Trimming and tidying

I spent a couple of hours this morning trimming the verges - easily my least favourite job - weeding, picking and watering everything. The courgettes continue to thrive; I picked six today, and have picked as many during the week. Here they are a few days ago, with the corn just coming into flower. The corn cobs are more evident now which means that I can look forward to eating Yotam Ottolenghi's sweetcorn polenta during the next couple of weeks. The courgette harvest has been roasted, served with pasta, stir-fried and, for lunch today, made into soup seasoned with a couple of sprigs of lemon thyme and the last pickings from the dill, which is going to seed.

The runner beans are cropping regularly now, and there are lots of tiny beans left on the plants. I grew too many plants, really, having stuck a couple of seeds in at the base of each pole where my home-grown plants had failed, and now the effect is rather jungly, and one of the wigwams has started to sag. There are two cucumbers coming to maturity, still rather spiky and I think not quite ripe yet - they look a bit pale. Remarkably, there are also a few tiny green tomatoes on one of the plants, but no likelihood of a glut to manage.

The cima di rape was a great success - delicious stir-fried with some chilli flakes - and there is another row maturing. Also nearly ready are the first rows of beetroot. The chard and sorrel plants are still giving regular harvests, and the mizuna is doing well if a little gnawed by visiting gastropods. The carrots, however, are a definite failure - about six plants growing from two rows of seed. Never mind, it's not like carrots are expensive, is it?

Conspicuous consumption

No posts for a while - I was on holiday, and since then have been doing more eating of the produce than gardening. Sadly no photos exist of the triumph and then collapse of the mange-tout - my pea sticks proved woefully inadequate support. However, the mange-tout were not badly affected and produced an immense crop during July.

The runner beans are in flower and tiny beans are starting to set now; the cima di rape came up incredibly quickly and, unfortunately, flowered incredibly quickly too. I suspect it will still taste good. The Pe Tsai is doing well and the first row will be ready in the next few days. The first row of beetroot is looking good, but I doubt I will get carrots into double figures. At the end of that bed are another couple of rows of beetroot, more cima di rape and a row of endive for the winter.

The tomatoes are failing to flourish, but the courgettes are producing really well, and there are two tiny spiky cucumbers on one of the plants. Another patch of mixed salad leaves has been sown to hopefully keep a homegrown supply into September.

On Sunday I dug up the mange tout plants and put in purple sprouting broccoli and early white broccoli. Not my own plants, sadly, which were scoffed by something while in the back garden at home, but I'm sure I'll be glad of them over the winter. The next job is to net them to keep the birds off, and to keep an eye out for caterpillars.

I also spotted a new resident - a common lizard. S/he was basking in the sun on Sunday, and we met again yesterday when I lifted the carpet off the compost heap. I'll try to get a picture, but as s/he is well camouflaged against the compost and can move like greased lightning, I'm not hopeful.