I'm back!

Hmm... somewhat neglecting this at the moment. My excuse is that the lens on my camera has broken and I've had to send it off to get fixed and so haven't been able to take any nice piccies. No nice piccies = nothing to boast about :p = no writing.

I haven't been able to take piccies of:

1) My mahoosive sunflowers, all of which are over 2.5m tall, one of which have reached the first floor french windows. I'm so chuffed! And even P is happy even though he is *such* a non-gardener, but because he's a boy, he gets excited about big things.

2) My mahoosive second shark fin melon, which is now nearly 1.5 times the size of my first. I'm just letting this one grow on to the end of the season and see how big it can get, as I don't have to cull it prematurely to let others grow. Again, big. P likes. Very much.

3) My tomatoes! They were blighted, so I took advice and pulled all of the tomatoes plants up and harvested all of the green tomatoes. I gave half of them away as I didn't know what to do with them, and apparently you have to cook them up quickly to avoid the blight getting to them further. I wish I hadn't give them away now. As I sat there for days pondering about what to do, they started to turn red, not black. I bought a bunch of bananas and put them on top of the toms, and 90% of them have now turned red, with the rest to follow! I could have cooked up a vat of tomato base with the ones I gave away! A lesson to be learned here, I think - don't be too hasty with blighted plants. Will need to remember for next year. Do not panic, do not panic!

4) My cucs! Fortunately, I gave a plant away at the beginning of the season, and only one of the my remaining 3 survived. From this single plant (Marketmore), I have had over 10 cucumbers, with another 3 or 4 begging to be picked. I'm not sure if it's been the sudden additional blast of warmth from this 'Indian Summer', but the past week has seen an additional flush of flowers, which are beginning to bear fruit. Cucs coming out of my ears. Eek!

5) The courgettes have been brilliant, with the plants giving me around up to 5 per week at the height of the season. The green ones are succumbing to powdery mildew now and are beginning to show signs of stopping, but the single yellow plant I have (Jemmer F1) is continuing to keep me in courgette heaven.

6) French beans - one wigwam with about 6 plants (and a couple that I grew up a sunflower for fun *looks really pretty - Blauhilde, with purple stems and flowers winding around the stalk*) has kept a little tupperware dish in the fridge fully stocked for the past month.

I wish I had a camera, to take a pic of the trombocino squash that I've grown. I never expected these to come to anything as I sowed quite late on in the season (July, I think), but the first squash has appeared and is about 10cm long. I hope it has time to continue to grow and fill out - these are squash with bulbous ends, that can grow up to 30cm long.

I've harvested my Asian pears. I only let the one year olds fruit for fun, and the fruit that they produced were small. I think they would have been nice and crunchy if I'd harvested them earlier - I think I left them on the plant for a bit too long so they were a bit soft (but sweet!). My two year old Shinseiki, however, was a different story. It only bore 2 fruit, but oh, what two fruit! Crisp, juicy, and the sweetest that I have ever tasted (I'm sure the chuff factor has something to do with it). I can't wait until next year!!!

Who else is reaping in the delights of Autumn?