Corn porn

Arrive to find a silver birch tree brought down by the heavy winds. At least this one missed Mary's new fruit cage this time, but it's too big to tackle on my own. I take a saw to clear the biggest branch on our corner, though apart from some flattened sorrel and salad leaves we've pretty much escaped intact. Howard and I are still edging towards resting the allotment – or most of it – over winter, so we are sowing less than usual, though there's always stuff to do. That said, I've only narrowly escaped buying a big bag of radar onions on the internet (my name is Allan and I am an addict!) The constant August rain has encouraged me to lift the last of the potatoes (still haunted by leaving it late in our first year and having to throw away too many spooky, mushy, blighted spuds). These, though, are wonderful. A heady mix of red, blue, black and white – waxy for salads and roasting, floury for dramatic mash. But even their beauty fades beside the Painted Mountain corn. The mystery of unwrapping these (you never know how the colours will come out) is one of my gardening joys of the year. Although 2010 hasn't been our best crop (much too much rain this year) my heart lifts when the cobs are revealed. Young, we eat them raw like perfumed peas; taken late, they taste like fresh chewy chestnut. In the US they are mostly grown for flour and I have half-baked plans to grind some this year. I strip most of the green leaves from the wigwams to let more light, or, hopefully, sun, into the borlotto, and the Cherokee Trail of Tears which we are also leaving to eat as dried beans this year. If only because with Howard, Mary and Geoffrey all away we just can't keep up with eating them green. Some excitement at the nearest hives where Faroukh turns up with a friend and a military thermal imaging camera. He has a hive with a rare British black queen and has plans to make a small film while he marks her. He promises honey at the harvest barbecue next month. A few hours fly by and it's time to head home, but now how was your long weekend?