The garden in August

Hello, how does your garden grow ?

I went to the lotty to do some weeding and tidying at the weekend.  Finished summer pruning the fruit trees. There are quite a few pears on the Laxtons trees, and a good few apples on Queenby's glory.
I picked a few of those yellow ball courgettes.  I'm deliberately letting these start to turn into a squash, so I can cut them in half, scoop out, roast and then bake filled with chilli (last night's dinner).  They are a bit watery and flavourless to use conventionally.  The green courgettes are good, but you have to keep an eagle eye on them if you want to avoid marrows (which are IMHO disgusting)

Some raspberries coming. Last year I cut them to the ground with the intention of getting a better autumn crop (at the expense of a double crop, spring & autumn).  It looks like it might work out. The first few were tasty anyway.

Most everything else remains a disaster.  Even the leeks seem to be sitting there not growing.

The greenhouse looks better.  Tomatoes have done really well.  Made a litre of passata from the split ones - I've been away for a few days walking.  Lots of chillies on, but a bit behind. Machu Pichu is a new Chinense variety to me, and it is producing well if only they ripen. Should have a picking of padrons this week.

Can I pick your brains about blackberries? I've had an Oregon Thornless blackberry in the garden for about ten years, but last year it didn't produce any new wood. I cut out the old wood which had fruited, expecting something else to come up, but nothing, so I rather assumed that I had lost it. But now I'm finding bramble-type plants in the border where the blackberry was - they have leaves similar to the thornless blackberry but the most evil thorns (worse than your average bramble). I'm going to attempt to dig them out when we've had a bit more rain, but I'm noticing that these evil plants are popping up all over the place, a long way away from the original plant - in raised beds for instance. I'm assuming that these small plants have grown from berries which birds dropped into the soil. Is this an occupational hazard of growing cultivated black berries? Is this payback time for having picked berries painlessly for ten years? It's actually rather frightening to see how fast these wretched things are growing - it wouldn't take long to become overwhelmed. Has anyone else experienced this?

I've never grown blackberries because we have so many wild ones.  It does sound as if these have seeded from your cultivated one.
I have a tomato problem.  My toms generally are extremely slow to ripen, even the Sungold and we've probably had more warm days and sun than we would normally have had by this time.  
The problem I have is with one plant of one variety.  They're  an F1 called Crimson Blush ( using up leftover seed from last year but won't be doing them again).  I've got a good crop and they are growing to 3" - 4" across but on the second truss they are rotting by the stem.  It's a small, pale, grey/brown soft patch.  I've taken them off and sliced from the bottom to do fried green tomatoes but only got a couple of slices off each because the rot had gone well down the core.  I cant see any on the bottom truss and the fruit on the 3rd one is still swelling.  I can't find any reference to rotting at the top because everything is about blossom end rot.

Could it be that your blackberry was grafted onto a wild rootstock, and the thornless scion has died leaving the rootstock to sucker, or that shoots from the rootstock have out-competed the thornless variety ?

Never had tomatoes rotting at the top. Always the bottom. Any possibility that the rot is following insect damage or splitting ?

There's no obvious damage or splitting Chilli Head. I did wonder this morning if condensation from the roof of the tunnel was sitting in a pool round the stem. That might explain why the bottom truss is ok. Because of the curve of the roof, the condensation probably drops at certain points. The tomatoes are planted near the sides but lean in towards the centre to accommodate the roof curve. That plant may just be in an unlucky spot.

Nothing to add on why your blackberry has turned thorny, Dandelion. However, get rid of all you can see asap.

My previous OH bought a blackberry advertised as having huge fruits - and it did. But over the years, it hybridised with native brambles, and we became inundated with huge, incredibly vigorous plants with thorns like razor wire. The base of the stems would sometimes be over an inch in diameter. Despite my best attempts, I never got rid of all of it before we moved.

Thank you all - I certainly think that the thornless scion has died out (thank you CH for putting that into words!!). I am getting rid of anything I see - I hadn't realised how quick they grow. Interestingly I don't remember finding these little seedling before - maybe I left more fruit on the plant last summer, and the birds got to it before I did!

I have certainly found discoloured patches on the tops of some of my tomatoes, but I had assumed it was the start of blight. They've gone in the bin rather than on the compost heap.

If they're seedlings Dandelion, they should be easy to remove. It's once the little so-and-sos start sending underground roots to pop up new growth anywhere and everywhere that they become extremely difficult to conquer.
No helpful suggestions on tomatoes, Ploshkin. Your condensation theory sounds very plausible.
I have about 95% of a greenhouse now. There has been quite a saga going on since the beginning of June. As far as I can tell I now have the right size panes for the roof and presumably non-shattered panes for the louvres. I look forward to being able to use it soon!

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It's not the greatest picture (it's raining heavily here, and even with the strip light on in the kitchen it's dark!). This is a tomato I just picked off - it's definitely soft and squidgy at the top. It doesn't smell like blight, I have to say, and isn't really the right colour.

Ah, Dandelion, that pale patch at the top looks like it but on my big fruits there's nothing else showing on the surface.  The rot goes down through the core of the fruit.  Cutting horizontally through the centre the patch was about 2p size.  Ill take a picture.  I took a couple off this morning but forgot to bring them back with me.

I didn't think to cut the fruit up to look at the centre - if I get any more I'll take a look. I did find one with a bit of blight on it, and it was quite different - that distinctive brown colour, and the fruity was firm, whereas the rotten one I photographed was squidgy.