For those that are interested, our tomatoes have been more or less wiped out by a virulent attack of blight. Mind you, we had a fantastic crop of luscious fruit from the initial planting, but it was disappointing to see all the sideshoots (many from France) that I had potted on and trained into statuesque plants shrivelling up overnight into blackened stumps. I was puzzled that Mama’s two Marmandes and another small block of mine were less affected. I was also puzzled that Ernie’s crop just over the hedge remained unscathed. Then, reading about the genesis of blight, I learned that it lives on in the dead plants, and even survives composting. I recalled how in most of the polytunnel we had used composted cow manure, but on the patch my tomatoes were in, we had laboriously trundled in vast quantities of our own compost, and that that might well have been a veritable maelstrom of blight spores. One day last week, I left the polytunnel closed during a hot morning and, or so I theorise, a critical point may have been reached where the blight spores leapt into life, burst out of the soil and attacked their favourite host.

So, there we have it. Blight is definitely the scourge of the allotments again this year; and it appears the so called blight resistant varieties I was planning to grow next year, besides being tasteless, aren’t that effective. So, I’m ordering a case load of copper sulphate from Ebay, to make my own Burgundy mixture, and I’ve set a reminder on my phone to start spraying in June, and to spray every two weeks until September. I was too blase this year.

Mama’s been making a lot of fruit leather, including from tomatoes, during our brief glut. She basically simmers the fruit until it has reduced to stickiness, then spreads it out on a tray and dries it in the sun, to the consistency of ‘leather’. No sugar necessary. For those with fig trees yielding abundant fruit, who have a moment in their busy schedules, this might be worth doing. By all accounts, it’s a great way to conserve fruit.

The cigarettes I bought to boil up and spray on caterollars must have been lightweight because it didn’t work. Nor does my stock of Derris dust. I found this recipe online, which I’ll try next:

2 chillis
2 clove of garlic
add water and whizz with stick blender, or in blending machine; filter through kitchen roll into a sprayer, and top up with extra water.
Add a dash of washing up liquid, just in case greenfly are also around.
Spray on caterpillars.
Watch caterpillars writhe around and die.

100% organic. 100% effective.
use gloves though – as it is quite strong.

Maza has suggested my large toenail is not as sightly as it used to me. She claims the curvature has changed due to thickening. It looks perfectly okay to me, if slightly discoloured:

I’m going to start applying Hydrogen Peroxide daily, so this mild discolouration doesn’t spread to my other toes:

Hopefully, I’ll be back in her favour shortly.

Financial Times: Do you want to start by paying tribute to Michael Jackson, Peter? Everyone else seems to be doing that.

Peter Mandelson: I’m not absolutely sure who Michael Jackson is.

Another lovely, sunny, still day in Barnham. No photos of the happy hens or the abundant roses or the Philadelphia blossom as my camera is bust; so here’s one of a Paratha, such as we ate at the Monsoon Restaurant in Billlngshurst, as guests of the new residents of that town.

Mama made this card for Liv and Hannah’s new house out of a large leaf that had been used to wrap the rectangle of bean paste given her by Jul.

It was an amazingly neat package, daintily tied with ribbon; and I think the leaf deserves its third incarnation.