Despite the heat...

.....and lack of rain the vegetable garden seems to be surviving. The water butts have long since been empty, the grass all but stopped growing, parts of the 'lawn' have even died off but yesterday we managed to harvest enough vegetables to encourage us to continue with the nightly watering and not to be too despondent with the crops that have failed to do as well as we had hoped.

Photo: A sample of yesterdays harvest.


Everything seems to be a little late in the greenhouse this year, tomatoes are only just beginning to form and the peppers are yet to flower. The Chinese gooseberries are doing well, I think. It is the first year I have grown them ( a dwarf variety- Little lantern) but fruit are forming so it will be interesting to see what happens.


The strawberries are providing us with enough fruit to enjoy but it will be next year before we will have surplus for jam etc. We should get a good crop of autumn rasberries but again it will be next year before we get any other soft fruit or apples and pears.

For now I think we would be happy to settle for just rain !!