Gardening Irony

I love a little irony, but this is ridiculous. Last week I wrote about surviving fierce hot weather, Tuesday turned out to be the worst. Tonight I have driven from StKilda through floods all along Brighton Road/Nepean Highway, St Kilda, Elsternwick, Brighton and Mordialloc. Too much too quick. It was all a little frightening and exhausting. Makes me even more accutely aware of the trauma the people in Queensland have experienced over the past month.

I did get some great replys to last week's Newsletter, it appears my frustration with trigger nozzles is not mine alone. Hellen sent a great suggestion that I hadn't considered: pick your roses (and other flowers) before hot spells force the blooms open and smash them. I was just thinking about how practical this idea was when Kerry came in with a mountainous bowl of Tomatoes from the garden.  Our 'matoes are needing regular picking at the moment so Kerry was just getting in before the heat caused the fruit to split. The Black Russians regularly crack but the cherry types appear to get to the point where their skin just can't hold all that goodness any longer, they are probably best picked just as they turn to red.

I don't have any suggestions for massive down pour mediation. Get your pots out of the weather? I am interested to see how a lot of the drought loving varieties planted over the past 10 years will cope with wet conditions. I'd love a difinitive prediction for weather conditions over the next 5 years, but then again I'd like a lot of other stuff too.