Gardening year of 2018

has been full of surprises, it turned out, in a good way.  We had the most severely freezing cold spring.  When the seeds failed to germinate, people were certain that the season would be at least 6 weeks late ! It meant that there would not be sufficient time for plants to grow to their maturity.

All dooms and glooms vanished when May arrived with hot weather and continuous sunny days.  It was the hottest, sunniest summer I could ever remember. Tomatoes, chillies grew like mad, and peaches and figs all produced their best crops ever.  I even managed to harvest 6 decent size watermelons out of 4 plants.    Keeping up with watering was a big task.  There has been hit and misses.  Cucumbers are complete wipe out, Japanese pumpkins and winter squashes only produced one fruit per plant, 3 didn't give any even; however shark-fin melon gave 5 out of one single plant, and courgettes gave many, many fruits of various sizes to go around the neighbourhood!. 

Saving 2 citrus trees was my happiest moment.  Did I talk them back to life, apart from giving them both hard pruning?  I also fetched rainwater for them from miles away when  our own rainwater ran out! Now they are back to life, several feet shorter, due to the hard pruning.  It would be nice if they could produce some flowers and most important fruits!

The best buy will be the scented tree peony?  Perhaps all is in vain when I didn't plant out as soon as possible.  Most are in soil now.  Just hope for the best.

The berries are my favourites.  You could make smoothie, sorbets, ice cream all summer long.  Now the autumn raspberries still give their best in the dwindling day light and warmth.

to be continue...