[chimaera]

Since early May in N London we have had 2 reasonable showers, each only a few 10s of minutes long. Every few days the forecast shows storms passing, each time there are a few minutes of drizzle and the sun comes back out.
Watering is getting a bit of a bind, and the soil is so hard it took 6 hours of very hard digging to get up 3 rows of early spuds; in places I had to literally jump onto the fork to get it into the ground. Spuds don't seem to have minded too much despite not really watering them- averaged over a kilo of charlottes per plant which is OK for me.

Charlie

[Trillium]

I truly wish I could send you some of our excess rain. Every 2 days we seem to get between 1"-2" of rain. The fields can't absorb anymore water so the farmers are hustling to get in crops before they rot. Strange thing is that we normally have weather like France - quite dry and hot.

[peapod]

Been bucketing down all day - I even had to call it a day with my landscaping students as we couldn't get a thing done because it was that bad.

Please take some, I want to go to my plot tomorrow and have only got an hour to get some harvesting peas done!

[m1ckz]

im in southminster essex,rain all around us within a mile or 2 its rain,,but here nothing,soooooooooooo dry

[peterjf]

a few drops in hull over the last 4-5 weeks

[vet]

South London is the same chimaera. Hoping forecast is good they're predicting rain for Friday.

[PennyS]

We did have rain forecast for Friday, but forecast has changed now.

Was up on the plot briefly yesterday.  Everythign is looking quite dry, and I think my brassicas are suffering. 

But it's just not realistic to keep watering everything.  I'm keeping the dibbed leeks watered but everthing else is just having to fend for itself. 

Oh well!  First year of lottying, so it's all a learning curve. 

 

[JayG]

I feel sorry for the beginners who have suffered setbacks which they wouldn't have in a more "normal" year weather-wise.

It's not always this challenging! (Well it is, but not as bad; it's been a tough year right from the word go for growing your own, even for the experienced gardener!)   

[Muddylou]

West London the same, having to water everyday, luckily we have a hose to use at our site. The paths are all bare though. I can't remember a dryer summer (perhaps 1976).

[chimaera]

Last week got soaked in a rainstorm at work in central London, got home at it was still dry.

Other than my summer raspberries, that have suffered so badly I am going to dig them and start again, most things seem OK, and the 'subtropical' corn and squashes are now doing really well (ate first corn yesterday, and measured one pumpkin stem as growing 1cm an hour last week). Just have to spend an hour every 2 days just watering the most important stuff (brassicas, leeks, spuds look after themselves)


Charlie

[Totty]

It is a bit of a burden, feeing the need to water everything so often but i kind of think that, in taking on my allotment/getting a greenhouse in order to provide my family with fresh produce, i owe it to myself to make that effort. I am lucky in that i only live 50 yards from our allotment, but my plot is still the opposite end to the water trough!

[aelf]

It's been raining here almost non-stop since the hosepipe ban 3 weeks ago  we need the water people to lift the ban so that it stops now 

[Christine]

The forecast of rain never gets to the east coast up in the North East it seems - could be that it's all stopping at the other side of hills in Cumbria.

I'm going to have to run out a hose to soak the strawberry beds tomorrow so that I can start to lift the worn out plants and put the runners in pots.