Page 8 - Simply Veg 4 2022

The British love nothing more than to talk about the weather and this year
has been no exception, I hope the hot weather has been to your liking and
that you have still managed to harvest some good crops for the kitchen and exhibiting. Listening to the weather forecast each day it does not appear
that the whole of the U.K has had the same heat wave and parts of northern England, Scotland and Ireland have had a reasonable amount of rain. We have had some very high temperatures here in the south of England and in Hampshire we have a hosepipe ban starting tomorrow (5th August) and one due
to start in Kent next Friday and South Wales in a fortnight with more forecast during August if it stays dry which is the forecast. I keep hearing of heavy rain and even thunderstorms, but they have passed by this area although some areas have had a drop of rain.
My water butts have been empty for three weeks now and watering is getting to be a bit of a chore, I need to set up some sort of semi-automatic irrigation system or grow less in containers. The soil is bone dry, the lawn straw coloured but so far, most perennials and shrubs are green and healthy. In fact, the Asparagus is thriving
and now over 2m tall and I did not have any organic matter to mulch it this year! Where I planted some small vegetables from modules both on the allotment and
in the garden have died owing to lack of water, normally I just need to water them in, and they are OK. As there is no water at the allotments many crops are struggling, the early sown crops like peas
by onion downy mildew, a disease of wet weather / climates so why have my onions got it this year? At least it will be a low blight year as it is too dry for blight!
In the greenhouses and polytunnel the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers are cropping well although later than normal owing to the cooler spring which held
Kelvin’s Comments
gave a good harvest and
the Maincrop potatoes are
growing well. Interestingly
the runner and French
beans have continued to
grow even without water
but have not started to
flower much yet; hopefully,
I can get a late crop from
them if we get some rain.
The carrots, beetroot, fennel,
chard, and spinach which were direct drilled at the allotment just before the start of the dry period did not even germinate and it is getting too late to re-sow now. Depending on when the rains come, I may try a late crop. The sweet corn is growing but only half the size it normally is, and this is a crop from the hot dry areas of South America!
I was rather annoyed on one of my visits to the allotment to find the onions attacked
them back a bit. I am now picking all three and living on salads at least that keeps the energy cost down as no cooking! Good for my health and carbon footprint!
Going back to the weather if anyone had any doubts that climate change is happening, I think this year will prove it is and will show the type of weather
we may get more of in the future and we need to get used to the effects it is causing in the U.K. These types of summers will become more frequent and possible even hotter. We all need to reduce our carbon footprint and energy use, at least that is one of the good things that could come
out of the current energy crisis if it makes people reduce their use of fossil fuels. We need to do more as we cannot rely on our politicians to take action as at best they just talk, mention a policy but no action; their heads seem to be stuck up somewhere unmentionable! That’s my rant for the day, well at least the next hour!
As vegetable and fruit growers we need to consider what we need to do to ensure we can continue to produce sufficient
food to feed the family regardless of the weather. Over winter look at any changes you ought to make like getting more water butts, changing the timings of sowing, may be earlier to beat the dry weather, look
at efficient irrigation systems like porous hose, or drip systems, make more use of mulches, add more organic matter to the soil (to hold water), reduce cultivations. Over the next few years, it is likely we will need to modify our growing methods to continue to produce harvestable crops. We need to look at what growers in the South of France, Spain and California do and what techniques they use. I can see Californian gardening books becoming popular in the U.K! The easy option at present is to install as many water butts
or tanks as possible, try to obtain any
As there is no water at the allotments many crops are struggling
8 Simply Vegetables
KELVIN MASON, NATIONAL MAGAZINE EDITOR