This is a picture of my courgette plant taken at the beginning of July. I was very excited because it (and the other ten) looked so healthy and lush. Now here we are at the beginning of September and apart from two marrows (that were obviously too much of a challenge for the slugs!) I've been harvesting weedy little things, more akin to gherkins than sleek, long, well-shaped fruits! Why do they keep rotting at the flower end? All my books tell me it's down to slugs but I've put down pellets (organic, of course) and kept them weed free (well almost) and still they rot. I've tried pruning back the leaves so that they get more sunshine (a bit of a joke this summer!) and planting bee attracting companion plants to aid pollination - all to no avail. Could it be down to the amount of rainfall we've had this summer? No solution to that one, I guess, except to grow them inside the poly-tunnel - but I have no room.
Most of my crops were very disappointing this year. We had to pull the potatoes early, for fear of blight and the onions, which are great but just a little too small. My broad bean harvest was meagre and short lived and as for my turnips, well they got mangled by Cabbage Root Fly! On the plus side though - my tomatoes seem to have picked themselves up and at last, the runner beans are coming. So all is not lost. I love growing vegetables but get very disheartened when things go wrong.
I wrote another Morning Tale this morning. I think it is my best one yet and will be entering it into a competition. I had it completed in about three-quarters of an hour - well the bare bones anyway. I think I will re-write it this evening - maybe after University Challenge and Only Connect on T.V.!
I am such a procrastinator!
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