Beating our weird weather/seasons in 2013

[SarzWix]

So, our weather/seasons have gone weird. This might be here to stay, so how are we going to beat, or get round it?

Assuming that we get a similar pattern to last year, and the year before, we should be in for a sunny early spring with daytime temps getting quite high, but plummeting overnight. Then just as we get ready to plant out things that don't like frost, in come the grey skies and rain again, and nothing grows very quickly at all.

So, I'm wondering about sowing things earlier than usual and getting them out there in the sun with plenty of frost protection overnight, and see if I can steal a march on the weather. Anyone else thinking along those lines? If we combine ideas and experiments, we might be able to devise a way to cope? Also, ways of avoiding waterlogged soil, and any other ideas we can come up with to beat the weather...

[kathycam]

I guess good drainage across the plot would help. We have "gutters" at either side to collect and slow water and luckily our neighbour dug a drain run across the end of ours, so most the water from the slope misses us. The beds are semi raised, so water isn't too big a deal. I guess start things early and put them under fleeces like you say, and multiple sowings. Last year I did end up ordering in seedlings to fill the gaps. (was my first year)

[VirginVegGrower]

I too have been giving this thought but despite doing this last year I ended up with both a potato and a tomato failure in 2012, despite my early starts. I'm going to spread out the sowing this year I think, which I never normally do, hedge my bets and record what worked as I reckon in years to come I will need to refer. We could be in for a very cold winter if you follow the old wive's tales of all the loaded berry trees/plants. Although anyone noticing night time temps nudging up again? It's the inconsistent state that I think the plants can't cope with.

[SarzWix]

Last year I kept my toms in small pots for far, far too long whilst getting the tunnel up, and that definitely didn't help - they were in the greenhouse from quite early on, with a double layer of fleece and I only lost half a dozen to the frost. So I'll be doing that again, but keeping up with the potting on, and hopefully they'll be a pretty good size before the sun disappears.

Slugs were a massive problem, so I'll be putting the 'organic' slug pellets out before I plant anything out, and giving nematodes a go if I can afford them.

I've got quite a lot of cloche hoops, so I need to check if I have enough polythene for them all, and make use of them to dry out and warm the soil a bit before planting things a bit earlier than I normally would.

And lastly, in the beds that have poor drainage, I'm going to dig in some sand, and some pea gravel to improve it a bit.

[Alison]

The best thing I find for avoiding food gaps is to do a few sowings of lots of different things, that way even if one type gets caught, you've still got other varieties which may cope better. Hedging bets and all that and I've found it works well over the years.

[bearded bloke]

I hope to avoid the water-logging problem now I am entirely in raised beds with soil min 8" above ground level.
I got an end of season blowaway & put some cut in half blue barrels in it to grow spuds in,hopefully avoid/reduce blight that way.
Need to sort hoops & fleece for the aliums as deffo got the miner problem here now

[Andromeda]

Raised beds were a crop saver...no doubt about it.
I caged and meshed/fleeced/polythened everything - thus giving protection against the hail we kept having and the various beasties that would have munched my veg
I'm lucky enough to have a huge amount of gh space so I potted on for longer than I normally would have done.
Successional sowing was also key.

The thing is though, we can only do so much...if we don't get warmth and sun we won't get good crops irrespective of what we do.

[Thelma Sanders]

I got one of these


for christmas so will grow some small tomatoes in that and hopefully avoid blight.
I noticed that the plants under debris netting did better than those under more open netting (perhaps the DN gave a bit more protection?) so will get some more of that

[binley100]

As organic slug sweeties seemed to attract them I shall try sprinkling them on the paths around the beds rather than on them....

Thelma , I've noticed that dn seems to keep things more sheltered as well .......

[bearded bloke]

Debris netting also makes excellent wind break fencing around the veg patch

[Aberdeenplotter]

I'm going to be an ostrich and stick my head in the sand and hope that last year's weather was exceptional and won't be repeated. That said, i'll be looking to see how the folks that are following Sarz's lead get on because it could well be the way we all need to go in future.

[Florence Fennel]

Slugs and snails (in deference to Alison) were more of a problem for me last year than the weather, I have really good drainage and most of my beds are raised. I began to despair at the amount of young plants I lost to the slimy creatures, so this year I'm saving all my egg shells in a jar (that did help just a bit), but I'm also going to splash out on some nematodes to see how it goes. Anybody know where to buy the cheapest?

[SarzWix]

Plants by Post are showing as the cheapest at the moment, but, it's not available to order yet. Nemaslug Slug Killer Nematodes: 40m2, 100m2 and Nemaslug Programmes.

[Florence Fennel]

Thanks very much Sarz Save me sharpening the scissors.

[chris]

Indeed, Nemasys released a press statement I believe saying that due to the exceptionally wet weather, they ran out of stocks and were actively trying to rebuild up supplies before releasing it for sale again (nemaslug anyway).

I got mine cheap off amazon last season. I also found that a small pack treated much more than the quoted area. I did my plot twice with it (though it is only half a plot, but split into beds).

I'll definitely be using it from now on, even if I have to bulk store it.

Sarz, I'd have thought with your grow lights your plants will have a bit of an edge in terms of growth anyway.. I'm going to take leaf out of Potty's book and feed for growth, as well as fruit/flower production - it's working for him in pots, so if mine are in the ground then with the added ability to draw water when required as well I'm hoping that's going to work.. That's not because of the weather though, I've watched his posts for the last couple of years and wanted to try it