This week we picked the last of the french beans. Said goodbye to some tomato plants and collected about 2 kilos of tomatoes.
Some of the broccoli had flowered so we cut the rest and took the netting down. We’ll leave it alone until the flowers die so the bees can have a feed.
The summer squash are slowing down production and the leaves on one of the butternut squash are dying back. The smaller butternut squash plant has suddenly started to produce fruit but it needs to hurry as it’s getting colder at night! We had a very hot weekend, which caused some bolting amongst the pak choi but the chard I planted out seem to be doing ok. 
Winter is coming, while I hope that we will get some produce through autumn, things are really slowing down and hopefully we will have a little more time to do some of the longer term work on plot. There is a list of things to do in the next couple of months and I’ll try to get through them…
August/Sept
more pruning of the plum treeplant out and sow some of the things we have planned for autumn- sort out the raspberries (shorten the lines, work out the frames)
- sort out the brassica bed (new sides
and netting, pull up the french beans) - extend the strawberry bed (weed and plant out new runners)
- sort out the space for the new long bed at the bottom of the plot
- plant potatoes in bag for Christmas (late but what can you do)
- plant spring bulbs at front of plot
- sort out paths on plot (weed/woodchip/make paths at front of plot
- mark out space for gooseberry bushes
- sow grass seed at front of plot
Winter/Autumn work
- re-site the gooseberry bushes
- sow broadbeans and garlic
- clear up/feed/cover summer beds
- new raised beds
- clear/clean/secure greenhouse
- decide what we’re growing next year
- order what we need in good time
This has been even more true this August because there has been an increase in produce overall and a decrease in courgettes! That aside August is just not a time for much innovation in the kitchen, the month more or less starts me having a week off and family lunch for my birthday. The food is usually the same, garlic bread, roast chicken, new potatoes and salad and so it was this year. Although the whole thing seemed more organised this year and Joe stole my garlic bread! The difference is that more of it was homegrown, the garlic butter was made with my own garlic and herbs, I grew the salad.
I’ve come to accept that this is a feature of August and I’ll get my cooking mojo back sometime soon, probably as the allotment slows down, although I will need to find some new ways to use butternut squash….
Now, I know that I’m a big of bust, but the day before, I had walked into Bravissimo and walked out with three new bras in my size, the bra I had asked about they didn’t have in store but could get it sent to the store or my house. We were dealing with a range of bras that I had bought before so it wasn’t neccessary for me to be fitted but they could have arranged that and I could have probably found a lot of new styles in my size. At M&S, when I asked, they didn’t have any of the bras I was interested in, in stock and couldn’t order for me but I could look on their website. But with a new bra, you need to try them on.
Generally, I’m just fed up of clothes shops always being out of the sizes I wear, whether it’s clothes or shoes. Is there a special vortex that larger sizes disappear to? because I’m getting really tired of shops only having the clothes I might want to buy in all sizes from 4 to 14 and then nothing until size 22. I also finally bought a dress a wanted (remember the East dress back in July) in the sale but although it said it was the blue dress, they sent me the pink dress because the blue had sold out. Then I tried again with a top and the 18 didn’t fit (in a shop when the 18 is often too big for me).
A day to read. That was yesterday, I did very little and just read books, it’s my favourite thing to do, I have lots of books….
This year there is more of everything and it’s much tidier. So let’s have a chat about what work we did on the plot over the last couple of weeks. First up we finally got around to framing another bed. Knowing that the nephews were due a visit, we framed the bed I thought would be most vunerable to small people walking on it, the one that was half french beans and is supposed to be half chard (if the seeds ever come up!) This is it a couple of weeks ago…
And after my DIY magic. I took six of the metre long fixed lawn edging things, but because the bed it only 1.8 metres long, two of them had to be adjusted. 
Nic Dempsey 