After a rather bumpy start the vegetable garden is finally producing. The dry spring saw successive germination failures. Cold and rain resulted in second sowings rotting in the ground or falling prey to snails and slugs. And then the recent heatwaves at the start and end of June burnt tender young seedlings to a crisp, stopped the peas dead in their tracks and sent summer spinach bolting. Fortunately the broad beans have been good, artichokes plentiful and the first beetroot and lettuce sowings productive. But now (and I have my fingers firmly crossed) we will start to eat from the garden in earnest. I dug the first new potatoes at the weekend, kohl rabi and turnips are ready to harvest and the courgettes have just come on stream.

This year, for the first time, I am really trying to follow best advice with the courgettes and pick them very small. I am sure I will eventually fall behind and end up with the customary marrows before the end of the season, but at the moment we are managing to keep up with the production of the 8 varieties we are growing. ‘Verde d’Italia’, ‘Verde di Milano’, ‘Striato di Napoli’, ‘Trieste White’, ‘Costata Romanesco’, ‘Sicilian Long White’, ‘Caserta’ and ‘Burpees Golden’. This seems like a lot, I know, but we enjoy having the variety of shape and colour for the plate and since I discovered that courgettes can be dehydrated successfully and used in stews and soups through the winter I intend to dry as many as I can this year when the inevitable tidal wave does appear.