This is going to be a fairly quick one because I have been out all afternoon, and I still have to go back to Moyns Park to do the watering and shut up the greenhouses.

My triumphant return last week became a bit of damp squib, with lots of things going wrong, so by Thursday afternoon I felt like chucking it all in, I was that cheesed off. The weather was extremely challenging, in terms of physically working in it, but also because it caused so much stress to the newly planted crops. I was metaphorically fire fighting with a hosepipe and sprinklers all week, just trying to keep plants alive. Some haven’t made it and others are on the cusp of giving up the fight. In the greenhouse such was the intensity of the heat that the growing tips of some of the cucumber plants withered and turned crispy. It won’t affect them in the long term because I will train side shoots to become new leaders, but it’s clearly less than ideal. Oh, and the pheasants have stripped most of the broad beans of their pods.

Then the heatwave affected me in a different way when my delivery of bought-in produce arrived later in the day than expected and I discovered some items looking rather travel sick. I immediately threw 60% of the courgettes on the compost heap, and lots of the broccoli was unfit for sale. Then on Thursday the shipment of Tomatoes from the Isle of Wight did not arrive. DPD was delivering them, and via its app you can track the delivery. Well, just before the scheduled drop off time the app was showing the driver in Birdbrook, so I was confident that I would soon see the van come down the track towards me. I waited….and waited….and still the app showed him in the village, so I drove down there to find him and to collect my parcel, which I was now desperately in need of, but there was no sign of the red and white van. Then the message on the tracking app changed to say that the driver had been delayed, and that he would soon be with me. So I waited….. At 6.30 I was told that they were sorry that they had missed me and that they would try again tomorrow! I am not a violent man but at that point I just wanted to punch something! So by the time the tomatoes were finally delivered on Friday afternoon they had been in transit for 48 hours and had been thrown around at various depots, so understandably they were not in the finest condition. I am now in dialogue with the supplier, and this week the cherry vine tomatoes in the shop will be coming from a different grower.

This is a new week, the worst of the nutty weather has passed, and there is the chance of a little rain in the days to come, though the percentage of probability of that actually happening is decreasing the closer that we get to it. However, I am going into this new week with positive thoughts, things can only get better.

What is positive is that I am now cutting fruit from the aforementioned cucumbers. The first ones that grow close to the bottom of the plants tend to be a bit curly, but we don’t care about that do we? Looking back through my harvest records I am a good two weeks earlier than normal in starting the harvest. This week there will be spring greens, broccoli, red oakleaf lettuce, yellow and red onions, cherry vine tomatoes from Gloucestershire and bunched new season carrots from Suffolk. Apples are ‘Aria’ from Kent, oranges from Valencia and lemons from Portugal. If we do get some rain this week I reckon that I will start cutting chard/perpetual spinach next week, and the first few Padron peppers will be ready to pick.

While out on my delivery round last Friday I couldn’t help but notice that the habitual and regular grass cutters now have lawns that are going straw coloured and have the texture of Weetabix. They look like late August gardens rather than late May. Those that follow the ‘no mow May’ advice are the ones that still have relatively green grass, as it isn’t constantly being stressed by being scalped. In spite of the freakish weather, in the words of Elvis Costello, it’s been a good year for the roses – they are looking a picture at the moment. It also seems to be a pretty good butterfly year. I have never seen so many Holly Blues, and there are lots of Tortoiseshells, and there was a stunning Red Admiral in the greenhouse this morning.

I need get a move on now, so I’m leaving it there. I apologise for letting you down last week with some of the missing items or tired veg, I am confident that everything will be better this week.

This week’s main photo is of the annual Stambourne Tractor Run, which passed through Moyns Park this morning.

Have a good one.

Phil