Seriously! Winter is supposed to be cold, wet and yucky, with a roaring fire to keep you warm. Gumboots are meant to be essential to stop your feet getting saturated when walking across the lawn. Raincoats should be at the ready and warm woolly jumpers should be pretty much glued on. Jack Frost should be a regular visitor; however we’ve seen more of the Tooth Fairy.
I’ve been seen outside in a Tee shirt and I don’t even know where my raincoat is. I wear my gumboots because they are comfy and are my favourite choice of shoe. Sadly they can’t be worn everywhere. The lawn isn’t saturated at all, but a thick, lush green growing machine that seems to have determined plans to reach for the sky. We are beginning to have more days without the roaring fire – it’s just not cold enough and it is definitely not yucky outside. It is positively pleasant. It is a pleasure to be working in the garden. But my biggest concern is it’s not wet.
We have had hardly any rain. July boasted a modest rainfall of 46.6mm for the month. There were 18 days that didn’t get any rain at all and three had so little that you may as well declare them dry as well. The boffins at the weather office got all excited and declared a heavy rain warning for across the country, and so I didn’t water in my new strawberries or onions as I didn’t want them to drown. I don’t know what happened to our anticipated heavy rain, it didn’t come. Things are all pretty dry in my garden and I am going to have to get the hose out! Maybe the rain didn’t come because I didn’t get the hose out earlier?
I have enough experience under my belt as a gardener to know that this is a blip, an anomaly. This is not a gift horse to have its mouth looked into. I will not be racing out and planting out my garden with cucumbers and tomatoes. The cold and wet will come back, and be back so much so that I will begin moaning about how it has been wet and cold for ages!
Come again soon – I’ve begun exploring greenhouse assemble instructions on line but to no avail. I’ll need to get creative.
Sarah the Gardener : o )
A wise gardener, who holds back on planting when winter offers up a few teaser warm days! You must be not getting the winter rains that we didn’t get earlier this year.
Hi There. I’ve seen way too many over enthusiastic gardeners plant their seedlings way too early, only to lose them. There is no benefit to planting things early as everything in the garden has its own timings. It’s learning to understand these timings that is one of the keys to success with gardening.
Cheers Sarah : o )
‘Scuse me! You think you’ve got problems! What’s happened to OUR summer?
I mean we have had sunshine, days and days of gloriously hot sunshine! Temperatures in the high 20’s and yesterday they even surpassed 30 degrees C!!!! We’re not used to this! Cold and damp – that’s what summer is supposed to be like in the UK and the occasional, very, very occasional day of sun!
Like you, they promise us rain, lots and lots of rain and it hardly ever arrives. We were expecting a monsoon at around 3pm today and I’m still waiting (well okay I’m not but my garden is)!
And what rain we have had has been at night! What’s that all about? Since when did the weather get to be so considerate?
such a hardship 😀
Hi Elaine. I know!!! What is with this weather thing. Most non gardeners are basking in the gloriousness of it, yet we worry about rain. Most ‘normal’ people haven’t even noticed it’s absence!
Chin up… I’m sure we’ll cope in these adverse conditions if we put our minds to it!
Cheers Sarah : o )
😀
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Cheers Sarah : o )
Sounds like a great winter – wish I could boast about warm weather in our winters too – but then, I enjoy a bit of cold and snow.
HI Heidi. I guess I’m moaning about winter weather that a lot of people would kill for. I should just be grateful for the ability to garden all year round and get out my hose with a glad heart!
We can always find snow if we drive six hours south to the mountain.
Cheers Sarah : o )
Your winter sounds like the summer we are having (cool and pleasant). Usually by this time of year we are at the beginning of our hottest weather. But instead, we are waking up to foggy skies and barely making temperatures into the 80s F. I am not really complaining because the weather is quite perfect. But like you said, the weather will come. Maybe when winter arrives for you, summer will finally come knocking on our door over here.
Hi there. heres hoping our weathers sort themselves out and return to normal sooner rather than later.
Cheers Sarah : o )
Yeah, we were starting to think that we were going to have to register as “desert” here on Serendipity Farm until yesterday when we got more rain in a day than we have had all year! If we weren’t living on a steep slope I reckon we would have been flooded we had so much steady beating rain. The poor garden doesn’t know what is happening and I swear most of it washed off into the Tamar River yesterday. I may just discover that we only have clay now and stubborn trees with roots deep into it left to cater for…I haven’t been brave enough to venture out there yet! Wish me luck…I am sure it is on it’s way over to you so batton down the hatches, get out the water wings and random floatation devices and keep those wellies at the ready, you are about to get a deluge!
Hi Fran. You must have taken ALL the rain in your deluge. We didn’t even get enough to wet a whistle and now the sun is shining again.
Good luck fishing all your soil back out of the river!
Cheers Sarah : o )
Maybe our soil will wash over to you? Give it a pat for me when it gets there for old times sake 😉
It’s been a great year for weather and apparently it’s going to be an unusually warm spring – bring it on, I am so ready to start planting again.
Hi Wendy. I hope the weather isn’t too badly behaved, I feel like I have only just mastered how to grow in normal conditions!
Having said that, I never trust a mild spring, as there is always the possibility of that rogue frost that can kill everything in the blink of an eye.
Cheers Sarah : o )