Kitchen Garden Forum

It's been dry here most of the day and there was even a little bit of sunshine.
Trying to rain again, though. I managed a bit of weeding but things are getting seriously out of hand now. Of course, now I have the time to do some serious gardening it looks as though the weather will be against me.
Can't complain, though. Others have it much worse. Rain forecast for the next few days too!
Was there ever a year like this?

I do remember a year when I was still in short trousers...er, I still am...
It could have been 1967/68 when the pea viners which were then tractor hauled rather than self propelled had a crawler tractor on the front as well...I remember a school trip to the seaside at Sandilands..I don't think we got of Fenwicks bus..!! and Partney petrol pumps area was flooded on the return home...as it did again the other Monday.

It is undoubtably the most frustrating growing season in the 15 years I have worked at the big house....my colleague is quoting the same but with ref' 31 years.
Although he quotes a year post the dry of 1976, when memorandums were flying about ref setting cacti..not quite..but dry tolerant plants,..as happened again in 95...
I think he refers either to 1977 or 78??.when it swung back to mighty wet?..I'm not good at remembering things of that date I was having a bit of a wobble with regard exams and a frightening lack of direction of travel when all my schoolmates knew exactly what they wanted to do.

It has been anything from heavy drizzle to rain most of the day here only a few periods of no downfall..none of which I would call dry spells.!!

add another 8mm.

Clive.

Hi Clive,
I very well remember the drought of 1976 and all the so called clever buggers that crawl out of the woodwork at these times were spreading doom and gloom that the aquifers and ground water would not reach their proper level for at least 5 years.
When the drought broke it rained and rained for weeks and by that December the Aquifers, Reservoirs and water tables were the highest they had been for years.
That year by a total fluke I planted a 90ftx30ft patch of Potatoes just below about a dump of about 1000 tons of FYM and slurry and whereas everybody elses in the district were hardly worth lifting I recorded my largest ever Potato at just over 7lbs. The ground had a gentle slope towards my spuds and they were kept perpetually moist and fed the entire drought period.
On the end of the spuds I had a dozen Marrow plants and they went mad as well. The spuds were Maris Piper and they kept my family and a lot more people for the entire year. If anything the spuds were too big!
JB.

Dear Tigger have your waters broken yet, or are they still rising to your front door.

They've gone down a bit this morning Herby - ready to rise again when it rains later, no doubt.

Just a few showers this morning. We had dozens of people (the count was about 70) stranded in our village on Friday night. Put two up in our house, a neighbour had about 14, the rest were in the village hall. Fortunately we are on a hill, so no-one was actually flooded, although the flow of water past our house was terrifying. Ventured into the veggie plot. The only things doing well are the broad beans and french beans. CCA lettuce is OK too. Everything else seems to be very depressed. Hope there's no-one out there too badly effected, tho' I guess anyone in Tewkesbury/Evesham won't be able to get to their computers anyway.....

Having said I have never seen so much surface water about I hear on BBC4 that Shobdon, the airfield a couple of miles away, had 28.6cm of rain on Friday and was the highest rainfall in the country on Friday. That is more than three months normal rainfall in a 24hr period!
JB.

I don't know what I've been doing wrong, but all my outdoor tomatoes and potatoes look very healthy to me. The leaves are a very acceptable green. However, on our allotments across the path there's a woman reporting blight on all her early spuds. I suggested that it may not be blight, but she's just late digging them up. Her tubers looked OK.

I believe blight needs hot weather followed by heavy rain to really get going. Here in Bedford we haven't really had much in the way of hot weather since April. I'm also growing toms and spuds where there haven't been any of either for several years, so rotation may have a part to play.

But as for the squashes, yes, the pumpkins are small and the butternuts are slow to get going. I am optimistic for August, though.

All the best

mike

I'm glad someone is.......

Believe me Mike V it probably is blight. Here in Lincs very few spuds have escaped, even the conventional ones are affected as the wet weather prevented the farmers getting on to spray. Fish & Chips will be a luxury meal this winter.

Hi Fen,
You are certainly correct about chips. Because of a clever environmental scheme the rivers authority put in a new weir and now 3000 acres of Maris Piper, the chippies favourite have been flooded and are now rotting underground not only that houses that have been there since the 1500's are flooded up to downstairs window height. Four elderly couples have had to be rescued by boat. One of them is 96 and he has lived there all his life and it has never flooded before and he has never heard tell of flooding there. Not only Potatoes affected but Wheat, Barley, Oats and Oilseed Rape that will not be able to be harvested.
It appears that the environmentalist have had their say and this is the result. The trouble is that the weir in question was to encourage upland Curlews and Lapwings and other inland wading birds into the area.
It seems that human beings no longer feature into the equation. We humans are the silly buggers who are paying these people to bring grief all round and for sure a great increase in food costs.
I think the it is time sanity is returned to DEFRA and those who make these spurious decisions should be ushered out and the sooner the better.
JB.