Update #2 - The Day of the Triffids

You can't really tell from the pictures, but there's actually a second crop in many of the seedling compartments, taking the space left empty when some of the fast-growers from the first round were planted out into the greenhouse - some of which are growing faster than some of the originals!

Greenhouse: cucumbers, squash, cilantro, rocket, dill, romas (France), romas (USA), grape tomatoes, borage.

Sprouted seedlings about to go into the greenhouse: Italian basil, Thai basil, sunflowers, morning glory

Other sprouted seedlings: carrots, lettuce, mint, thyme, chervil, anise, wormwood, parsley, chili, sweet pea, Chinese lanterns, black-eyed Susan, flax (but has all died so will try again with this one)

Still waiting for an appearance - Provence lavender, chives, sage, wisteria, chamomile, lovage, nasturtium (but don't think this one is going to grow because the seeds were quite old)

Update #1 - Hell and High Water

Our floodwaters have now largely receded - well, they're confined to the reservoirs, at least, which are still fuller than full - but it took some time for that to happen! For days after the initial downpours, water remained at about the levels it had been at the height of the flooding; some of the roads cleared within a day or two (like Clay Road, the photo through the mist with the cars all stranded in my original post), but some of the others stayed closed for weeks. One of the most interesting was the closure of Highway 6 - a major road - despite the extreme inconvenience and huge traffic jams caused by its being out of action, we found it interesting enough to go and explore it one morning (it was closed for about five days, including over a weekend).



It was very odd to stand in the middle of a road down which we would normally hurtle at a rate of about 60mph! We saw one utility truck, one cyclist and a jogger during our stroll, but otherwise what was most noticeable was the quiet, and the sounds of wildlife - apart from a distant hum of traffic from Highway 10, a mile or so to the south, we remarked that it could have been a post-apocalyptic scene; no one left alive but us...



Also interesting were the playing fields along Clay Road, and the golf courses there and on Highway 6 - they were almost completely underwater, and I laughed one morning as I passed the golf course to see technicians out on a little island trying to stop the automatic sprinklers which had come on!





All of these photos were taken a couple of weekends ago; most places remained underwater for at least a week and a half after that, but in the last few days have dried out rapidly, and there is now a faint green fuzz of new grass in most of the muddy fields, and life has gone back to normal in most places. It'll be interesting to see what happens if we get another big lot of rain, though, as the reservoirs don't have much empty space! And of course, hurricane season is about to start...

Plant in hope

Sunday, 6.23pm


Tuesday, 5.59pm