Well I'm back from my hols. Sadly the lottie has suffered whilst I've been away - it seems that the rain stopped the day I went away ! how typical is that.

It hasn't stopped the weeds though, they are frighteningly high (my dwarf beans have actually disappeared under them) and I'll have to do some serious maintenance at the weekend.

It was quite a depressing visit really, my cauliflowers, which looked fantastic a couple of weeks ago, are now brown and horrible. The tomatoes are decidedly crispy - I'm not sure whether they'll pull through or not - and some have collapsed under the weight of the fruit. The potatoes I dug up on Tuesday evening are brown, rotten and awful - the tops have totally gone, so I'm not sure if I have blight - the soil was really hot and humid when I dug them up, so they could just have rotted with all of the wet weather. My cucumbers look terrible and I don't think I'll get anything from them this season. The purple dragon carrots look to have all been eaten by slugs and the tops look to have died on the others, so I don't expect them to grow much bigger. My butternut squash vines still don't appear to have any fruits forming.

There were some glimmers of hope though, the two melons are now grapefruit sized and look very happy. Another small one is forming. My leeks look as if they are holding their own. The Jerusalem Artichokes are looking very healthy. The blueberries have nearly all ripened and appear to be undiscovered by the birds. The raspberries have ripened. The sweet potatoes are looking good, especially the ones in the greenhouse. My Emperor beans are flowering nicely and have very small beans forming. The rhubarb has thrown up some more stalks and the blackberries are plentiful. All of my sweetcorns have produced tassels and cobs - even though some them are not even a foot high. The courgettes have produced several balls, ranging from goose egg size to cannon ball size ... oh, wait, that probably goes in the bad news bit right ?

I had some deep fried courgettes in tempura batter for tea on Wednesday and tonight had courgette, cheese and roasted tomato quiche - very nice. I've made some muffins with the blueberries and raspberries (although they are like little rocks, not sure what I did wrong, but I'm sure they'll get eaten). The blackberries and rhubarb are waiting for recipes - the latest Sainsbury's magazine has Blackberry Palmiers which look very tempting ....

Am hoping that it won't seem quite so bad at the weekend ... wonder if I can persuade OH that we should start taking our holidays in December each year ??? hmmm