Happy, happy making...more flowers

The new and replacement herbs are all still in their pots, awaiting planting out once I've tried all possible arrangements. In the ceramic tub are chives, purple sage, oregano and saffron, with lemon thyme, dill, parsley and more chives to the left.

It's a busy time and progress is slow, but I'm gradually chipping away at all the jobs to be done. It's frustrating to be at work during the hours I want to be playing with the garden. But my previous work is still giving rewards. The new tomato seeds I planted to replace the ones I dehydrated to death have sprouted. I was down in the greenhouse last night, checking on the other seedlings, and got lots of good news.

The fleece is staying on the onion and broad bean beds and preventing rabbit predation. The tomato seedlings are jumping away, the squash and pumpkin seeds survived their drying out last week and the bean seeds are sprouting, showing that the mouse predation wasn't as bad as previously feared (although there's a total crop loss with the soya beans). But best of all....

My bacon and fuerte avocado trees are flowering. Mr. G and I eat half an avocado between us every day, and I wasn't expecting them to do that for another couple of years. So this is an event that has me bouncing up and down with excitement.

This weekend, oncoming cold weather notwithstanding, the avocadoes, figs and citrus are coming back to the house so they can live outside and be exposed to the bees. The strawberries in the strawberry barrel are also now starting to grow flowers.

I've also decided that I need to start a seasonal recipe cookbook, to help make the most of the seasonal veg. I picture this as being a large self-published book in time, but at the moment it's just a slightly fleshed-out table of contents.