This afternoon ended up being an admin session, not a gardening session. Why? Because two weather forecasts predicted heavy rain and thunderstorms so I suggested we cancel the session. What the weather actually did was quite different: bright sunshine, despite a troubled sky – and still none of the predicted rain.

This has been the kind of trickery we’ve experienced much of this last growing season: sudden rain, sudden sunshine, sulky clouds – and particularly on a Tuesday afternoon. We had to cancel the majority of our Tuesday afternoon sessions up until June because of the unpredictable weather. Oh well …

We did manage some successes. Our Madeleine mini-garden (below) was beautiful even though slugs quickly marauded through the gorgeous red-leaved pink-flowered dahlias and left the petunias leafless. The purple salvia bloomed and bloomed, as did the salvias planted in the apple beds. And as for the Madeleine rose – it’s certainly asserted its presence strongly in the corner next to the gate. Orange begonias have brought lasting colour to the platform planters.

And here is our harvest basket from last week: some apples, some pears, some rhubarb and some golden beetroot. Oh, and some rogue green tomatoes from a seedling that grew in one of the tree pits, no doubt from tomato seeds in our compost. The crab apple in the background is a delight with its cherry-red fruit, even if none of us really know what to do with it.

Meanwhile, the potatoes we didn’t plant (must have grown from bits left from previous years) did really well, and we did have some courgettes. Climbing beans were rubbish. The fruit trees have bounced back after my pruning but apples were a bit disappointing. Although the pear produced quite a bit of fruit, much of it has turned out to be floury. Meanwhile, the plum just grew and grew and grew, shading other parts of the garden, but only the inaccessible top branches had fruit. I think it needs the heavy prune …

We had surprisingly good results from the two mini-planters bequeathed to us by a young couple moving out of their garden flat last year: salad leaves grew well as did the yellow beetroot. The photo below shows the garden (and a blue sky) in May, full of promise. Kale and chard seedlings planted in our main beds, however, simply did not survive the slugs, snails and long stretches of very wet followed by very dry weather. Also devoured in short shrift were around twenty aster seedlings – upsetting, but what can you do? It’s been that kind of year.

So, as we head to our annual harvest supper, what’s on the menu? The potatoes are all eaten. The turnips could perhaps contribute to a root veg soup, I’ve still got sweet tomatoes in the greenhouse and there must be something we can do with the green ones. My kale plants survived but are a little tough and there’s a courgette or two about. I think that spells the inevitable ‘garden veg lasagne’.