Raining - again.

[peter]

Hiding from heavy rain in my, now noisy, metal shed on the allotment.

Just.finished removing this yeats fruiting canes and weeding the raspberry bed.
Looks & sounds like the rain intends to stay for a while, grrr.

[oldherbaceous]

Nice and bright here Peter.

[peter]

Guess what?


As soon as I started cooking tea the clouds left and the sun reappeared.

[oldherbaceous]

You must have been a bad boy in a previous life, Peter.

[Monika]

Cut our pyracantha hedge today - scratched by the spines and bitten by midges which I disturbed, so my arms don't look very appetising. No, that's wrong, I hope nobody want to take a nibble anyway.

It's been very pleasant here recently, not too hot and not too wet, just right for my kind of summer. I am not a friend of very hot weather. And the tomatoes are ripening at last.

[Geoff]

Had a mad few days, cut all mowing grass, strimmed all rough areas and cut a hedge - now faced with a lot of raking that will have got soggy in last night's rain but at least everything is cut.
Don't know if it is the funny season but many of my Shallots and Onions from seed are flowering though the Garlic has been excellent with no flowers. My wife's friend cleared the Greenshaft Peas yesterday, we have frozen more than enough for us. We are getting masses of Runners (Red Flame), French Beans (Cobra), Broad Beans (Masterpiece Green Longpod) and Sugar Snaps. Plums are nearly there, including 3 young trees to try for the first time, Discovery apples look beautiful in the sun but not quite ready, all the Brassicas are growing huge (hint of flowering in a couple of Sprouts that is a bit of a worry), outdoor Tomatoes are a bit slow but all together a pretty successful season.

[pongeroon]

Its still very very dry here in the midlands. We have had very little rain all summer after a very dry spring. The landscape looks really parched and any water just runs off.

The allotment has produced lots of good stuff, though
But we too have the first inklings of onion white rot
If it ever rains again I will try the garlic water method and see what happens. I won't hold out much hope, because the spores will still get walked about, and we don't have enough garlic to water the whole allotment...

[glallotments]

Still really really dry here in our part of West Yorkshire. I think someone has fixed a large umbrella over us as nearby surrounding areas are getting some rain.

[Monika]

After the very dry spring and early summer (and me moaning about it, if you remember), everything seems to have turned out fine. Our peas (Hurst Greenshaft and Cavalier) and all kinds of beans (broad beans Witkiem and Masterpiece Green Longpod, French beans The Prince and Cobra, runner beans Enorma) have done exceedingly well and the freezer is full! Last year, quite a few of the onions, leeks and shallots bolted but none this year. The varieties were: onions Rijnsburger (from seed), shallots ambition (from seed) and leeks Musselburgh and Lyon 2 Prizetaker. I think they gained from the warm spring, though the nights were rather cool for a long time.

The only vegetables which have struggled are cauliflowers and beetroot, presumably because I did not water them enough. and the purple sprouting broccoli, supposed to be ready next spring, has already done its stuff and is now eaten or frozen!

The remaining brassicas look fine and not too affected by caterpillars. Our spring cabbage is sown and will be planted out about the end of September.

Overall, it's been a very productive year here!