Wettest Summer for 100 Years.... Here's to Next Year

So after the wettest summer for over a century and the second wettest since records began, I'm afraid I eventually gave up for this year and haven't blogged since July... shame on me! But I am now into 'preparing' for the next growing season, and so my enthusiasm is slowly being restored.

Although still raining for the majority of time I'm clearing away weeds and crops which are in the ground.  Turning over the soil when possible and generally getting ready for next year.  I've ordered my garlic and overwintering onions and hope to get these into the ground by the end of the month.

On a happier note, we have a new addition to the family, 'Buddy' our little Bulldog.  We collected him from Wales at the end of July and he's been settling into the family very nicely.

Buddy aged 10 weeks

 

Looking after his toys!

 

Curled up with big brother Diesel

I've taken another video, just for record of how bad the plot got with all the bad weather, like I said, I'm now busy clearing it all away and will keep you all up to date as to progress made.. take a look at the video below..

 

Has summer arrived? Nope it's forecast rain again next week

Four days of nearly 'rain free' weather, nearly because it did rain over night on Saturday night, but I can't remember four days of nice warm weather free from the downpours that have plagued us so far this year since we had that lovely week where temperatures reached the early 20's, that was the last week of March.  And that was the last real sun we had, except the odd day here and there and I'm afraid this prolonged batch of fine weather (erm 4 days!) may have come too late.

A lot of the guys at the allotment have given up trying to get anything this year and just taking what they can.  I feel the same to be honest.  I dug up my shallots and garlic on Saturday, a lot of the shallots were rotten and the garlic hadn't grown at all, the bulbs had split but they hadn't grown, I've put what shallots I could save to dry and I throw the whole lot of the garlic away.

I've not managed to get any of the ground sorted where my courgettes, pumpkins and squashes were going to be planted due to the wet weather, so I think I will just plant them where I can fit them around the plot.  Some can go in the bed which has just been vacated by the garlic and shallots, some can go in the bed where I was going to plant out the outdoor tomatoes, and I can put a few in the bed where the peas were going to go as these haven't germinated either, even after a second batch being sown.

So for the last few days I've given the plot a good tidying over, got quite a few weeds pulled, cleared the jungle around the raspberries, cut back the very over grown hedge/overhanging tree near my two fruit trees, I can actually get in to clear this area now,  I am going to make this a soft fruit patch and plant another of the apple trees that I have in a giant tub back at home, this will give me three trees along this bit and will have raspberries, rhubarb, gooseberries, possibly some strawberries, I will have to see how things go and what space I have when I get things sorted.

I leave you with a couple of photo's, sleeping after a hard day at the allotment.....

The Allotment Song

Still flooded with rain, so not much to update you on, but here is a little video my son found for me on YouTube, I cracked up when I watched it, it's great....