The thing is we don't seem to get typical 'unsettled' weather any more, by which I mean short periods of rain followed by sun followed by rain i.e. high frequency variability. In the last few years the weather has tended to get stuck in a rut so instead we get weeks of dry weather followed by weeks of deluge. That is far from ideal conditions for trying to grow plants.
As for the cop out comment, have you forgotten just how bad the summer was last year? It was one of the wettest on record. The April to June period was one of the wettest on record, following on immediately from over a year of drought. There was a place in Staffordshire that in June recorded less than 50 hours of sunshine for the whole month!! That is comparable to an average December! It was an awful year for farmers, with crop yields 15-20%
down. How exactly are you supposed to "garden accordingly" for that?
What else can you do? Making sure your soil is in as good condition as possible is a start.
Drought or flood, good moisture retentive soil that drains well will give you a chance regardless of weather, unless you live on a flood plain.
I bet there are others out there that had good results last year too.
On the back of the "very poor weather", I won 18 firsts and 3 seconds at the mendip flower show, won all three trophys. Also won the Aster award for best vegatable garden for a council tenant in somerset and Wiltshire, and through winning those awards I got my dream job at ston easton park, as the vegatable gardener. I'm not trying to come across as being smarmy or big headed but that is fact.
Every year brings difficultys, we just have to deal with it.
I think the addition of raised beds and huge amounts of compost, manure and leafmold helped me last year.
And will every year weathers it's rain or shine.
Totty
edit to fix quote