All the months of digging, double digging and forking in compost, hoeing, weeding, seed sowing and planting out finally yield a harvest at the end of June. The first fruits this year were new potatoes (Dunluce), courgettes (Defender) and calabrese (Chevalier). Next month it's the "summer glut" and we become almost vegetarian as we eat our way through the abundance of vegetables, particularly courgettes, calabrese and summer cabbage (Minicole). The dry weather at the start of the month didn't do much for the germination of carrots but it also didn't do much for the germination of weeds. The hoe hasn't been as busy as usual.

One of the first early potatoes (Dunluce) in section A is eelworm susceptible and this year the roots did have some cysts on them. It's only two years since this bit of ground had potatoes, so I'll need to be more careful with my rotation and grow this catch crop at alternating ends of the section in the same way as I grow onions. The other varieties (Concorde and Winston) are both eelworm resistant. I'll be looking closely at the roots when I harvest them. The Defender courgettes, which were slow at the start of May, are now fully up to speed and showing no lasting ill effects.

The brassicas in section B are all fit and well apart from the second sowing of Candid Charm cauliflower. They are struggling. Most of the wire mesh "cloches" have been removed. The remainder will come off early next month when the plants get some height and become less attractive to the pigeons.

I grow only ten tubers of each variety of potato. Buying three kilos of seed is a bit of a waste so I save seed of some of the varieties but buy fresh seed when I can. I should point out that I rogue and wash all tubers saved for seed. Some varieties can be bought by the tuber at the Bridgend Potato Day, but they didn't have any Maxine. This variety was the worst affected by Aminopyralid with scarring over the rose end of the tubers. I kept the best looking tubers but they sprouted very poorly. There weren't enough good tubers for planting out. What I did was to break off some of the sprouts that had roots, pot these up in the greenhouse and then plant them up. The plants grown from tubers showed all the signs of Aminopyralid contamination. This could only have come from within the tuber. The ones grown from the broken off sprouts were clear but rather slow. They will all probably mature rather late but I'm hoping for a reasonable crop.

Every year some of the pea plants (section D this year) are affected by pea thrips. These tiny yellow grubs live inside the growing points of the plants and cause distortion of both the growing point and the pea pods. So far I haven't found an organic insecticide that really works. I'll keep trying.

Next month is really into harvest time, but the war against weeds will continue. Once the two rows of first early potatoes (Concorde and Winston) in section A have been lifted their space will be taken by the leeks from the seedbed.

B. A. Plotter.