Struggling on...

It's quite an emotional rollercoaster, this allotment lark. Every time I go down there at the moment I am disheartened by the weeds swamping everything I'm trying to grow - I can't stress enough what a battle it is against them - and yet it's such a thrill to reap the benefits! For dinner on Saturday we ate homegrown baby new Charlotte potatoes and homegrown salad with some garlic and herb chicken - our first proper meal using our allotment-produce and the first of many!I'm not sure if the brown spots on the potatoes may be an early sign of trouble; I'll have to look it up... They were tasty though!
We picked some more strawberries too, although for every two we took home we had to throw a slug-munched one away (that rollercoaster again).

Slug-damaged strawberry.

Everything is flowering at the moment too; nasturtiums, marigolds, petunias peas and runner beans all looking fantastic. The borage is the most spectacular - its flowers seem to glow above the rest of the greenery, like a bright blue haze. No wonder it attracts so many insects.
And the weeds may be evil and pestilent; they may be strangling my pea plants, crowding my beans, swamping my lettuces and harbouring a veritable army of slugs, snails and other pests, but they look amazing too, covering every inch between crops in a rich green carpet.
I finally got round to planting my tomatoes out, along with a couple of pepper plants and some basil a friend gave me. The patch isn't fully dug yet but it's getting really late in the season. Things are going to have to be sacrificed this year; I'm never going to get the whole lot dug before the end of the summer, but at least it'll be done ready to start earlier next year (as long as I can keep new weeds down!).