I come before you saddened.

I haven't managed to get to the allotment since the beginning of the week so, after work and a visit to my Nan's and watching Significant Other washing her car, I made the effort to get there to water my strawberries and pick a little.

One or two lovely bright red strawberries had been ignored by the birds and therefore left for me. I can assure you that there is nothing nicer than a freshly picked, sun warmed strawberry. The sweetness. The juiciness. Oh my, they are lovely. Please try not to buy them in the supermarket. They use a type called “Alsanta” which is grown for it's size and it's shelf-life but not for it's flavour. They are watery and horrid. If you have never tried a home-grown one please buy a plant or 2 next year and give them a go. Believe me, you won't go back.

Then on to the beans. The runner beans are coming thick and fast now as my dwarf French beans come to an end. My climbing French beans are also starting to give me some lovely pods.

Beneath them are my courgette plants. They are the “Pom Pom” type which seem to be a little less prolific then the more usual type which is a bit of a relief to be honest. Even with just 2 plants you will find yourself snowed under with the things. My brother has started his first allotment this year and as he didn't ask, I didn't tell him how many plants he would need. He has 6! That is a lot of courgette.

When I was there at the beginning of the week my tomato plants looked lovely. Strong healthy plants and fat, green fruits so I was looking forward to seeing if we had any ripening. As I approached I could see that something was wrong. Leaves were wilted and stems were blackened. Oh dear. But what about the fruits? Blackened.

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Not my plants right now but this what they will look like.

What we have here is Blight and it seems to be quite advanced. I have hit the books and internet sites to see what I can do and the universal opinion seems to be..... nothing. There is nothing that you can do. Pull them up and burn them, you can't even compost them. As you can imagine, this saddens me.