My allotment’s peas and beans are deerly departed

IT’S not much, but it’s a start: two tomatoes the size of blackbird’s eggs.

They must be ripe, because they’re dark red and not too hard to the touch, the first fruits of my greenhouse.

There will be more, because the plants are laden with unripe toms, and the courgettes are forming nicely. One last cut of the rhubarb, so good for pies.

I’m tempted to dig up some of the potatoes and onions, wilting but might need more time in the ground. And that’s about the strength of it. The deer ate my peas and kidney beans.

The caterpillars scoffed my cabbages. Unknown assassins took most of the turnip seedlings. The pear and apple trees are both on strike, and the blackcurrant bush is also a no-show, good news for Mrs R who doesn’t care for them.

What with one thing and another, it’s been a pretty dismal year for this amateur allotmenter, especially when I look at the serried ranks of Scottish Frank’s vegetable army on the next plot.

There is one more consolation. My sunflowers weathered the storms and came good. Erect, defiant and brilliantly yellow, they bring a ray of sunshine into the summer gloom. People have stopped to look over the wall and admire them. It is gratifying – though I don’t think I’ll win the Lothersdale village prize for the tallest.

Allotmenting is a bit like fighting a pandemic. There are widespread attacks by the insect world, and just when you think you’ve got on top of them, there are local outbreaks. Black fly among the broad beans, for instance.

But you just have to keep going, work and plan for the best. There’s always another year. Well, hopefully.

SHOWBIZ PAIR Keith and wife No4 Sarah BEAK STAR Recording with Orville in 1994 MARRIED Rod and Cher FREE THEM Mirror on July 30 , right, Emu