Missing

I've started this post off with a pretty Cosmos flower, because I have a few things to whinge about...

Last night the expected wonder of the blood moon was hidden behind thick cloud, so we missed out on our view of the "longest lunar eclipse of the century".

The overnight storms entirely missed Hungerford - unbelievably, just look at the lightning map from last night! We're the little white dot in the South of England and we heard one rumble of thunder and had about 3mm of rain... (I appreciate that not everyone likes a storm, but really?!)

The weather yesterday was overcast and today it's blowing a gale, with an occasional shower, so the butterflies have hidden away and I haven't done my Big Butterfly Count yet. I should have started it when I spotted this lovely Common Blue butterfly in the greenhouse, but it seems like my stats from the allotment may be missing this year - unless we get a sunny weekend in the next two weeks :-(

These are our sprouts. Are they going to grow? They don't look at all happy, but even they look happier than our cauliflowers which are really struggling with the heat and we think it's pollen beetles that are causing the problems with the leaves.

OK, whinging over. Look at our lovely harvest and the courgettes and aubergine were so tasty fried, chilled and added to a salad.

And the Chinese leaf is so delicious - it's a shame only 3 germinated and I had to chop a lot of the outside leaves off because of bug damage - but still, it is much tastier than the normal lettuce - I must sow/grow more next year.
Runner beans are setting on all the plants now and we'll probably be picking some tomorrow... in the meantime we have another supply from Ivan (swapped for an aubergine).

The squashes are growing okay- these are pumpkins, but the ones on my trellis are coming on too.We seem to be way behind a lot of people on site though, who have beachball-sized fruits already!

It's rather worrying that our Crookneck Summer squash is being severely beaten up by the wind today - revealing all the immature vegetables. I hope it doesn't snap off...we tried to secure it but the ground was too hard to do it properly.

We pulled all the shallots today as we don't want them getting wet. There are many more than we thought there were going to be from the 15 we planted. I think the variety is Longor.

The few onions are only just bulbing up so they can stay in the raised bed for as long as possible - but I don't think they'll be winning any 'largest onion' prizes!

The bell peppers in the greenhouse are a good size but aren't changing colour yet - they're all green. As are the tomatoes, but the huge trusses on the Aviditas are just starting to change.

The Lizzano are growing much larger fruits this year - presumably because it's been so hot in the greenhouse (~42°). They look standard size rather than cherries.

So, perhaps I'm just a bit grouchy because I'm going back to work next week and the temperature is about 10° lower today than it was yesterday. It's still been a beautiful Summer (so far) and anyway, I like this song by Everything But the Girl.