using a drought to your advantage !!!

[plainleaf]

i thought since many parts of uk are  experiencing a drought it might helpful to have thread  on how to use it to you benefit.
crops work well in a drought:peanut, sweet potato, hot peppers, aubergine,tomato

soil solarilizing weed infested area of the plot is good option for drought year.

to name few options
more to come!!!!!!!

[plainleaf]

[ceres]

If you mean soil solarization, it might work during hot weather drought periods but not in the cold weather drought that some parts of the UK have been experiencing recently.

[Digeroo]

We are certainly experiencing drought conditions been very dry here since February.  Top foot of soil is moist now but below that is a moisture invertion and it is still as dry as a bone below that.  The water table is about 2 - 3 metres or more lower than normal.    If the situation continues the plants will get off to a good start next year but once their roots go down into the soil they will just meet a very hard dry layer.  With several feet of dryness down there it will take a lot of rain before the water table begins to rise.   It looks like the new desalination plant in London might come into its own. 

Many thanks for the suggestions PL but apart from tomatoes I doubt the rest will have much joy here.  Certainly never heard of anyone growing peanuts.  As for aubergines I have nurtured them and got a couple of measly specimens only to find large ones are only 50p each in Lidl.   Hot pepper do ok as well.

[cornykev]

What drought, its pissing down here.   :-\ ???     ::)

[Digeroo]

Rain what is this rain stuff.   ???

I drove down the M4 the other day and it was bucketing down, but back here there was hardly anything.  We had a few drops this afternoon perhaps four minutes max. 

I do assure you that the headwaters of the Thames are in a dire condition.  It seems likely you will be drinking seawater next summer.

[goodlife]

Well..if the high enough temperatures would go with the drought..those crops would be fine..but we had weeks of low night time tempereratures in the middle of the summer and the day time temps outside the GH wasn't that good neither .. ::)

[taurus]

If that's the case then Cornykev can you please send some of it along to Digeroo and me as the grounds still like concrete about a foot down.  I'm trying to scavenge as many barrels for next year to use on the allotment.  In 15 years never as my plot been so dry.  :'( :'(
( if that don't cause a down pour I don't no what will  ;D ;D)

[GrannieAnnie]

The other part of the equation is we can have a very dry spring followed by a very (too) wet summer, or the opposite, which makes planning impossible other than mulching heavily during drought and that's not a cure-all.

[galina]

What are the many other options?

[Digeroo]

We have a very variable weather situation never seem to be able to plan for it.  Last Nov we had a high in the Atlantic and a low over Europe, result freezing air from the Arctic, this year we had a low in the Atlantic and a high over Europe, result - warm air streaming up from the Sahara.  

I cannot tell you how often the weatherfore predicted rain for us which never arrived.  I can count the number of rainy days we have had since Febrary on one hand.  

[galina]

PL, I think you might have mentioned black eye peas, crowders and teparies.  They do well in drought, don't they?

[Robert_Brenchley]

I don't think black-eyes peas do well in our climate. What about the other two?

[galina]

I don't think black-eyes peas do well in our climate. What about the other two?

No, of course not, but they stand a tiny chance whereas peanuts definitely won't  ;D