Allotments 4 All

Hi DP - whereabouts in East Sussex are you?  Before I emigrated to the north west (nearly 20 years ago - I get my citizenship papers soon!) I was just inland from Eastbourne - the family are still there.  Your description of baked clay brought up instant memories of blithely offering to help my mum dig out a border, only to watch the spade bounce off the baked clay!  

Glad to see most of you are getting some rain - we've had some more today - much needed on this sandy soil.  And still warm out - I do love summer rain.  

Trilliun

YEEHAW!  It rained steadily most of the evening!  Everywhere looks so perky, so do the weeds!  >:(  Popping to the plot tomorrow to see what is what.  Bet my spuds we pleased with the watering!  Great timing mother nature!

Great news EJ.  It must be a big relief to finally get some rain for your lottie after your long drought.  Your veggies will be sucking it up.  ;D busy_lizzie 

Hooray - at last.

Started drizzling Friday evening, after a very hot, very humid day. I ran outside and sat watching the plants rejoice for a while. Then rushed inside to fetch my camera and snapped away until it got too torrential and I worried about killing my camera. I popped inside the shed and watched it through the open door until Mr Aqui got home from work. Really lovely time - I love rain after it's been hot in the summer. And really lovely to spend so much time communing with the plants, rather than just bustling about working at growing them. Tonight, though, I'm going to have to water the veg beds again - already?

West Essex is due heavy rain from Wednesday PM onwards (huh! prolly last about ten minutes) so I'm trying to get things sorted ready for then!  I'll listen out for my garden cheering and heaving great sighs of relief!

Quick bit of moderating:  Just watched the weather for the next five days and apparently we are to have rain tomorrow afternoon (tues)/evening going into Wednesday morning and then back to sunshine.  Sounds good to me!

Friday morning was up at six with the thunder storms and did it rain ,we had thunder and rain very heavy rain to about 3 in the afternoon , done the garden good even over flowed my pond ,Saturday was overcast and sunday was very hot so is today but we are meant to be having more thunder storms moving in tonight is so muggy here in Bristol

Hope it doesn't come to early YP.  Daughter number one has sports day tomorrow afternoon.  Mind you, even though my waterbutts are full again after the Friday rain, my pots are all dry and the lawn is still looking a little yellow around the edges!

Rain, what rain?  Big thunder claps and less than half an hour of rain was all we got after the recent drought.  And to cap it all I'd left the tap on open when I'd drained the last dregs out of the leaking butt so all the water that went in immediately ran out again.  Hosepipe ban here we come. :(

They're forecasting rain again tonight.The allotment's starting to look a bit dry again already, so it'll be welcome.

Well, the lightning is flashing at 2 or 3 minute intervals, the thunder is right behind it (almost overhead) and the rain is coming down in blobs the size of ping pong balls.

Good old Wimbledon - never lets us down. 

Where are you Kepouros? Nought here in East Sussex :-(

There must be some kind of gardener's version of Murphy's Law.  Every time I make a real effort to water the garden we get heavy rain within 12 hours.  Lightning, thunder and enough rain to make the conservatory a very noisy place to be - yippee! 

By the way, Doris Pinks - where in E. Sussex are you?  See my earlier posting at the top of page 3.

Happy gardening to one and all
Trillium

I just got to the allotment tonight when it came down in sheets, lightning flashed around, and I had visions of being flooded out. Then the rain stopped after five minutes; just as well too or half the site would have been underwater. There's been some thunder since Igot home, so I'm not sure it's over yet.

Thunder crashing, lightening flashing like mad, but did we get any rain NOT one measley spot,grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!up early in the morning to water the garden,i left the runners today thinking we were going to have some rain.  Hosepipe ban must be just around the corner. :(

Mum, did you really not get any?  We got a very heavy downpour but it only lasted about ten minutes, grrrrr  >:(

I'm too scared to check my plants, I think the flower heads will be all over the lawn!  :-\

Blimey, that is odd, with you being just four miles away!   ::)

Anyway, you can't have any of mine  :P

Funny you should post that YP, I was just about to say the same, a 5 minute sudden and loud downpour, then nothing!  Not even the excitement of thunder and lightening!

Speaking as an ex-southerner (frm the beautiful chalk downs of East Sussex), I suddenly feel like a smug northerner.  (Like ex-smokers become unbearably smug non-smokers?)

2 hours of warm, steady rain and still going - check the weather station link and scroll down for th rain graph (it clears to zero at midnight).  Very happy pumpkins and beans.  With warm condolences to my south-eastern parched lottie sufferers (including my mum), but that's the way the north-western, atlantic-facing cookie crumbles.

Love and slightly puddled kisses

Trillium

:)

  I still only got about half the garden cleared... had to lay down for last 24
  hours........severe sunstroke  ::)  weedkiller is lookin really good at this stage
  broken backed n burnt to a cinder..... seems like am IN a nightmare either it
  pours with rain or burns ya butt........ Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp !!  :o :o

The water container outside my alpine house was empty before the rain last night. It is now empty again. I got 2 watering cans out of it!. Thats how much rain we got!
The poor wild life pond is virtually empty now, from a metre deep to 2 inches over the last month or so! At least it is dull and drizzling now, so what little rain we had is not evaporating before it has chance to sink into the soil, which is what happened to the last lot.
If this carries on we are going to be hungry come Winter!

My son was at an auction yesterday. He had bought two cars and was helping the guy to load them on his transporter to bring them home. Anyhow the skies opened thunder and lightning. John was running between two buildings and there was a flash of lightning. John had just stepped on a metal plate laying on the ground and he suddenly felt as if a spear had entered his leg. He  was in real pain. He has just popped in to see me and he is limping very badly. I think he had a very lucky escape!!! Thank goodness it wasn't  worse. He seems to think that the muscles are badly bruised (no burn marks on his jeans or leg.) Has promised to go to the Doctor if no better tomorrow. We got the storm late last night and heard very heavy rain during the night. Lorna