of the plants yesterday. It may be a pickable size today if the sun continues to shine.

I eat them all sizes and they always taste nice to me. If they're very big the skin gets a bit tougher and they might be a bit seedy in the middle, but that's all. They often get away from me because they do seem to go from tiny to very big overnight sometimes.