Early July and winter is well and truly here in Bridgetown. We have had lots of cold weather but not a lot of rain.

The Autumn Garden Festival was a great success and we had about 200 garden visitors. Very popular were the samples of the heritage apples – Rokewood and Democrat. Both apples have a deep red skin so look very attractive on the tree. The Democrat has a dense texture and sweet flavour. The Rokewood not so dense and a little sweeter. I experimented with using them for cooking and made a Tarte Tatin with the Rokewood. Because of the dense texture of the apple all the syrup was soaked up by the apples and the result was a rather dry tart- tasted good though!

The winter camellias and azaleas are a bit slow to flower this year  – just starting to make an appearance.