We've had a poor crop of apples this year.  We have collected a few trugs of our favourite dessert apple, Katy, but all the others, with the exception of the Bramleys, have yielded virtually nothing.

The kids are disappointed as it means its not worth pressing our own juice this year.  That is until I pointed out that there is still plenty of juice in the freezer from last year!

I love the marigolds in our vegetable garden.  They are meant to be good for attracting aphid-eating hoverflys and their roots supposedly emit a substance which repels underground pests, but even if this wasn't true I still think they earn their place.

And they go on year after year.  They produce so many seeds they never seem to need replemishing.  Truly sustainable!

Our climbing blauhilde beans may have been slow to get going, but they are reaching for the sky now.  We have been eating them since early August and they look set to continue for a few weeks yet.  But they are so tall that I am going to need a ladder to reach them.  They must be a good 3m high.

It seems that all the composting we do has paid off.  And its so easy.  You can make a compost bin in a couple of hours and then all you need to do is fill it and wait!

As well as super size sunflowers, the wet summer has also benefited our squashes.  We have plenty of gem squashes for eating now and lurking under the rampant jungle of squash plants there appear to be plenty of good size winter squashes.

For the first time I have grown uchiki kuri squashes up a wigwam of hazel stakes. They seem to have enjoyed the climb and have rewarded us with plenty of dangling fruit which should ripen well as the leaves start to fall later in the month.