The snapdragons are about over now but the cosmos and dahlias are still going strong. In the veggie department the runner beans are still cropping well and there's still plenty of spring onions, carrots, courgettes and cabbages; and tomatoes from the greenhouse. For fruit I've got my grapes, autumn raspberries, plums, blackberries galore and the apples are almost ready.

Apples

Runner beans

Carnations

A couple of weeks of late summer sunshine have brought the carnations out a treat. I've been frantically removing the excess buds and side shoots and now have a pretty good result - plenty of blooms for cutting:

Cropping nicely

The past week's been pretty dull weatherwise but at least we had a couple of weeks of sun previous to that, maybe that was summer?! The plot continues to crop nicely so I'm not complaining. The Early Onward peas are over so now I'm onto the Onwards; the cabbages are a good size, likewise the carrots; I've dug up and bagged the maincrop potatoes; there's spring onions, runner beans and tomatoes and I've got courgettes coming out of my ears. I've transplanted the last of this year's cabbages and sown a row for next spring.

The wild blackberries around the edge of the plot are cropping now, the autumn (should be called late summer) raspberries are in full flow, the first plums are ready and, from the greenhouse, the first grapes.

The sweet peas have rallied and sent out new flowers from their side shoots, the cosmos are going mad, the snapdragons are still doing nicely and I've had the first carnations.

Tomatoes

Sweet peas

Sunflowers

Spring onions

Snapdragons

Runner beans

Peas

Grapes

Courgettes

Cosmos

Carrots and carnations

Cabbages

"Hispi" planted out

"Derby Day"

Autumn raspberries

Spent hops

One of our local pubs (The Flower Pot, as it happens) has started to brew their own beer and I was well pleased to receive their first lot of spent hops for composting. So here's a picture of them and my other bins, just for all you compost nuts out there:

After another two weeks of rain finally a dry and sunny day so I've been able to dig up the remainder of the early potatoes and get them dry enough to bag up and bring inside. The wind and torrential rain of July 20th brought down the sweet peas but at least we're not under three feet of water like most of Gloucestershire. The carnations are struggling to bud up in this weather but the snapdragons and cosmos are flowering well and my few surviving dahlias have had their first blooms. Plenty to eat too: courgettes, peas, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, spring onions and the first cabbages, cauliflowers, runner beans and "autumn" raspberries. What I really fancy is some cake but I guess I'll have to go buy that.