More flowers than veg

I may not win 'best kept allotment' but if there was a 'most colourful' category I might be in the running.

I had to move a large marigold and a huge borage plant down to the 'messy end' yesterday - they were crowding out the runner beans.

These are 'straightneck yellow' squashes. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, but they look just like yellow courgettes, so I think I'll begin by cooking them like courgettes, ie mainly roasted, occasionally sauteed.

This is what we had for lunch today - we had guests. The shallots went into a lamb shank casserole, which we had with some of my Vivaldi 2nd early potatoes, and the cabbage, carrots, peas and broccoli. I'm really pleased with the carrots - they are perfectly formed and carrot-fly free. The peas are lovely too, and not a maggot to be seen. There aren't very many ready yet though - they were more of a garnish than anything else, but there are lots more coming.

In fact I'm tempted to boast a bit about the lack of pests and disease I've had this year, but I won't because a) it might tempt fate; b) it's probably mainly down to luck and c) there's plenty more time for things to go wrong...

This is my 'Ogen' melon, it's the first to get bigger than a pea, it's about the size of a ping-pong ball now. I have been painstakingly hand pollinating, hopefully there will be more of these to come.

Tonight I have made 7 1/2 jars of damson jelly, and yesterday I made four jars of onion/shallot chutney. There are still plenty of onions and shallots to be made into more of this. Just need to make the apple jelly now and then I can start to think about defrosting the freezer.