More hot weather followed the days since my last post, and it persisted until 2 days ago. We have had lots of lovely rain since then. 35mm so far.

The roses are hanging their heads with the weight of water but they'll recover. A new rose opened yesterday, Darcy Bussell, a bright red DA, lovely!!

The surviving Rugosa rose has a bud!!!

We have eaten more artichokes and still can't see what all the fuss is about!. Our first strawberries and raspberries were delicious though! I'm going to harvest the garlic as soon as it gets dry again outside as I have all the berry bushes to plant in that area. This will make the whole strip bed a fruit bed with Blueberries, Jostaberry, Raspberries, Blackcurrants, Redcurrants, Whitecurrants and a Pepino. There's also a Rhubarb plot at the end. A Salad Burnet and 2 Lebanese cucumbers and a fennel are there too.

The tomatoes are going great, and a few little green Kermits are already there. The lettuce etc is also doing well.

I bought a bag of Dutch Cream spuds last week and when I went to cook them I found they had all sprouted! So I've cut them and planted them in the 60 lt bins again.

We still have the little ducks visiting us for a feed and a dip in the pond :) The drake is rather less friendly than the duck still. She gets so desperate for food she quivers with the effort of getting it down quickly! She almost eats out of my hand too. It's so cute to see her asking for a meal at the door, and following me like a little puppy when I take the food down to the area where I feed them.

I'm annoyed with myself for forgetting to cover 2 of the compost bays before the rain soaked them.