A bountiful surprise

This late in the season I don't expect the poppies to appear but a few are unfurling and the group underneath the cherry tree is looking good.  I hope they will survive the heat predicted for tomorrow, supposed to be 39 degrees centigrade.  I was going to put shade cloth over some of my seedlings but I have not had a chance.  The bountiful surprise is the potato patch in the outside garden, which I thought was my failure.  The patch lies behind the broadbeans and was almost unnoticed when the beans were growing tall.  I had forgotten that I had put in more potatoes in the bed and they had grown and mature and died down.  I was turning over the soil when I came across a bumper crop of desiree and nicola.  Contrary to what is preached in gardening shows I did not buy certified potato tubers to plant but use those I had purchased for eating.  I will try the kippler next time.  More surprises in the garden bed when I looked beneath a flourishing cherry tomato bush.  There was a bunch, red and ready for eating.  Could I go back to shop bought tomatoes after the real thing?

These ferns were photographed in June when they had recovered from the searing heat of February.  I did not think they would survive, with the fronds so desiccated.  I kept watering them and slowly they came back.  You can hardly see the ground now and the low ferns are thriving in the micro climate of the fernery.  Even with the shade cloth over them, the ferns suffered in the heat of February.  I must keep them moist to stop the fronds from drying up.  The summer heat is a worry but I do not want to grow only succulents in my garden.  When I moved in spring, last year, I put in a flat peach tree, a cumquat and a lemon tree.  The flat peach fruits are growing bigger daily, showing the pink blush on the top of the doughnut shape fruit.  The cumquats are fruiting too and I expect them to be ready in winter for some marmalade.  The lemon is not doing so well.  I suspect the possum has been eating the shoots.  Mulching and deep watering must be helping these trees.  I don't think I will stop growing water hungry plants.  I just have to be clever about using the limited water I have.

 

The flat peaches under netting.