Summer flood

On Friday night, we suffered very heavy downpours all over Glasgow, causing disruption on the roads and rails. I was out having dinner in town but managed to make it back without problem, albeit with very wet feet! It's only on saturday afternoon when I walked down to the plot that it occured to me how heavy the rain might have been...

The bottom of the plot - looking wet and miserable

The bottom of the plot was under several centimeters of water, and the top end was very badly waterlogged - walking around the brassica bed near the shed was close to a quicksand experience ! This has happened in the past. But it was October and it had rained solidly for over two weeks, so that was kind of understandable. But it is now June and you just don't expect this ...

We should have gone for rice, rather than sweetcorn

I was pretty gutted on saturday and very frustrated too. Because there was absolutely nothing I could do. Just checking the weather forecast, hoping for the rain to stop and all that water to go away. Keeping my fingers crossed that we hadn't lost everything. This would have been absolutely devastating, after spending so much time breaking our backs digging the beds, shifting tons of horse manure on them, patiently sowing hundreds of seeds, nurturing the seedlings, watching them grow fighting the cold wet weather... I now understand how farmers must feel when a run of bad weather totally destroys a year's harvest.

Wet, wet, wet peas and beans ...

On Sunday night, the rain finally stopped. Today, the water level has gone down and it looks like everything might survive - even though I still have my reservations about the potatoes.

Soggy leeks and potatoes
(leeks on the right, still very small!)

The good news is I won't need to do any watering for a while!

I should rename this blog "Les Hortillonnages"

(floating gardens in Amiens)