Oooh it's wet.

Summer's been and gone, it was a short, warm week in April, but it's been a bit wet since then.

It's now September 25th and the floods have arrived today. The plot is under water in many parts and the fields behind resemble a long lake, especially with the birds flocking around it.

I'm glad I raised the levels at the back of the plot with the raised bedding, but even the higher terraced bedding has flooded today - I've got patches that are sat under water, but this is much better than some who have their whole plots under water - if the rain doesn't cease and drain away soon, (it's been non-stop for 48hours now), a lot of the soil structure will suffer from being waterlogged.

Water butts are nice and full though - in fact, thinking about it, I have only needed to run out the hose once this year to replenish a the water butt; previous year's have sen me doing this once a week.

 

 

The swallows stuck it out longer than I was expecting, the first day i noticed that they weren't flying around was 22nd September.

 

 

Some crops have done well this year -tomatoes were so much better than last year. No unsightly diseased leaves and a bumper crop that is still coming.....

Blackberries were good; this is the first year I've had more than a punnets worth.

but the things that have suffered were mostly due to the weather - spuds (rotted in the waterlogged ground), sweet peas & beans (no sun), raspberries (God knows, but didn't get more than 1/2 a dozen berries - and that was with 6 new canes as well - so I cut my losses, chopped the tops off and hopefully all the energy will go into the roots.)

Sunflowers were good though, the flame-red Earthwalker have given us vases of tall stems up to mid September and the Russian Giants went up to this one at 10 foot.....

 

My favourite, though, was this one that gave a stunning show of multiple blooms at the top. I didn't have the heart to cut it, it will be a nice feed for the goldfinches....

a quick word for a great day out we had (once we got through the traffic on the closed M6) was at Ulverston Lantern festival. great processions through the busy streets, accompanied by Salsa bands, carrying our lanterns that culminated in a stunning firework display.

We've already started planning a bigger lantern for next year.