We’ve got tomatoes, chillis and sweet peppers all coming on their respective plants in the greenhouse now. It’s a thrill to see them all – even though of course we do experience this every year. I’ve been growing food now for fifteen years or so. Somehow this year, given the struggles to get it all ready, it seems all the sweeter.

I’ve been in there this afternoon tying in and taking off side shoots, generally tidying up the place. These tomato flowers were glinting in the sunshine (hurrah for that I say) so they got shot!

The struggles in the veggie garden have not reaped such fabulous rewards although we have been eating beans and peas for weeks now – they have been really fabulous. They taste so sweet and fresh, we’ve been thoroughly enjoying them. The garlic, onions and beetroot all looks good too.

The downside is that to be frank the rest of the veggie patch looks decidedly sick – the corn-on-the-cobs are very yellow, the courgettes and squashes are small and don’t look like ever starting their romping – the leaves are no bigger than my hand – they should be the size of a cow’s head by now and throwing open flowers like there is no tomorrow. The broccoli has all keeled over and the worst thing is that the potatoes have all died back – I think it’s blight. This wet weather has done for the whole lot – classic blight conditions.

So, I am down heartened but not defeated – I WILL keep trying and I will continue to have failures as well as successes – on balance, this year’s success was getting the veggie patch built and some food coming out of it. I can’t worry about the fact that the rain has put paid to a lot of my effort and I also feel that compared to lots of poor folks whose whole crops have been wiped out it must be said that I am one of the lucky ones really. I gather that just one example is that 25% of our UK pea crop has been completely destroyed in the floods.

Over the winter I’m going to work hard on soil condition and stones. I’m going to try to up the nutrient levels and improve drainage. The beauty is that I won’t be starting from a jungle, I’ll be starting from a laid-out and dug plot. I am still ‘half-full’ (even though my arm is ‘half empty’ of blood……I didn’t realise they were going to take so much of the stuff from me).

I was 'on a roll' last year - I said yesterday that I'd really liked my shot and today's shot from a year ago, I liked even more.....even though it was the end of my heart.