We have had a week of temperatures up to 24C, it is cooler today with
overcast and drizzle but not really cold.

Most of the deciduous plants are budding, I had to hurry and finish pruning
the roses before the rain. Now all I need is a nice frost in the last week
of August to knock off the buds.

Tell me why is it that people who like roses want you to grow them but never
volunteer to prune them? I consented to planting six (not a lot I know) a
couple of years ago. According to the vendor information they were nice
restrained cultivars that grow to 1.5m. Lies, all lies! The bloody things
grow 3m high or more and the trimmings from each one fill a small
wheelbarrow. I do so hate getting caught up and impaled by rose thorns.

I still have tangelos, lemons and cumquats on the trees. The broad beans
are flowering well and covered in bees but no fruit set yet. I am trying a
spring planting of peas this year to try to avoid the
too-cold-to-flower-and-fruit blues.

I will be sowing my seed trays for all the transplantable summer crops this
week. We went to the local nursery to pick up a couple of packets of seeds
that I was missing and found they had no okra. Bless his little cotton
socks the owner dipped into his personal stash of saved seeds and gave me
some. Who said the days of customer service were over.

For those who care there are quite a few new shots of the garden, floods,
frosts and animals in our imitation winter.

http://s1086.photobucket.com/albums/j444/HareScott/

David