Blight.

Gah! The evil blight has struck.

At the weekend Adam pulled up all our Marmande tomatoes. They were just starting to turn orange, too, the majority having survived the attack of the chavs. (Please note I am speculating wildly here; the vandals could as easily have been embittered old folk as delinquent yoofs... but somehow I doubt it.)

Anyway, it doesn't seem to have affected the other two tomato beds yet (touch wood) and we ate our first red tomato straight from the vine. Now we need just a bit more sunshine, please, to ripen the rest and help the sweetcorn along.

And we have beans, beans and more beans. We're leaving the borlotti to ripen and will dry the beans for storage. The French beans are delicious, crunchy and juicy, even the ones we missed and picked when they were six or seven inches long. But the runner beans are not great - a bit stringy and fibrous, even when we get them when they're tiny. We're thinking we may not bother with runners next year and go for different varieties of french beans instead.

We have a baby butternut squash, 'ickle and green but still that recognisable skittle shape. And a handful of winter squash, some green, some yellow, as well as summer squash and courgettes.

Oh, and potatoes! Still un-blighted, and we're working our way through digging up the second earlies - delicious.

The damsons have ripened (sorry Mum - forgot to tell you! The damsons are ripe!) and we've picked some, but not as many as we'd hoped. Enough for just about two bottles of damson gin for Christmas. And the blackberries on the giant bush next door were plump and juicy, so I've made some bramble jelly (which hasn't quite set so will probably end up swirled through some yoghurt, at which point I'll pretend it was intentional) and some blackberry flavoured vodka. Mmm.

And I haven't mentioned the parsnips for a while, have I? Well, after all that faffing around with kitchen roll and windowsills and toilet roll and greenhouses, two (count them!) have survived and seem to be doing well. Now I'm willing them to grow big and strong and pointy and hope they don't just put all their effort into pretty leaves.

Bank holiday weekend coming up... lots of weeding in store. And does anyone know when is the best time of year to move strawberry plants?