All fall down...

The artichokes used to stand nearly 2.5m (8ft) tall. Now the weight of the flowers and the general die-off of the plant has caused the flower stems to collapse down.

Mind you, it hasn't stopped the bees doing their thing. They absolutely love this plant. As these two different bumbles and a honey bee show.

Meanwhile, it seems that some of the poor courgettes which got slugified have managed to recover a produce a bit of foliage. One of the is starting to show signs of producing flowers, so maybe those ones will recover.

But the big one at the end which has the spiky leaves has blossomed into a nice specimin. This is producing courgettes (the normal green kind) and the single yellow one at the end of the beans is producing. Throw in the marrows that we have in the raised bed and we have a nice selection... that all seem to be producing at the same time. Guess we're going to get overrun with courgettes again. Maybe I see a shed load of courgette cakes taken into the office in the not too distant future.

The tomatoes seem to be in full swing now. Lots of green ones coming along, and plenty of large red ones ripening on the vine. The Okra is also producing a lot as well. So tonight's harvest also includes a couple of beetroot for full measure. Marrow (stripy), three green and one yellow courgette, okra, and tomatoes.

Tomatoes, inside and outside

So at present we have a whole load of tomato plants. 3 inside the greenhouse, and 9 outside. But the current heat wave we have is playing havoc with the inside ones. The greenhouse is regularly hitting temperatures of 40°C, and it seems that the humid conditions in there are causing a problems with a blight or mildew. The leaves are looking a little yellow and mottled.

But whilst the foliage shows a bit of an issue, the fruits seem to be OK.

The outside plants however are loving the heat.

(That's beetroot in the front there).

Seems that we have the making of a decent salad.

Harvest

So I was kind of told off last week by one of my regular readers for not posting anything up. Well the reason why was clear. Just consider the same time last year.

But that doesn't stop things growing on the plot. Indeed it seems that everything is coming along nicely (including the weeds). Tonight's dinner will be a combination of one or more of this little lot.

Okra, Broad Beans, Beetroot, Leaf Beat, Basil and Blackberries.

We've already had a selection of other stuff from the plot...

Potatoes, Courgettes and Lavender. Whilst yes, you can eat Lavender, this lot is for drying to be used as an air freshener at home. We can't have those horrible chemical ones, so we have to "make do" with natural ones.

The Artichoke is starting to flower. Which I suppose will keep the bees happy.

But I don't suppose the bees will mind. They seem to be very happy in my runner beans.

Or they can have a choice of the sweet peas.

But lets not forget the other residents. Whilst cleaning out the top of the kitchen cabinets, I came across this old bird feeder. We didn't have a place to hang it, so I built a tripod of canes and filled it half with some of the old sunflower seeds, and half with some bird seed mix which we had around.

And finally, the triffid seems to be coming good on it's bounty after it's haircut. There are a lot of grapes coming forth on this.

Hopefully not the Grapes of Wrath.

Flowers and food

I'm a veggie person. I prefer stuff that grows on the allotment to be stuff that I can eat. But there is also the need to keep the pollinators happy and, of course, the wife. So we have a variety of flowers growing as well as veggies.

Such as...
Morning Glory

Cosmos

Nasturtiums

A selection of bedding plants (I have no idea what they all are. Anybody?)

 

Sweet Peas

Lavender

Artichoke (not quite ready to blossom but soon)

And Okra.

Yes I know that you can eat the Okra, and we have done so. But they have a decent flower,

Elsewhere on the plot things are coming to fruition. The Leaf Beet is really starting to take off.

So I pulled a few leaves for tonight's dinner.

And along with the potatoes...

... we should have a decent meal.

The Rhubarb needs a damn good thinning out, so I guess I going to be making Rhubarb and Ginger Jam again.

And we even have some other stuff for little visitors such as this little moth.