Mush is the main fruit of my labours

DISASTER! I've just taken three paper bags filled with prime beef tomato Costoluto Fiorentino out of the airing cupboard to check on how it's ripening, only to find it has been transformed into three paper bags of pongy mush. (The clean bedlinen doesn't smell so great now, either.) I've been struck by tomato blight for the second year in a row.

It's deeply unfair. I've lavished time and care on these ungrateful fruits, fed and watered them from seedhood, metaphorically wiped their bottoms and checked on their homework and this is the outcome.

I grant you I haven't been perfect: I planted all my tomato seed rather late and the only plants to reach maturity under their own steam have been the Gartenperle in a hanging basket by the front door. But you do the best you can, don't you?

I messed up my Sundance corn this year, too. I grew it successfully from seed, transplanted it to my plot in the Old Palace Lane allotments in Richmond, fed and watered it, admired its beauty then forgot to harvest it.

When I did finally get around to trying one of the stunted cobs, I had to spit it out. (I'm leaving the remaining plants in the ground as a permanent reminder of my mental neglect.)

My courgettes haven't been an unqualified success, either; I've had powdery mildew on both Fiorentino and Venus. But I'm not going to beat myself up over that; I don't think I did anything wrong.

I've had my triumphs, too, though. Beetroot, broad beans, onions, garlic and borlotti beans have all reached adulthood and turned out well. And my runner beans have been prolific. (It's hard to fail with runner beans, mind like the children of devout Catholics, they just keep coming.)

But I'm determined to do it all perfectly next season. I've already got Jubilee Hysor broad beans poking their heads through the soil (autumn planting gives them a better start in life), and my Marco garlic and red Electric onions were in the ground a good fortnight ago.

I've got oriental salad leaves coming through that should keep going until the first frost (I'd like a greenhouse for Christmas, please, Santa), and my parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes have been bulking up since last autumn.

So next season's veg family is going to be my most successful ever. Let's hope none of them wants to be a financial expert when they grow up, though. I'm not giving good allotment space to an oxymoron.