I didn’t quite understand the judging at the Wivenhoe Allotment and Garden Association annual show. Yeah sure, veg is veg, right? Some looked a little fresher than others, but ultimately veg for me is all about necking it and getting energy.

The judges thought a little differently. There was no evidence of the fruit or veg - or even cake - actually being tasted. In fact some of the produce awarded a first in show looked a bit mangy when compared to other entrants.

I would never suggest that there is something slightly slippery taking place with the WAGA judging. Nope.

It was a decent enough show for 2026. A few panic emails had gone out and then run up to it, worrying that not enough allotment holders had entered any of their goods. Guilty as charged.

But wait, what this?

We did get an email stressing the importance of us attending the close of the event as there was possibly a chance our allotment may pick up a prize in the overall category.

Football watching duties kept us away, natch.

There was plenty of tomatoes on show as we made our way up and down the various trestle tables early afternoon. Tomato, tomatoe, etc. I’ve never seen so many varieties.

Cabbages meanwhile, remain the ugly sisters of the allotment world.

Some of the blackberries looked incredibly tempting. They were rather lush and certainly plump. I confess to having a quick shifty to my left and right to see if I could snaffle one.

Spoiler: I’m too much of a good honest citizen for that type of behaviour.

The usual daily harvest of tomatoes (red and yellow, natch) and courgettes. These are both of the more conventional style and also the spherical courgettes that we have still yet to decide what to do with.

Also slightly out of shot and lurking on the allotment naughty step is a cucumber that looks more like a knobbly knee. It is lime green and not exactly enticing me to rustle up a tomato and cucumber sarnie.

Even with the fifth heat wave during this estuary wild summer, the cucumbers have failed to deliver.

We’ve got the Wivenhoe Allotment and Garden Association annual show at the weekend. I might have to take out a small tin of green paint and tart up the sorry-looking cucumber. The cucumber trophy has already got my name on it.

More tomatoes, more courgettes. We do have some variety over at the allotment. Honest. Future updates will hopefully introduce you to the brave new world of sweet corn. Tomatoes, courgettes and sweet corn. That’s a diet to eat yerself fitter.

The tomatoes are ripening now at a rapid pace, and yep, that includes the yellow ones. An allotment email went around telling people to keep an eye on their tomatoes. The fifth heat wave is expected to complete the crop well ahead of the early autumn allotment show.

Meanwhile I’m still perplexed by the curly whirly courgettes. They taste super fine so far. We have chopped them up rather finely and then fried them to serve alongside a pasta meal. They still give me the giggles.

A return to the Thursday evening pickleball social at the Tennis Club. It’s been a few weeks whilst I wait for black ink recovery and healing.

We had a healthy turnout as well. Eight players rocked up, the perfect combination for a rotating two games of doubles.

And whaddyaknow? I got partnered with A for the first few games. Some major domestics broke out on court. I could see other players sheepishly turning away as our arguments were played out in public.

If you’re going to claim that a ball is yours, then it’s yours, right?

A couple of players were very young lads. This was great to see. They were under 16 and show that the club and the sport is continuing to grow locally.

The autumn nights are slowly slowly starting to creep in. We took the strategic decision not to turn the flood lights on and cut our losses around 8:30 p.m.

It wasn’t so much the fading light that was causing issues for me; the stench from the nearby onion fields was making play a little tricky.

I should name a blog specifically after that.

Rejoice! We finally have some colour to our allotment palette!

So here we have some red tomatoes to add to the yellow hue. I’ve been told that these aren’t your bog-standard red tomatoes but some kind of autumnal variety. I’m not sure if that is a statement or not on how our four seasons are currently fucked.

Plus don’t forget the obligatory spherical courgette. These are stacking up now like a bin full of footballs at Sports Direct. If nothing else then they would make for half-decent vegetable weapons if a battle of the garden ever broke out.

More tomatoes and a couple of courgettes. Yep I know the tomatoes are yellow. That’s how we do things around these Estuary Wild parts. Ditto for the courgettes.

There was an alarming email that went out from the Allotment Gods bemoaning the lack of entries for the Wivenhoe Allotment and Garden Association show. This is coming up in a couple of weeks.

The email was a call to arms for entrants. It was a classic begging case of use it or lose it.

My concern here is that you will only exhibit things that are relatively fresh that you have harvested from your allotment in the past few days or so. My allotment is a means to an end. I want to grow food and then I want to eat it.

To be honest I don’t give a shit about exhibiting my funny-shaped courgettes that look like penises to the rest of the world.

TUCK IN!

Hey! Want to see a one-man-band transporting half the contents of his home garden over to the bloody allotment? Good news! Especially if you were anywhere around the mean streets of CO7 on Friday lunchtime.

Domestic issues back at vase has meant we need to offload some of the garden shit ASAP. Aha, I know - we rather handily have an allotment plot where a lot of this shit can be dumped.

Maybe I should paraphrase that. Yep, I have carefully read the T’s and C’s of the Town Council lease regarding the allotment. I can confirm that I am not dumping fridge freezers, food scraps, or even a dodgy old porno collection.

We’re talking the odd brick here and there to support the allotment verges, plus what we salvaged from a decking that has been ripped up. These will serve as useful planks for navigating from the strawberries to the courgettes to the sweet corn, etc.

A pair of wheels were sourced. We opted for a folding trolley to make the short 10-15 minute journey back and forth.

The test drive went very smoothly. I urged caution, as ever in my life, and didn’t overload it. Job’s a good ‘un.

I reached the allotment from the other side of the fence. I could see that Cricket Week at the cricket club was in full swing. The marquee is standing and looking rather proud ahead of President’s Day on Saturday. A game of cricket was also taking place throughout Friday afternoon.

I had a quick look around the patch before my second trip with my new trolley. The pumpkins are ripening rather well. The poppy weeds have dried off. The allotment is now lacking a little colour without those wonderful early summer red poppy flowers.

This will soon change with the tomatoes. SHIT THE BED, we have bloody loads of them. Some are red, some are of the yellow variety. It’s going to look like an organic psychedelic disco once they hit their peak.

Unfortunately the raspberry canes are not looking quite as healthy. They haven’t died off but they have yet to produce any produce. This is a shame as back at base we had raspberries growing out of our arses. This was one of the reasons for the much-needed garden redesign.

And then we come to the courgettes. OH MY DAYS. These are also going to be another bumper crop this year. I have looked at the possible options of selling these online. I don’t think I will get to be the Courgette King of CO7 before Christmas.

The first trip with the new trolley was a success. I turned around, headed back to base, loaded up the trolley, and then did it all over again.

I was a little more reckless on my second visit. Half a dozen planks of decking were transported. The trolley swayed from side to side as though it had enjoyed a lunchtime tipple too many. The 10–15 minute journey became 25 minutes.

The allotment was reached, the cricket game was still taking place, and the bloody raspberries had still yet to grow.

Allotment life, innit.

Yet more bloody tomatoes. Or more to the point, not so bloody red tomatoes, but yellow tomatoes.

Tomatoes are the new courgettes, right? They’re coming out of our arses, so to speak, right now.

The heat of the past few days helped to deliver these. We still weren’t quite sure if they were ripe or not. What shade of yellow do you need to pick a tomato?

But the heat had loosened them from the stems of the plant. This is nature’s way of saying get these down yer neck ASAP.

I did have the brainwave of making some tomato sauce out of them. Would it still be tomato sauce if it was yellow? Perhaps I should make mustard?

To be honest I haven’t really thought this one through.

Allotment life, innit.

We’re getting quite close to allotment BUMPER season here. Most of the growing has been done. The Estuary Wilds sun is working its magic, and then some. Everything seems to be exploding and growing at a tremendous pace these days.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying we have a fully rounded meal on show, but we’re getting close to self efficiency. Good luck in surviving on a meal of courgettes and tomatoes. That will be interesting if nothing else the following morning.

Don’t be fooled by the colour of the tomatoes. You say tomato, I say tomatoe, etc. These are yellow toms. They have proved a little problematic in that we’re not quite sure as to which shade of yellow signifies full ripeness. We didn’t want to take any chances, and so picked them a little early.

Meanwhile In Courgette News: loads of them. Bloody loads of them. Keep those courgette fritters coming. It’s my staple diet as we enter the hazy days of August.

Also coming up in August is the WAGA Show, also known as the Wivenhoe Allotment and Garden Association Show. Think the Lambeth Country Show without the vegetables shaped as penises. Although having carefully scrutinised the competition rules, there’s nothing overtly in there saying that you can’t enter a vegetable shaped like a penis. That will liven the stiffs up, etc.

I’m not sure what we’re going to enter. Artwork is even an option. I might dig out some of my CSE Grade 3 art from the loft and pass it off as one of my 2026 originals.

Estuary life, in it.

Oh Gawd, here we go. Yet more courgettes. There’s no such thing as a bad courgette right? It does stretch you ever so slightly when it comes to your cooking options.

My very limited culinary skills have led to two options when it comes to the courgettes that are currently taken over the allotment:

The obvious choice is to add a little colour palette to fresh pasta. They need to be diced, and then preferably mixed in with red pesto. Job’s a good ‘un.

The second option is a little more adventurous. I’m calling these courgette fritters. I don’t think that’s actually a technical culinary name. As ever with most things in the kitchen, I’m making this up as I go along.

My technique is to shred the courgettes with a grater. You then build up the mixture into a dough using flour and some finely grated cheese. These little bundles of green joy are then fried at a very high temperature until slightly singed.

Of course you could always go down the more schoolboy humour route of just arranging courgettes into various phallic style art sculptures and posting them all over the modern interweb.