You have to take the rough with the smooth

This has to be the first year ever that we have a tomato plant that has been adequately watered all summer. It's quite remarkable! We left our flat for three weeks in July and early August and all that time our tomato plant was watered and flourished.

We planted it by the hedge, you see, and the hedge is supplied by our flats' automatic watering system. Every evening a trickle of water is squirted from a system of pipes that runs along the little hedges and around the various trees and shrubs. Anything planted by the hedges gets watered too. Anything else doesn't.

That's why our "lawn" has two distinct colours. Where the pipes run the lawn is luxuriantly green, verdant, thriving. Everywhere else it's brown, crisp and dusty-looking.

Our tomatoes haven't yet ripened, but it's still quite sunny and it will stay warm till November, so I think we will get some. Next year we'll be ready. We'll get some tomato plants and put them in beside the hedge nice and early in the year. You can even train them through the privet so they don't need staking. Maybe we could put some lettuce along another stretch. And what about some pepper plants?

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