Strange year

Looking at Zumi's post on sunflowers, I think he is one of the lucky ones.
We had a barbeque at the garden club this evening, which went exceptionally well considering. There were , of course a lot of discussions on growing. We were all given sunflower seeds in March to grow on for judging on 1st September some have giants but not 7'10" like Zumi and some of us have scraggy little weeds like me - it's amazing the variation from the same packet of seeds. Tomatoes seem to be an all round disaster, inside and out, but the soft fruit is brilliant although much too early for showing next month. A few people are showing signs of potato blight at their home gardens as well as others reported at the allotments lately, which always provokes a lively argument on the uses of organic or chemical remedies and EU regulations. I know it's 'geeky' but if the weather is decent, as forecast, over the weekend the french tours and put put boats can go hang if we can dig and weed at last.