My last post was in June. I’ve had lots to post about; the polytunnel, vases of flowers and the great dahlia disaster but…

I decided to extend the life of my phone with a new battery and made an appointment with the Apple Genius Bar. All so good. Alas not so simple and I ended up with a new handset, same model. Since then in early July I’ve been unable to upload phone camera photos to the PC, my preferred method to create and upload blogs.

After much unproductive faffing, I’ve resorted to the iPad – it looks different…

So that’s the tech bit. Onto life – it was the big six oh for me earlier this year, which coincides with my ongoing mission to ‘get out more’. There has been a long weekend to Bristol and Bath, with a trip to the spa, first festival and glamping experience at the Big Feastival, BBQs, theatre trips and holiday to Naples. And it’s been hot – much spare time has been spent with tactical garden watering, plot watering or seeking out shade…

The theft bit – any one who has an allotment is resigned to a bit of taking of tools and produce. At this site, it has become a huge problem – ripe crops are systematically taken. I planted a few Roma tomato plants outside with a ‘let’s see how this goes’ attitude and they have been superb. This many tomatoes from one plant!

As you can see I had pears – I deployed netting in early July to make clear I had plans for the fruit. I was lulled into a false sense of security because the plot thief struck over the bank holiday weekend. They stripped all ripe tomatoes, the remaining pears and helped themselves to everything ripe in my neighbour’s polytunnel. I can live with a bit of unplanned ‘sharing’, it’s having every single fruit taken that grinds. I’m convinced it’s a fellow plotter as they seem to carefully select ripe produce, even sniping fennel leaves! I’ve since installed a trail cam as there are tomatoes still to ripen unless blight strikes first.

The pear is Beth and the harvest has been superb. I leave them to ripen on the tree, that fine line between ripe enough and brown mush on the inside. All of these were just right.

There has been near total dahlia failure this year which I’m at a loss to fully explain. I over wintered the tubers in the polytunnel wrapped in newspaper, several had completely rotted but I managed to salvage my favourites. I ordered new tubers from speciality growers,potted them on and away they grew, then stopped, wilted and died. Others grew well and I planted them out and then they stopped growing. Others carried on growing but starting producing distorted leaves and flowers similar to aminopyralid contamination. I lifted some and replanted with fresh compost, which seems to have worked and applied seaweed feed to the rest. I’ve had a handful of blooms in contrast to the armfuls of last year. Cooler weather and rain seems to have encouraged growth, perhaps it’s been a combination of very dry and hot weather and contaminated compost. Has that happened to anyone else?

On the upside I’ve grown enough tomatoes from 8 Roma tomato plants to fill 16 recycled mutti passata bottles with my own passata. I really should waterbath them but I’m anxious they may spoil. I know they will keep in the fridge. There are many tomato based meals in my near future.

There have been victories but the dahlia failure and the theft has left me feeling grumpy but onwards. Before I do that, here’s a picture update of plot happenings this summer. Can you spot the dahlias?

I’m already planning for next year and wondering on the best material to construct a thief proof cage for my pear trees. Something more robust than this …