Life on The Weald - August 2026

Saturday 1 August

A brief visit to the plot revealed that the Patty pan squashes were just setting fruit and there were several new female flowers opening, so the possibility of a good harvest.

1 August - Patty pan Squash

Sunday 2 August

On 2 August, high temperatures began re-building across parts of England and Wales, marking the start of a fifth heatwave for the summer. The heat intensified on 3 August, with maximum temperatures forecast to reach up to 35 °C (95 °F) in South East England. There was a good display of dahlias in the garden which were popular with butterflies, including the arival of a Holly blue.

2 August - garden dahlia with visitor

2 August - Holly Blue butterfly

There was little chance of any activity on the allotment due to the arrival of family visitors from Sheffield and London. I didn't need any excuse to set up the barbecue but the weather was ideal.

2 August - family barbecue

Monday 3 August

On a brief trip to the plot, I lifted some first early Nicola potatoes (which had been ready since June, picked some climbing French beans (Cobra), a patty pan squash and yellow courgette.

3 August - Nicola potatoes

3 August - yellow courgette

3 August - today's harvest

At home, I picked a few heritage tomatoes.

3 August - heritage tomatoes

Tuesday 4 August

With sunny weather and a mild breeze, the beach and flying a kite were more attractive options for our visitors than labouring on the allotment!

4 August - Hove beach

Thursday 6 August

On Thursday I planted out the Tabasco (30,000-50,000 SHUs) yellow bonnet (100,000-350,000 SHUs) Scotch bonnet (100,000-350,000 SHUs), Scorpion (1.5m -2 million SHUs) and Machu Pichu chillies (5,000-15,000 SHUs on the Scoville Scale) that were growing in the greenhouse which had become far too hot.

6 August - chillies planted out

At home, the peppers in pots in the garden were looking good, especially the purple ones, Loco (15,000-30,000 SHUs) and Buena Mulata (30,000-50,000 SHUs on the Scoville Scale)

6 August - Loco chillies

6 August - Buena Mulata chillies

6 August - heritage tomato

We also picked some heritage tomatoes from the garden which had been labelled Black Prince and Red Zebra; they were delicious but must have been wrongly labelled as they bore no resemblance to the stated varieties.

Wednesday 7 August

I brought home some more Patty pan squashes, Teepee purple and Cobra French beans as well as some Padron peppers that were beginning to turn red.

7 August - Wednesday's harvest

We still had visitors and I took them to the Beach Cafe, until recently owned by Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim). Norman had commissioned the Seagull sculpture on the side of the building, created by graffiti street artist, Bordalo II from junk and plastic collected by the council's waste collectors and rubbish found on the beach and nearby.

7 August - Bordalo's Seagull

From the cafe we watched the sunset over the Hove Lagoon.

7 August - Hove Lagoon

Sunday 9 August

With the vistors gone, Nicole helped us harvest blackberries, which were earlier than usual, and lots of blueberries which, this year, we had netted.

Monday 10 August

The warm dry weather continued with the temperature a little more comfortable around 25C

Tuesday 11 August

Another hot sunny day. The inappropriately named winter savory, growing in an old wheelbarrow, was very popular with bees.

11 August - winter savory

There was spinach and courgettes to be picked - and yet more Patty pan squash; and we lifted the Elephant garlic.

11 August - spinach, courgette and patty pan squash

11 August - Elephant garlic

The patty pan became dinner, stuffed with spinach, lentils and cheese and roasted.

11 August - dinner

Wednesday 12 August

An escape from the allotment and the garden - we ventured to Wakehurst, Kew Garden on our doorstep - not just to admire the gardens and the landscape but the Henry Moore sculptures on display.

12 August - Wakehurst, The Manor

12 August - Reclining figure (1982) by Henry Moore

12 August - Mother and Child (1983-84) Henry Moore

In the evening, we joined hundreds of people on the beach to observe the Eclipse of the Sun. There were long shadows before the actual event.....

12 August - self portrait!

....most places had sold out of protective glasses, but we had managed to get one pair, which made us very popular with people on the beach who wanted to try them.

12 August - ready for ther eclipse

There were several people with colanders, straining spoons and pin-hole cameras trying to project the image of the sun on to card - a few successful. Others were trying all sorts of tricks to capture the moment on their mobile phones. I'm not sure I would call my attempt a success

12 August - taken with my mobile

It wasn't a total eclipse in Hove but I was surprised how light it remained despite 92% of the sun being obscured at its maximum

Thursday 13 August

The temperature rose and the hottest day of the year was recorded in Gloucestershire at 38.2C. Despite it being the hottest day of the year,in the upper twenties in Hove. we had some help in the early evening from Luke and Nicole in straightening our fruit cage which was at a jaunty angle. At home, the dahlias continued to impress.

13 August - dahlias at home

Friday 14 August

The quince tree in our garden was enjoying the sunshine.

14 August - quinces ripening on the tree

We managed to pick a few yellow tomatoes. I think the plant we bought earlier in the year was wrongly labelled as we were anticipating a cherry variety, but instead this was a plum variety.

14 August - yellow plum tomatoes

From the plot we picked Cobra French beans and more courgettes.

Saturday 15 August

The water level in the pond was very low, so I topped it up from one of our water butts. Now that the fruit cage was relatively straight, I laid cardboard around the edge of the cage and topped with woodchip as a weed suppressant.

15 August - the fruit cage, laying cardboard outside

15 August - the fruit cage, a layer of woodchip

The next task will be to lay cardboard inside the fruit cage and cover with compost ready to plant the broccoli.

I hadn't picked all the ripe courgettes earlier in the week, but thought now was the time to prevent them becoming marrows!

15 August - a prize courgette

Sunday 16 August

Can it get any hotter? It was 32C in the shade and 45C+ in the sun. I made an effort to remove some bindweed from inside the fruit cage but soon gave up in the heat. The Aji Limon (Lemon drop) chillies certainly like the sun! And the Padron seem to like it too.

16 August - Lemon Drop chillies

16 August - Padron peppers

Some serious weeding is needed in the raised bed where onions had been growing, but not in this heat.

16 August - a bed in need of weeding

Before leaving there was time to pick more French beans and another courgette

16 August - courgette and beans

Monday 17 August

The late sown dwarf French beans were heavily infected with blackfly so I sprayed them with a solution of soapy water to which I had added some mustard oil and rosemary oil.

Tuesday 18 August

It was very cloudy and very much cooler than recently with a maximum temperature of 21C. It was more comfortable than the past few days and I spent some time just generally tidying upand doing a bit of light weeding. I pulled back some of the foliage on the butternut squashes so thet got the benefit of any sunlight - I counted eight of varying shapes and sizes.

18 August - butternut squash

Wednesday 19 August

There were more Patty pan squashes to be harvested

19 August - Patty pan squash

Thursday 20 - Sunday 23 August

A few days away from the allotment and family celebrations for my stepson's birthday and my 82nd and a long awaited trip around the Rampion Wind Farm

Monday 24 August

An early morning start to catch the ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe for a fortnight away in the campervan in France and, after two months without rain. relying on others to water our plot while we are away.

A short hop across the Channel from Newhaven, and with only 20 miles on the clock, arrival in Dieppe and a short drive to Pont-de-l'Arche where we spent our first night. We won't see the allotment again for a while.

John Austin

Hove, August 2026

Life on The Weald - July 2026

A third heatwave began on 4 July, with temperatures peaking at 35.5 °C (95.9 °F) in Wisley, Surrey, on 9 July. This marked the first year when temperatures have reached 35 °C (95 °F) in three separate months. The records for the most days reaching both 34 °C (93 °F) and 35 °C (95 °F) in a single year were also broken. A fourth, shorter heatwave began on 28 July, occurring alongside severely dry conditions which prompted the Environment Agency to declare a drought across more than half of England and all of Wales.

Fortunately, the temporary hosepipe ban didn't apply to our part of Southern Water so it was possible to water some of the beds, but there were often queues to get on to the water tap. Whenever I had the opportunity I filled the dipping tanks. Its laborious but filling watering cans from the tank and applying water to the base of the plants is a much more efficient, economical and environmentally friendly use of water. When spraying plants indiscriminately with a hosepipe up to 90% of the water can be lost to evaporation.

Thursday 2 July

The flowers in the garden were still looking good - especially the delphinium.

2 July - delphinium

And the random dahlias given to me by a plotholder on the allotment, were flowering.

2 July - a dahlia

Saturday 4 July

Despite the drought, the Kalettes that I thought had died were still alive and had produced some new growth. I potted up my home sown purple sprouting broccoli and also the newly arrived Kalettes plugs, which I had ordered online to replace the ones thought to be dead.

I also planted out some Italian climbing Stringa beans (also known as asparagus beans or yard long beans) and some purple Teepee dwarf French beans that I had grown from seed.

Today was the start of the third heatwave of the year

Sunday 5 July

Despite the heat Sylvi cleared the edge of the walk-in cage where bindweed and grass had invaded the netting and I tried to clear the inside of weeds. This is where I hope to plant purple sprouting broccoli.

Tuesday 7 July

In view of the intense heat, I planted out some of the chilli peppers from the greenhouse. The new raised bed was on top of a sunken Hugel bed

7 July - chilli peppers

Wednesday 8 July

It was far too hot for much work but I picked most of the onions and shallots. Sadly many of the onions had grown scapes - flower stalks - so they will not store well and the shallots were much smaller than usual, so I think I will pickle them.

Friday 10 July

I planted out a couple of cucumber plants that I had bought and harvested some yellow and green courgettes.

10 July - yellow and green courgettes

The recently planted sweetcorn had made some progress, but about a month behind my neighbour's.

10 July - sweetcorn

Sunday 12 July

I prepared the ground for the 6 Kalettes that I had bought. by lightly forking out the weeds. When planted, I covered them with a cloche to try to protect them from the pigeons.

12 July - ready for the kalettes

12 July - kalettes planted

12 July - kalettes covered

It was 29C! I moved the remaining peppers from the greenhouse and placed them outside still in their pots.

The courgettes need picking daily, otherwise they turn into marrows!

12 July - a harvested courgette

Monday 13 July

We picked some of the blueberries but there are loads more ripening.

13 July - blueberries

Tuesday 14 - Friday 17 July

We decided to take the Campervan for a run before our summer adventures and spent a few days in the New Forest - the heat wave continued! Thankfully there was shade in the Forest.

16 July - Minstead

16 July - Lyndhurst

16 July - Bracken at Acres Down

Saturday 18 July

We harvested a few courgettes and a rather tiny cucumber.

18 July - Courgettes and a cucumber

Sunday 19 July

Although rather late, I directly sowed some green dwarf French beans where onions had been growing and Sylvi picked 3 boxes of blueberries for the freezer.

Friday 24 July

I lifted some of the Charlotte potatoes which should have been lifted in June but we are still working our way through the Nicola, also a second early variety. The ground was very hard and dry, despite a lot of watering, as it had been several weeks since any rainfall.

Tuesday 28 July

A fourth, shorter heatwave began on 28 July, occurring alongside severely dry conditions which prompted the Environment Agency to declare a drought across more than half of England and all of Wales.

Wednesday 29 July

The dwarf French beans sown 10 days earlier had begun to appear, despite the drought conditions. Fortunately we don't have a hosepipe ban, and although I uually don't favour watering with a hose, I gave in and gave the bed a thorough soaking.

We have a house full of guests - my grandsons from Northumberland, my sister-in-law from Shefffield and we are expecting more at the weekend so the allotment will take a bit of a back seat!

John's Blog

Thursday, 5 November 2026