We have had hot days of 24c and then lots of heavy rain in between, good weather for things to grow. I had not been to the plot for a while, we have either been away or busy. Grass from the abandoned plots has got to head height in places, but in the middle of it all is our plot. Potatoes, growing well with little flowers.

I was interested to see the strawberries. We have had problems with mice in the past which has meant we get to see all the green strawberries looking very promising, and then the mice eat them before we get to any of them. Some say you should work along side nature, but there are times where working against it gives more promising results. Having spent a lot of time on our strawberry plants I wasn’t going to let the mice eat them all again, so I poisoned them (the mice, not the strawberries). Looking at each of the traps, all three showed signs of something eating the poison, and looking at the strawberries now changing to a red colour – maybe I have got rid of the mice. Not wanting to take chances, I picked any of the strawberries that looked ready. I’m quite hopeful as this is the first time we have had ripening strawberries instead of just promising looking green ones.

It started to rain and rain really heavily (even though 10 minutes earlier it had been blue skies), but before then I had a chance to put out some more leeks plants. When I put the first lot in the other week they all looked a bit small, I wondered if they would make it. The rain and warmth has helped and only one plant was lost.

Not so for the cucumbers, all three plants had been eaten by slugs, a bit annoying.

I took home:

• raspberries
• strawberries
• broad beans