Summer's coming

[ina]

Summers gone - first frost this morning but only light; daytime temps dropping below 20-C. The cold, "lazy" winds are here - they are the ones that are too lazy to blow around you so go straight through

Sounds like our weather! "Heatwave" here - I think it got as high as 17 today...

[Green Aura]

Well, outside you'd think the summer's been and gone. It's more like November than May at the minute. Cold, wet and windy.

Indoors, however, is a different story. We've got lush herbs and salad in the hydroponics, tomatoes starting to ripen, buds on the chillies are starting to open and the calamondins are in full flower and smell lovely.

Oh, and the central heating is on.

[Flo]

It's sort of raining which is good as the high wind and sun has caused drought conditions here. Whether the rain will amount to much or whether it's out hosepipe even so tomorrow is another matter.

If the wind would drop, the summer sun and showers would happen then the allotments would be more willing to look fruitful.

[Weedo]

I think we are having an extended "Auter". Only few days from the "official" start of winter and Autumn is determined to hang on. Some trees have only just turned colour. the roses are madly blooming (should be ready to prune by now) Rhubarb and annual herbs are still acively growing and the early winter brassicas and onions are taking off (hopefully not straight into seeding as some of the feral brassicas are now). Rain is coming on the drip feed system; 2 - 4 mm every few days but enough to at least match the evapotranspiration rate.

[KathyLauren]

May so far has been cold and wet. We struggle to get one sunny day in a row. When I was griping about the weather earlier, my wife said not to worry, by the end of May, all the leaves will be out on the trees. NOT!! There are buds everywhere, but their development has been stalled. Almost nothing has open leaves yet.

Our lilac bush, only two years old, was covered in flower buds. It would have been quite a show. But nothing has developed. We think the flower buds will abort due to lack of development. That's what happened last year.

Grrrr! @#$% climate change!

[Odsox]

You know that summer is on it's way when the tomatoes start ripening.
These are Gardener's Ecstasy, new to me, and are the first to ripen out of the other 23 varieties.

The weather over the last month has been reasonable for the way I grow. The wind in the north for most of the time means sunny weather here on the peninsula, but not very warm and with frequent showers. All the greenhouse stuff are quite happy as are the tunnel veg, with the exception of the squash and sweetcorn.
Outside the maincrop peas and potatoes love the cooler weather anyway, and are really looking lush. Unlike this time last year when it was too hot and dry.
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[Weedo]

It seems winter has finally arrived - alternating mornings of fog and light frost and temps down to min 1c to max 10c. Still no decent rain but shallow soil moisture is keeping everything going.

[Odsox]

It seems winter has finally arrived

It seems summer has possibly arrived here, just in time for the summer solstice.
Nothing extraordinary, just pleasant sunshine.
This is what I have to endure through our sitting room window on days like this.
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[Green Aura]

Not here it hasn't.

[Weedo]

Tough life Odsox!

[KathyLauren]

Summer was last week. (I hope I'm exaggerating!) Now that the solstice is here, summer is over. We had torrential rain yesterday.

[Weedo]

First heavy freezing frost yesterday, up has high as the top of the lemon trees - water troughs etc. frozen over, icicles hanging from taps and Turbo buried into a hole in the ground. Time to shift a few plants, break up the rhubarb etc.