This year the tomatoes seem to be very fleshy with a high pulp to seed ratio, as always super tasty, straight from the vine, they make a great lunch time wrap. It's also the best year ever for aubergines, these came from a 39 cents packet of generic unnamed seed I found in a discount shop .

I think yesterday was the last day of craziness, I'm not sure if the madness was internal, external, local,or global. For at least the last month everything has been extreme,not only in the garden, but with work and socially, every one and everything at the limit, and strangely people are coping and adapting with good humour and an attitude that ,we can't do anything else, but deal with it. Not the everything is bad, a large number of things are going well, it's just unusual and unexpected. My intuition is telling me, today there's a change in the air, and hopefully a return to normal events, with the promise of the beginning of new routine. Maybe it's me, and the 15th of August passing by has sent a subliminal massage. (In France this is the date the marks the beginning of autumn/winter planting, and the decline of summer.) Am I the only person who has seen this madness or is it a local, or personal phenomena?

As technology advances our hand eye coordination and dexterity get better and perhaps our upper body strength and stamina reduce , does it matter ? No. Working the land simply with basic tools is almost a thing of the past , petrol equipment is being replaced by battery tools, even larger energy demanding equipment, like tractors can be electric, quite, clean and less emissions. All this help we have to do work ,comes at a price, not only to purchase, but with embodied energy in the manufacturing and delivery. Our practical skills and physical strength is more sustainable, and we should do our best to improve and maintain them, then as we age recount the knowledge and experience that we invested in when we were younger, and pass it on. Our abilities to the new crafter's and grafters. One big problem is that pushing buttons is easier than learning a trade and all the hours of practice, the blisters, cuts and bruises, that it takes to become an expert in a manual skill . Electric secateurs what next?

In an earlier post I said I couldn't work out how the drought problem was going to lead to a permaculture advantage.(the problem is a solution). Because I had to rethink my watering system, move the pump to a more stable position and add extra hose to a new take off point, it means that I can pump pond water to the top of the farm, not with any great pressure, although it is a steady flow that's not over working the pump. Pond water is biologically active and a liquid plant food, if the pond is healthy the water in it is going to be perfect to promote healthy plant growth. Adding a few strategicly placed barrels on the hillside with drain tap hose connectors, is going to make adding fertility really simple in the future and short term , watering in new plants will be quicker with less water to carry .

Never presume you know what is going to happen, you can guess, based on knowledge and experience, and hope they give a good idea . Almost everything this year is surprising and more than anticipated, not necessarily in a good or bad way, in unusual ways. So now I'm going to sit down with a case of beer and a big bag of potato chips and dream of an easy, uncomplicated life . No, that's not true , I'm contemplating a strategy to adapt and incorporate this year's twists and turns into the future path .