Don't trust the weatherman to get the water to your rose (sung to "Subterranean Homesick Blues")

All this week we have been promised a chance of showers, and yesterday a line of thunderstorms was going to bring us rain and relieve the heat.

We have pods on the pea vines, but they are flat. Tradition says we need peas for the Fourth of July, only a week away. It's going to be close.

The woodchucks – there are more than one, I think – are back. I heard the telltale whistle woodchucks make when they sense danger when Nancy and I decided Sunday morning that the rains were not going to come, and the vegetables needed water. They must have heard me dragging the hose.

I went out in the garden today and discovered leaves on my sweet potatoes. I silently cheered. It was early and I did not want to wake my neighbors.

Our James Macfarlane lilac was in full bloom all weekend long, standing sentinel over our garden. While our common lilacs have gone by, James is still big and beautiful.

There are a number of other lilacs that bloom later than the common lilac, and they are a great choice if you want to extend the lilac season

With most of the vegetables finally in and the woodchuck remaining scarce, I have been turning to pruning. Pruning is the selective removal of branches to improve the health and appearance of trees and shrubs.

It is not shearing, which is usually done with electric trimmers to turn plants into unnatural shapes and is a crime against nature.

We picked our first strawberries of the season Sunday night. Not many, just enough to put on our cereal, and we don't expect to have a great season because our beds are in transition. But finding and picking the berries was a great way to end a productive weekend in the garden.

The vegetable garden is making progress. The sweet potato plants finally arrived in the mail yesterday, so everything is in hand. We got a lot of the tomato and pepper transplants, more than half the potatoes and some vining crops in.

Nancy came up with some azalea names in the photo of the previous posting. The red orange azalea is 'Gibraltar,' the yellow orange is 'Klondyke,' the pale yellow to the left is 'Toucan' while the pale yellow to the right was an unnamed Knapp Hill variety. The short red azalea in front is something with Hino Crimson in its name.

Our azaleas were the bright spot of a gray weekend. We have about six of them in a corner of the back yard, under an old apple tree.

Gardeners have a love/hate relationship with rain. The plants need it, but it keeps us from getting out in the garden. But Friday morning was perfect.