I think I wasted my time this morning lighting a new stick of patchouli and lemon incense. The mornings trip to the lotty resulted in a monstrous glut that could only mean an afternoon spent preparing chutney and a house oozing the homely charm of hot spicy vinegar.

There are a couple of cauliflowers in that shot but I’ve deliberately avoided a close up of them. I think cauliflowers are designed to be picked the moment you spot them, flush with their juvenile tight white heads. I was a little greedy and hoped for huge curds to rival my dads. I chopped a stray outer leaf off to protect from the sun and left for another couple of weeks to swell. Inevitably the severed leaf rotted and formed an ideal pied-a-terre for numerous detritivores which did their best to make me weep.

I’m not wasting them though, deep cleaning with a tooth brush and a heavy handed shave, left the heads in good enough nick to form the basis of a piccalilli chutney.

I’ve doctored the recipe from Greenforks who made a far more appealing looking sauce than me but then Waitrose had run out of turmeric powder - there has obviously been a run on piccalilli making.

I haven’t been down to the plot for a few days so there was a good quantity of produce waiting for my arrival:

Doesn’t that look delicious? In addition I filled a canvas sack with more beans and a stack of chard but it didn’t look quite so photogenic.

I’m going to make herbed summer squash and potato torte, a recipe that came from SmittenKitten, the best food blog I have come across so far. Honestly, you should take a look, it’s left me excited about cooking. I’ve made the irresistible lime meltaways already (see todays lunch) and will be trying out the chocolate hazelnut biscotti just as soon as my new food mixer arrives.

But I’m digressing, here are the questions:

Is this ready to pick?

It’s an aubergine obviously, and I’m sure you’ll want to know the variety but I forgot to look at the seed pack, in fact I’m not sure the seed pack still exists. Shakti insists it’s one of those especially special thin and delicious aubergines that I have never heard of, but I suspect she just wants me to start picking them so she can have one. I was expecting them to swell to mammoth proportions at some point. Anybody got any views on aubergines?

Final question is, what is this?

This is a massive plant that has self-seeded in the entrance to my green house and is doing a fine job of blocking my access. I let it grow out of curiosity and now it has turned into my most productive squash. Trouble is, I don’t know what it is. I’m wondering if it might be butternut squash as I had plenty of seeds kicking around and it is shaped correctly even if it is the wrong colour.

Anyone know if butternuts start off green, or is it a summer squash that needs to be devoured right now?

My Dad has been hoping to use me as a blight early warning station, assuming that I’d be hit before the spores were carried northward in the breeze, but as it turned out he was able to alert me first. The fungal foray started in Yorkshire.

To be on the safe side I’ve dug up most of my remaining rows of spuds and bagged them up in hessian sacks.

From front to back we have, King Edwards, Maris Peer, Kerrs Pink and Charlotte.

The King Edwards are terribly scabby so I might not plant them again next year, although I will do a soil test first to see if I need to increase the acidity levels in my trenches. The Charlottes were the most successful, blemish free and delicious but both of the others are tasty too.

I couldn’t wait any longer so pulled the anxiety causing carrot out of the ground this weekend. It was completely blemish free and was chomped almost immediately - delightful, although excessively expensive.

Out of the 3 packs of seeds I sowed in early spring, I managed to persuade 5 carrots to grow to maturity which can hardly be described as successful. Fortunately the June sown carrots appear to have germinated at a promising rate so I should be able to recoup some of my investment.

I checked out my household spending records yesterday and discovered that my grocery expenditure has dropped by £150 each quarter since I took on the plot. I barely buy any vegetables anymore and I should hope that for the next couple of months I ought to be able to go supermarket cold turkey. Good news in this time of spiraling food prices.

I’ve given up on my first earlies for now, the slugs had their wicked way with the foliage and as a result hindered the tuber growth to pea sized proportions.

All the other spuds appear to be getting back handers of performance enhancing drugs though so today I decided to start whipping them out.

I dug two plants, one Maris Peer and another Kerr’s Pink. Both were pretty productive although the Kerr’s pink had loads of tiny little spuds with loads more room to expand. I’m going to be over run with these things in a few weeks so its a good plan to start on them early.

I took them straight from the ground to the trangia so I could carry out an immediate taste comparison. I don’t have any salt in the plot but I do have mint and the result was perfect.

Kerr’s Pink are supposed to be very floury but as an early spud, boiled young, they held together very well and were delicious. Boiled up like this they will encourage me to head to the plot for my dinner more often. Not very varied perhaps but I finished them off with strawberries and raspberries, delicious.

A lot of my crops have been cleared from the ground this month. I’ve just about eaten all the onions, both rows of broad beans have been scoffed and the remains have filled all three of my compost bins.

The plot is looking bare but at least the garlic looks promising.

The strawberries have gone nuts producing runners faster than fruits so I’ve lopped most of them off. This particular variety are so tasty that I’ve kept a few back to propagate some more plants.

The peas won’t last an awful lot longer, Feltham First was a good variety for an early crop but they aren’t particularly tasty. They are very starchy and taste like marrowfat peas when they get a bit bigger. I might use them again for an overwintering crop but I’ll have to hunt around for a sweeter spring sown variety.