Despite the Met Office’s promises, it refused to rain in London in any great amount last week. There was some rain but it’s made no significant difference to the state of the plot.

I’m not the only one, it’s been hard this year and it feels silly to plant anything for winter at the moment because it’ll just wither unless it’s watered every day. However, I do have some kale, broccoli, sprouts and cabbage coming because hope springs eternal!

I have noticed that tomatoes are self seeding all over the place though and I suspect if we had this summers heat with a bit more rain, I’d have self seeded tomatoes everywhere!

This week on the plot was about getting distracted. I started at the top of the plot and worked down.

So I picked and tidied the tomatoes. I cleared out the cucumber plants and cut back the cape gooseberries in the poly. Harvested my two melons and some peppers and then watered the mini orchard, tomatoes and polytunnel.

In the middle of the plot I tidied up the chard and chamomile, and cut back the oregano on the path by that bed.

The small asparagus and strawberry bed got a tidy and I called time on the raspberries. They haven’t been watered and it showed. So I cut most of them down and weeded the iris bed.

While I was thinking about I started to trim the rose that I plan to take out in the winter, it’s a nightmare and is halfway over the path and what used to be the alpine strawberry bed, which also got weeded.

Then to the front of the plot. I need to fill those beds. I planted some poppies, some more shasta daisies this time in white and two bronze fennel. I’m not sure that they’ll live but we’ll see. I also have a some echinacea (pink and white), a Russian sage and some osteospermum in white. My hope is to pack that bed full in the hope that it’ll help keep the weeds down or at least distract from them a bit!

Then it was time to water the rest of the plot and go home.

I have Friday off and a bank holiday so I’m hoping to get more than a day on the plot next weekend.

My mission is to sort out a couple of beds to fill with leeks.

I also have some other plants that need to be put somewhere.

I’m still waiting for the promised rain, we’re on a weather warning for tomorrow so maybe things will be slightly more alive over the weekend.