Every year brings a different challenge to us at London Road Station garden. This year, it’s pests and plant diseases, along with the perennial challenge of watering.

We seem to just about be on top of the watering, but we are realising that our various planters do imply quite heavy demands. Our water butts ran out very early (end of June) and we had to refill from mains water with a complicated connection of hoses. Last week’s torrential tropical storm in Brighton did at least top them up again.

Our mini-orchard has been blighted by a serious aphid attack and last Tuesday, we noticed canker scars on poor old Crawley Beauty, our slowest growing apple tree. We’ve removed the obvious wood affected, but it looks like there may be more. A quick glance at the other trees did not reveal any spread so far. My ‘Pests and Diseases’ book is fairly low-key about canker: cut out the affected bit and improve growing conditions.

Meanwhile, though, some positive things: the plum tree is looking good with some nice plums ripening, our cavalo nero is growing well with – so far – minimal attacks from caterpillars. We’ve harvested beautiful red onions. Two large bunches are now hanging on my kitchen ceiling, sweetening for our harvest supper onion soup. We’ve also had some good potatoes – enough for around five of us to have a couple of portions. Not much, you might say, but that harvest came from three small seed potatoes that Sue couldn’t plant up in her allotment. And our courgettes – long thin and round ones – seem to be producing constantly.

Late July is relatively early for harvesting: in that respect, it’s been an extraordinary year. My greenhouse tomatoes are already ripening and we’ve had cucumbers since late June. As someone remarked the other day, at this rate, we may have to bring forward our annual harvest supper, usually planned for the end of October!