Working with the weather

[nickdub]

You always hear the English, gardeners in particular, discussing the weather and rightly so, just because we have the blandest weather in the world doesn't mean we should give up our hereditary rights to moan about it.

Last night we had a good soaking of rain here, so this morning I've taken the opportunity to do a bit of planting out, well the ground is damp - I sowed some Californian annuals in a container a couple of months ago, now they are big enough to go outside.

Of course you may not have had rain where you live, but my point is a bit wider than that. Certain periods of weather lend themselves to certain gardening jobs. So if you are having a long dry spell, that's a good time to tackle a weedy patch of ground by chopping up the soil somehow, as the weeds will find it harder to re-root themselves or to do some hoeing among your crops, for a similar reason.

Anyway back to work now - Happy gardening :-)

[Cadalot]

I look at the weather forecast and plan my week then my work load and the weather forecast completely changing in less than 10 hours from when I looked has lead me to a ethic of do what you can when you can!.

[Nicos]

I like to weed after it's rained here cos they pull out more easily.
Hoe when it's hot and sunny so they dry up.

Suppose it depends on your soil type?
When we had a peat based plot it was great doing the first weed of the Spring when the top 3cm were frozen-you could easily take off the frozen layer, weeds included, turn it over and create a pile to rot down.
Couldn't do that here!

[Thelma Sanders]

Soil here is like concrete right now, it's really not possible to plant anything out and I can't even get a fork in to lift the last of the winter parsnips.
We aren't getting any rain to speak of, had a couple of sprinkles that darkened the surface, but not enough to soak in
So yes I will continue to moan about weather's unpredictability, it would be wonderful to live somewhere where seasonal weather is totally predictable.

So far this year - Mild winter weather, then Beast from East, then very wet, then nice and warm, but dry, then back to very cold again for time of year but still mostly dry, now nice and warm but still mostly dry. I really can't remember such a weird start to the gardening year

[chris_m]

So far this year - Mild winter weather, then Beast from East, then very wet, then nice and warm, but dry, then back to very cold again for time of year but still mostly dry, now nice and warm but still mostly dry. I really can't remember such a weird start to the gardening year

Nor could my overwintering Japanese Senshyu Onions - which have all bolted

At least the overwintering Troy ones haven't - yet

[Greenleaves]

I base my week on Penellype's forecasts. You can keep the TV and various weather websites as I find Pen far more reliable

[Nicos]

She is for me too !

[boatsman]

Here the rains have stopped. We won't be getting any until about October. To compensate for that people who have gardens generally have a computerized watering system. Sunshine is normal here; it's standard in all buildings to have hot water from heat exchange panels on the roof. Nowadays most schools have installations on the roof to generate electricity from the sun that is fed into the national electricity grid

[nickdub]

The English would be in despair if we had weather like that here - 90% of the material for conversation gone at a single stroke - all that guaranteed sunshine, enough to drive anybody bonkers :-)

[Thelma Sanders]

I really wouldn't mind if sunshine was guaranteed, as long as I could afford to run air con, I could deal with the heat as well

[nickdub]

Bare in mind that if this happened in England we'd probably run out of water in about 8 weeks, as almost everyone uses tons more than they really need. :-)

[Thelma Sanders]

Bare in mind that if this happened in England we'd probably run out of water in about 8 weeks, as almost everyone uses tons more than they really need. :-)

We really shouldn't be using drinking water to flush the toilet. New houses should be built with rain water collection for loo flushing rather than just letting the rain run off into sewers

[nickdub]

Quite - I think the government's finally catching on that we are setting up a potentially nightmare shortage for ourselves, especially in the S.E. - better late than never I suppose.

[chris_m]

We really shouldn't be using drinking water to flush the toilet. New houses should be built with rain water collection for loo flushing rather than just letting the rain run off into sewers

When I don't need it for the garden that's what happens to the rain that my water butts collect