Onwards, upwards to peas and beans. Not the broad beans, because they all died of chocolate spot. Nor the peas, for that matter: they have a white powder covering them that I am told is powdery mildew, yet another fungus. Even without the disease, they seem to be collapsing everywhere. I have been advised to erect a complicated training system next year, with solid timbers at the end of each row, a thick wire threaded end to end through the timbers, then hazel twigs tied from the plant to the horizontal wire. Phew.

Even without the fiddly wiring system, we had a fine crop of asparagus peas — sort of squirly pea pods which you pick when very small and eat whole. These are most notable for the beautiful dark red flowers on the plants.

But best in the class are the runner and French beans, which are trailing up the trellis most pleasingly. Unlike the broad beans and the peas, you don't have to pod them, so perhaps the various fungi did us a favour by leaving only the best. We also have a glut of courgettes, both normal and round.

Which brings me to my competition: to decide which vegetable gives you the most bang for your buck. Which one, that is, offers the greatest return for the least effort. Before the blight struck, I might have said tomatoes, because the plants are so generous. Now I am thinking courgettes, or perhaps those French and runner beans — a whole 6ft trail of plant from just one little bean, and all you have to do is pick, cook and eat. No propagating, no pricking out, no transplanting, no podding.

The time-consuming pricking-out process rules out lettuces, except for the later-season ones sown straight into the ground. Radishes are good; they come up quickly and in pretty colours. Personally, I would rule out potatoes because of the earthing up, although they are undoubtedly generous plants. Cabbages? Too stingy. Just one per seed, and they tend to be eaten by slugs. Carrots: fiddly as hell to sow. I'm giving up on fennel because it's hard work from start to finish and it's been a woody disappointment all over again. So I reckon the French beans have it. Any advance on that?

Which vegetables make the grade for you?

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