We are still waiting for the elusive rain to turn up. We keep being promised thunderstorms but they magically disappear from the forecasts before they are due to arrive.

The grass everywhere is no longer green and I noticed hay bales in nearby fields. 

I remember a similar situation back in 1976 when the lack of summer rain was made all the worse as it followed a dry spring and winter. There was the threat that our water supply would be cut off and stand-pipes appeared in streets in preparation for this. Fortunately, the dry spell broke just before the stand-pipes were in use. We also had a prolonged heatwave which made matters worse. We didn’t have an allotment back then so didn’t have the problems that we are having now. I was teaching at the time, in a classroom that had floor to ceiling windows on two sides but we never thought of closing school.

The following year was very wet, so I wonder whether that pattern will be repeated this time.

The cracks in the abandoned old strawberry bed are widening.

Watering remains one of our top priorities. One afternoon I spent four hours just watering.

The flower beds are not receiving as much attention as the vegetable areas, but our miniature sunflowers are managing to flower. The one on the right above, is a self sown plant which is growing amongst the potatoes. Although the potatoes alongside it are drying up the sunflower seems to be remaining cheerful.

Our other priority is harvesting. 

The tops of our early potatoes have now died off completely so, Martyn dug a few roots. He wasn’t expecting much of a crop but the yield wasn’t too bad. At least the potatoes are clean and free from any slug damage.

We also emptied a crate, in which we had grown some potatoes in the garden, and were quite pleased with the harvest. Ruby enjoyed, helping as you can see if you watch the video on this page.

Cauliflowers don’t really thrive in dry weather and the curds are very small but very welcome nonetheless.

Our courgette plants have now started to produce fruits so it’s time to use some of my courgette recipes. Have you tried courgette crumble? If you didn’t let on diners would take it for apple crumble.

We are now picking the later sown sweet peas.

We picked our first lot of ripe blackberries. This is a thornless variety so picking isn’t the ordeal that it used to be when we grew a very prickly specimen.

The beetroots have benefitted from the general lack of slugs this year. There is no evidence of any nibbling. The slugs may be laying low, but the blackfly are a real nuisance and have now homed in on our runner and climbing French beans.  I have water jetted as many as I could to try and limit any damage.

Taking account of the weather forecast that warned of high temperatures we decided to go to the allotment in the morning before the day heated up. We tried to get as much watering done as we could but as quite a few people had the same idea, the water pressure was low and so filling cans was a slow business.

As well as watering we managed to pick our first punnet of gooseberries.

We pulled a bucketful of peas which I spent an hour in the afternoon podding. They are now safely in the freezer.

As well as freezing, we made use of our freshly harvested vegetables in some of last week’s meals. Some of our cauliflower and onion went into a turkey and cauliflower bake. The recipe has gone missing from the internet but, basically cooked cauliflower was added to the onion and pieces of turkey that had been fried first. A white sauce with the addition of curry paste was added to the turkey and vegetables which were placed in a dish and sprinkled with grated cheese before baking for 20 minutes in the oven.

We had four of our homegrown vegetables, cauliflower, mangetout, courgette and potatoes as an accompaniment to our breaded fish.

Some of our courgettes and onion went into a quinoa pilau. That recipe has also disappeared from the internet. I fried chopped onion and added chopped peppers, courgette and mushrooms which were stir fried until cooked. Into this was mixed some quinoa which had been cooked in vegetable stock and grated cheese. It should have been parmesan but I hadn’t any so used a low fat cheddar. The recipe called for about twice as much quinoa as I used.

That’s it for another week. Here’s hoping the next predicted thunderstorm arrives. If you would like details of our harvests – varieties etc are posted here posted here.

As always stay safe and well.

Once again I am linking to Dave’s Harvest Monday post on his Our Happy Acres blog.