I hope you enjoy my little video of our allotment.

I did find a cucumber, it was staring me in the face when I went back into the greenhouse, which I picked along with a few tomatoes and that lovely little cauliflower for our Sunday lunch.

I’ve had to cut some of the brokali before it goes over, so I will be able to use that later in the week. Cutting the plant encourages it to send out new spurs, at the moment the plants are proving very vigorous, so it will be interesting to discover how productive they remain and if we can keep them going right into the winter.

I do prefer the yellow courgettes, they are so much easier to spot and one has less chance of peering under their huge leaves only to discover a huge marrow shaped courgette. As always the courgette glut is upon us, but I adore them gently fried in butter with garlic, black pepper and then a few tomatoes, piled high on sour dough toast with either a scrapping of a good cheese or a poached egg on top, it makes a marvellous lunch.

I had hoped to be able to pick the broad beans as we go along, but the black fly have put paid to any smaller pods ripening and these would have only been a few pods at most. A few black fly seem a small price to pay for home grown organic veg. I’ve only recently found a love of broad beans, one of the few vegetables that I disliked as a child, unless they were the first pickings, when they were tiny tender beans. I just remember the chewy strong flavour of beans that were probably just past their best. From the couple that I nibbled on raw at the plot, these should be a delight and I’m looking forward to cooking them gently and serving them simply to enjoy their true essence. Also I have a few beans left and I may well just push a few into the ground to see if we can get a late autumn crop, nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say.

Mandy’s plot, July 2020.