Potato blight
With rain and sunshine replacing the drought, a lot of my neighbours' plots are suffering from the dreaded Potato blight. Mine are healthy so far as I bought Sarpo Axona seed potatoes, which are reckoned to be blight resistant. This is the second year that I have grown them and they have shown no sign of the problem, even though some of the other varieties I grow (particularly Pink Fir Apple) have been destroyed.
One of my neighbours was there, putting the finishing touches to his latest shed. He has two allotments and has a mini estate of two greenhouses and four sheds, all of the authentic mix of Hansel and Gretel house and a Bombay slum.
His name is Jacob and he is probably the world's best digger; pursuing the roots of bind weed to such depths that only his hat remains visible. He fails to understand why the authorities will not award him Disability Living Allowance, which would allow him to stop pretending to be looking for work and to spend the whole of his time in pursuit of the bind weed. I used to point to the fact that he is patently about the least disabled person I know, but in the interests of keeping the peace, I now demur from this kind of useful comment.