The borlotti plants on the plot have all died back so it was time to pick off the died pods and save the beans inside. These are the only beans I store and use in their dried form, they make great baked beans and being dried they store for ages. Most of the pods were dried but some still soft and so those I’ve put on the window sill to finish off.

I did lots of weeding, allowing me to see how the five pumpkins were getting on. We have two big ones which we may use for carving, and the rest are all small/medium and good for cooking with. Our ridge cucumbers have done ok with some of them looking more like normal cucumbers all long and cucumber shape, instead of the small gherkin looking ones we normally get. Nothing like the first couple of years where we were picking 40+ cucumbers, but instead a manageable amount.

Small turnips are ready and the lesson learnt from last year was to pull them up when they are small and nice because within days they turn into massive big ones. Turnips are a questionable vegetable but I think when they are small and roasted they are quite nice.

I continued on lowering the level of the strawberry bed of which I have now got half of it done. The top soil I saved and put back once I had dug out the clay subsoil, lowering it all down so that next year the plants will have enough vertical space under the netting. The subsoil I broke up and spread over the other beds. It’s not really real subsoil as the bed had loads of compost piled on top of it, but it is a lot stickier than the soil on top. I replanted a number of the strawberry plants but a used new strawberry runners for a lot of them so that we will have both old and new plants for next year. I just need to do the other half now.

After a long morning, mostly sunny, I came home with:

• courgettes
• turnips
• beans
• apples
• cucumbers

I also eat a lot of raspberries while I was there.