Last time I wrote I complained bitterly about the excess heat little realising that it would carry on and on. So here we are on a dried up and parched site like most of the country. There was a tiny bit of rain last Friday which settled the dust but nothing more. The last time there was enough rain to measure was 6th June. I can hear myself grumbling all the time at the total unfairness of the heatwave. Earlier in the year the weather was too cold and wet to do jobs in the garden/to do any potting/ or for decent plant sales. There was a short time of perfect weather before this excessive heatwave and so now it’s too hot to do jobs in the garden, etc, etc. What we really need is some gentle non-record breaking weather.

Our group of Dutch garden visitors have been and gone. Such a friendly group and so very complimentary. Interestingly, they were a bit disparaging about one or two of the other gardens they had visited including one National Trust place which shall remain nameless. So it was worth dragging the hose the garden to keep some of it looking perky. I haven’t watered the grass but because there is plenty of clover and creeping buttercup in it it still looks fairly green. The cracks are deepening and widening though. Some trees are looking stressed.

Each time I water the plants I realise that some are growing better than others. It began to dawn on me that a significant number of plants grown in the peat-free compost was not looking good. Basil,verbena, molinia and many more just not growing as they should. The rep came to look last week and has taken some samples to have analysed. I’m convinced that the previous batch of compost was deficient in some way and, after finding some other people with the same problem, I’m hoping for some sort of compensation. Although quite how loss of sales can be measured I don’t know. Some of the plants I have re-potted after knocking off all the old compost. This is a huge waste of my time and resources. I may consider not using peat-free compost again because the results are inconsistent. Customers don’t appear to care what plants are grown in.

All the garlic is now lifted and some has successfully been made into black garlic. This year it seems to be juicier and even more delicious than last year.

Rain is forecast for Friday will it or won’t it????