It's wonderful to reach the ripe old age of 45 and still find you can be surprised by a vegetable. And a turnip no less. I traded some seedlings with my big brother earlier in the year, he got disappointing ranunculus, I got a row of turnips. Last week taking all my courage, I chose 3 the size of large eggs and added them to a stir fry with leek flower stalks and red peppers. It was a great success and now I'm eager to try more. the turnips were sweet, pure white and crunchy, with a bit of a kick to the flavour. A much underestimated beast, and if they are young and home grown, I can thoroughly recommend them. My flower and vegetable garden are doing very well this year, thanks to my neighbours new puppies who deter the peacocks from grazing here. Last week we had 33mm of rain/hail in the space of about an hour. This is usually a month's worth. Lots of plants with large leaves had them lacerated, as the hail seemed to be sharply faceted rather than spherical, and I lost a number of rose buds to the storm, but nothing horrendous. One of this year's special plants is my lovely white anemone which I sowed about 3 years ago and is really finally into its stride. It glows in the dusk and has beautiful violet undersides to its outer petals, if you click on the photo you can see this in more detail.