No rain for over a month and high temperatures. The temperature monitor in the garden has registered yet another heatwave and this time it has continued for over a week. I expect it to register another heatwave condition next week. It suggests rain on Wednesday but I’m not so sure.

The allotment has suffered of course, even with a lot of watering. The raspberries have not handled it well and they look dried out and dying, I’m sure they will come back with rain.

We have collected up the drying onions and have had a good harvest of white and red. I started to dig up the potatoes (a bit late maybe but it’s so dry I am not worried). I did two rows and while we do have potatoes the harvest is not in any way great. The potatoes died back early, no doubt due to the high temperatures and at one time the hot wind. Keeping them constantly well watered during this time is hard/impossible. Also, they are located at the bad end of the plot, the area that potatoes never do well. Out of two rows I got around 2kg which is not great, I would normally expect around 1kg per plant, not row. Still, they are potatoes and they taste good.

Still growing on the plot:

• courgettes
• pumpkins
• celary
• carrots (sowed a further row of autumn carrots, will see how that works out with the lack of rain)
• beetroot
• tomatoes (struggling in the heat)
• beans (struggling in the heat)