ANYONE with a vegetable garden will know that this summer has not enjoyed the easiest conditions for growing your own.

Tim and Nikki at Court Farm in Tillington have had a challenging summer with many of their cherries splitting due to the rain and broad beans being washed away.

But some late summer sunshine means crops are looking up and they promise to have well stocked market stalls at September’s Farmers’ Markets and at Ludlow and Abergavenny Food festivals.

Their plum crop has been good, autumn raspberries are plentiful and the sweetcorn is enjoying the recent warm weather.

“We are slightly worried about our pumpkin crop, though,” says Tim.

“The pumpkins are currently still very green so we may not have enough pumpkins to fulfil demand at Halloween.”

The weather has also taken its toll at St Anne’s Vineyard, as David Jenkins explained.

“Unfortunately all our crops are out in the open so there is no protection against the elements.

“Due to the heavy rains all our cherries split before they were ripe, we lost a lot of raspberries due to botrytis, and there are no pears and peaches due to frost during flowering.”

The grape harvest, too, has been badly affected, with the vines suffering from frost in April and May and bad weather during flowering.

With the remaining grapes three to four weeks behind it will need some exceptional September and October weather for them to ripen before winter arrives, but gooseberries, currants, loganberries, blackberries, damsons and apples were less affected so there will be plenty of damson gin and blackberry wine on the St Anne’s stall.