Rain, Hail, Blistering Heat and a Surprise

The poor veggie patch has been subjected to near 40 degree heat, two freak heavy hail storms and some thundery showers for some relief in the last few weeks. I just got the shade cloth up before this last heat-wave and I think that's helped a lot, particularly for the lettuce and bean seedlings that are just too young to survive the big fry.

The espaliered apples and a self-seeded pumpkin had some of their leaves almost shredded.





But none of this crazy weather has deterred my strawberries who have veggie patch domination plans of their own!:


And you can't keep a good plant down ... a surprise flower popped up from a bulb buried in dirt I'd dug up for a path to our studio:




We've got a couple of these in our garden - do any Blue Mountains people know what it is? I hope it's not a weed, 'cos it's a spectacular flower. We do have a lot of bulbs around the garden that were planted by previous occupants.