[Robster]

After my outdoor tomato disaster this year (all blighted).  I'm going back to outdoor tomato growing school.
Four varieties,
Marzano,
Marmande
GD and one other.

I'm going to grow them well apart from each other and give them plenty of love.  Watering and feeding only the soil and carefully removing some leaves and stems as we go.  And of course keeping my fingers crossed.

This was after I said "i'm not growing outdoor toms anymore"

[upthetump]

out of curiosity then, which part of Spain are you?

The province of Teruel, but there are places in Spain with more extreme climates than ours. Summer temps here can get as high as 44 ºC in the shade in summer and as low as -17 ºC at night in winter. Precipitation is around 450 mm a year: rain concentrated in three main spells (according to historical patterns) in spring, late August (torrential flooding that does the land no good) and early autumn plus snow in winter.

We're about to get an unseasonal week of rain, forecast at around 100 litres (10 cm) per square metre overall. The lowest we've ever had is 150 litres (15 cm) over an 18-month period - you can't grow many tomatoes in those conditions. We had blight this year due to 250 litres of rain per square metre (25 cm) over a two-week-long period in September. This was followed by a cold snap that finished my struggling tomato plants off.

I mention historical patterns, but it has to be said that in the time we've been here, no two years have been the same. I used to scoff at the locals saying "I've never seen anything like this before", but these days I'm far more inclined to agree. The weather has now turned very mild. I saw in the news that frog spawn has been spotted in Cornwall. Here, as well, the birds and trees think it's spring.

my in laws have places near Torrevieja just south of Alicante. one day last May i was at in 30 degrees of sun. 30 minutes later had a violent thunderstorm and hail the size of 10p pieces. and the locals were sratching their heads 

[Snoop]

my in laws have places near Torrevieja just south of Alicante. one day last May i was at in 30 degrees of sun. 30 minutes later had a violent thunderstorm and hail the size of 10p pieces. and the locals were sratching their heads 

Interesting to hear your story. The weather goes from one extreme to another in next to no time. The locals here are amazed at the general changes in weather patterns. When we first arrived, everyone would say at rainstorms "I've never seen anything like it". It seemed to happen so often that in the end I just used to scoff. But these days I'm inclined to agree. 'Erratic' doesn't do it justice.

There was one storm in which the hailstones cracked our car windscreen and headlights (hard to believe given their position) and dinged the bonnet. Repairing all the damage would have cost more than the car was worth. For the locals, the damage was even worse. This isn't a terribly cash rich economy (a lot of people own their homes, as they've been in the family for generations, but the farmers don't make very much money from agriculture and there are also lots of elderly folk getting state pensions but nothing else), so to lose their vegetable patches was a disaster as they now needed to spend money on food. Plus they lost their almond harvest and there was quite a lot of damage to the olive trees and vines.

There was another storm during which 60 litres per square metre (6 cm) fell in 45 minutes. At one point, being outside was like walking underwater. Our land is regularly flooded and our valley looks more like a river when that happens, but fortunately it subsides in a day or so (it drains into a lower valley). The rain this September ruined the grape harvest: fungal problems, split grapes, pickers couldn't get on to the land for mud, etc. I don't have a plane to get flipped over by wind, but I understand how the people in Brisbane must feel.

I've just edited my earlier post to update the weather forecast, which I guess you won't have seen: 152 litres (and probably more in our case) per square metre between today (Friday) and Monday.

[upthetump]

my in laws have places near Torrevieja just south of Alicante. one day last May i was at in 30 degrees of sun. 30 minutes later had a violent thunderstorm and hail the size of 10p pieces. and the locals were sratching their heads 

Interesting to hear your story. The weather goes from one extreme to another in next to no time. The locals here are amazed at the general changes in weather patterns. When we first arrived, everyone would say at rainstorms "I've never seen anything like it". It seemed to happen so often that in the end I just used to scoff. But these days I'm inclined to agree. 'Erratic' doesn't do it justice.

There was one storm in which the hailstones cracked our car windscreen and headlights (hard to believe given their position) and dinged the bonnet. Repairing all the damage would have cost more than the car was worth. For the locals, the damage was even worse. This isn't a terribly cash rich economy (a lot of people own their homes, as they've been in the family for generations, but the farmers don't make very much money from agriculture and there are also lots of elderly folk getting state pensions but nothing else), so to lose their vegetable patches was a disaster as they now needed to spend money on food. Plus they lost their almond harvest and there was quite a lot of damage to the olive trees and vines.

There was another storm during which 60 litres per square metre (6 cm) fell in 45 minutes. At one point, being outside was like walking underwater. Our land is regularly flooded and our valley looks more like a river when that happens, but fortunately it subsides in a day or so (it drains into a lower valley). The rain this September ruined the grape harvest: fungal problems, split grapes, pickers couldn't get on to the land for mud, etc. I don't have a plane to get flipped over by wind, but I understand how the people in Brisbane must feel.

I've just edited my earlier post to update the weather forecast, which I guess you won't have seen: 152 litres (and probably more in our case) per square metre between today (Friday) and Monday.

thats 1/6th of a cubic metre, a lot of water. good luck