First, the good news. The wheat is yielding well and I like the Claas combine. I expect we’ll have an overall wheat average of exactly 4.5t/ac dried. Second and third wheats have done particularly well, and so far the quality of all varieties has been excellent.

The weather has been frustrating, but at least there’s been great drying in between, which has been characteristic of this summer here. Three more days will finish the cereals and then it’ll be the usual rush to get the oilseed rape sown.

The combine is going well and it’s a lovely machine to drive. There’s a nice touch of quality about it. The tracks are as good as expected and an advantage even in dry conditions.

However, the daily output is far from spectacular and I, rather stupidly, was fooled by its 25ft header, having come from a 17ft.

I assumed the output would increase pro rata, which of course it hasn’t. In reality, it has about 15% more output than its predecessor.

Straw walker combines have their limits and for genuinely high output it has to be a rotary. Walker losses have been an issue, not helped by green-strawed crops.

In fact, I think I’ve put out more grain this year than I’ve ever done with the old New Holland. Maybe not.

I recall, in the early 1990s, harvesting 254t of wheat in under 10 hours with my old Case 1660 Axial Flow. Yes, the Claas 670 may top that, but not by a whole pile and that’s with 200 horsepower more and now 25 years later.

However, I’m pleased with the Claas because it’s more than adequate for our acreage and the backup is excellent.

Garden potatoes

In our back garden and close to the back door, there’s a raised lawn which we rather grandly call the terrace. The lawn on the terrace wasn’t level, which always annoyed me.

I told Mrs P that I was going to dig it up and put it in spuds for a year or two to level it up. Now I know spuds don’t exactly level land, but that’s what I told her.

It didn’t go down very well but, being a man, I persisted and got some sort of clearance. Or so I thought. Besides, I wanted to plant some creamy garden spuds in fresh, rich land.

Full of childhood memories of the earthy and floury flavour of new home-grown potatoes, I sprayed the terrace off quietly with Roundup. But when the effects of the Roundup were plain for all to see, a difficult situation arose within the marital relationship.

What could I do? The grass was dead and that was that.

I suggested we write anonymously to Miriam in the Irish Country Living section but no, that wouldn’t help.

Anyhow, the narrow terrace was rotovated with a merry tiller and four different varieties of potatoes were sown with one drill of each.

I sprayed them religiously for blight and they looked magnificent. I couldn’t wait until I’d be proudly bringing in a basket of beauties, steaming them on the cooker and eating creamy balls of flavour smothered in real butter and parsley. But alas, that’s not the way it’s worked out.

They’re the scabbiest potatoes you’ve ever seen and most of them have a big scar-like crack down the middle caused, apparently, by the soil wetting and drying. Slugs got at them as well.

Mrs P isn’t keen on the hassle of using them and I don’t blame her. I take my hat off to potato growers and never again will I try to grow spuds.

I’ll put it in wheat next year.