What a year!
It started off with beds too wet to dig. There was a very short window when the soil was workable. Then the window slammed shut, and it became too dry to dig or even do any planting.
We had not one but two late frosts that killed off the newly emerging potato growth.
The dry spell morphed into a full-blown drought, which meant much of our time was spent lugging a watering can around the plot rather than doing more interesting things. The task was made harder by the fact that our water supply was at times a mere trickle.
A few hot days and windy weather did a good job of thwarting our efforts to keep plants well watered.
Then last week, storm Floris gave everything a battering,
Once the storm had passed, we headed to the allotment to find this.
A huge branch of one of our fully laden plum trees had broken. The storm couldn’t have hit at a worse time; the trees were in full leaf and had a bumper crop of plums.
Our allotment site is something of a wind tunnel. The wind invariably comes from the west, as was the case with storm Floris; however, the tree that was damaged is on the easterly side of a group of trees that, other than losing fruit, were undamaged. In many ways, it was lucky that nothing fell on the nearby greenhouse or shed.
As the fallen bough is loaded with almost ripe plums, we are leaving it in situ so that we can pick the fruit
Another casualty of the storm is a bed of sweetcorn, which was flattened.
We contemplated trying to prop it up, but on our next visit, we noticed that the plants were making an effort to straighten themselves, so we are going to see what happens.
A stand of baby corn in another part of the plot is still upright but shows evidence that the wind tried to flatten it, too.
To add insult to injury, sweetcorn on all the other plots looks undamaged. The storm appears to have singled us out!
The climbing beans were also subjected to a battering. Some of the climbing frames have developed a distinct lean.
The leaves on the windward side of the frames have been subjected to a battering.
Some squash leaves also look worse for wear.
One bed of onions was obviously not going to do any more growing, so I decided to lift them.
They have been laid out to dry on a repurposed garden bench, in theory, to dry. I say in theory as they had really dried off whilst still planted in the ground, but nonetheless I am going through the motions.
The bulbs, like lots of other crops, although usable, are much smaller than usual.
As well as some weeding and general tidying, we managed to fit in some harvesting.
Apples were gathered from a tree in the garden.
We pulled the first of our carrots. You can never be sure of what has happened underground until the first roots are lifted. It seems, in the case of carrots, all the watering has paid off.
The brassicas have also responded well to our efforts with the watering can.
Details of this weeks harvests are posted here.
It seems that some work has been done to try and improve our water supply. The pressure has increased, which is fine when only one person is using a tap, but the pressure still drops when more taps are being used, especially if someone decides to use a hosepipe.
Finally, what was the milestone mentioned in the title?
Martyn and I celebrated our golden – 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday. It even fell on the correct day!
That leaves me with just one question: how did this come round so quickly?
That’s all for now, as always, until next time, stay safe and stay well.
Again, I am linking to Harvest Monday at Dave’s Our Happy Acres blog
Congratulations on your Golden Wedding anniversary 🎉 A lovely milestone to reach!
Oh no! Floris really hit you, what a shame after all the effort that’s gone into growing. Hopefully the plums and sweetcorn will be somewhat salvageable.
Still some fabulous harvests though.
We certainly salvaged lots of plums, Belinda but the jury is out regarding the sweetcorn
Congratulations, 50 years is such a milestone. We celebrated 35 this year, the years pass by so quickly, don’t they.
Thanks, Jo they certainly do
Climate change is definitely delivering ever wilder and unpredictable weather as predicted and it’s going to get a lot worse, so it’s time for gardeners to start adapting. Nice to see you pulling in some nice harvests now though despite the storm. My youngest French beans lost 70% of their leaves and a few pepper plants fell over, but other than that we survived ok. You’ve definitely had a run of bad luck this year!
We have gone through this before Steve, We were told that we would be growing pineapples outdoors when I was at school. Then about fourtenn years ago when we had conditions similar to this year we attended a garden show where they were advocating growing drought tolerant plants – even cactii. The year after at the same show the paths were under water and we needed wellies. Our weather is always unpredictable, it’s no good trying to second guess it. We looked back on our photos for 2011 which also was very dry and noted that we used a sprinkler hose which would be frowned on now. In 1976 we even had standpipes installed in the street as they were going to cut of domestic supplies to conserve water but the weather broke in time to avoid that.
Happy Anniversary to you both! Sorry to hear about the wind damage. I am thankful our garden area is somewhat sheltered from it. Though smaller, it looks like a good haul of onions.
Thanks Dave. Our allotment site is exposed at the best of times
Regardless of what anyone believes is behind our bizarre weather patterns, climate change or natural variances, the weather plain and simply sucks! Today it was cold enough for a hot chocolate, tomorrow we melt!
Congratulations on your Golden Wedding! Wonderful achievement.