Suddenly realised why the runner beans were refusing to make beans.  My enthusiastic attempts to keep out grazing creatures were also preventing bees from pollinating the flowers.  Once removed, beans obediently started appearing the following week, and were being used for meals the week after.  Mystery solved.

Like the courgettes, the 6 pumpkin plants must have loved the horse manure I added to improve the soil, and had rambled out of their bed and were migrating towards my neighbour Len's plot. The cooler September nights were causing them to start shedding leaves, but they had already put down a couple of pumpkins each.

The largest of these (eventually weighing in at 4.5 kilos) had been promised to Kate's boss's children who wanted to carve it into a scarey mask for halloween.  We still had plenty left over for cooking; hollowed out, filled with cheese and cream before roasting comes highly recommended to those people not on diets.