Flooding, Greenhouses and Rose Arches

Just been up to the allotment to find that some of the localised thunderstorms we have been having localised themselves directly over the Nesserlaan! Gah!

I took some pictures. First here is the flooding:



This area of the garden has consistently flooded. I have two options here as I see it. I can move the sitting area from the other side of the garden down to here and have a squishy sitting area or I can raise the beds by importing a whole lot of sand and soil and improving the drainage. I'm leaning toward the first option purely because it will be simpler to have the chairs and table at the entrance where I can put all my things down as I enter the garden.

Also, I won't be able to leave my mobile phone lying under a pile of branches on the table at the end of the garden and completely forget it, like I did two weeks ago, and only remember that it was lost once it had started raining!

We put up an archway for the thornless blackberries and will be planting a climbing rose, one of the David Austin ones, to keep the blackberries company. My idea was to make a wider path, which sort of stepped sideways into a patio area to cover the flooded area. I could put my potplants in that section too.

Here's the archway:



See the flooding on the pathway too?

I also bought some portable greenhouses that were a special offer at the Lidl. My neighbour spotted them in the Lidl newsletter and called me to take a look. At 25 euros each they are quite sturdy with a metal frame and a plastic cover. They have windows on three sides so you can open the plastic to allow the air to circulate. Inside the plastic is another zipped netting area which forms the window. These are they:



They are placed at right angles to cover the beds of ailing tomatoes and protect them from the wind and storms that are expected the next few days. When they are used properly they will be placed over beds that are the same dimensions as them so that they can easily be moved from one to another.

I think these will be perfect for next year for my tomatoes, sweet peppers and a melon plant. The plastic should keep any blight away from the plants and the whole structure will keep wind damage to a minimum. I'll be able to use the greenhouses to protect early crops from the birds too, like my peas and early lettuces.

Water misery ....

My garden was underwater for about a week.

In the one half where I have raised beds the water was able to drain away more easily, but the other half is still completely soaked and the earth has started to smell terrible as it rots.

The potatoes were in that area and they became infected with potato blight, so between the smell of the wet ground and the rotten potatoes it's terrible!

The potatoes, cauliflower, kohlrabi and lettuce are a loss. Luckily I took my shallots and onions out before the flooding and, although small, they are adequate. The tomato plants are struggling along. No blight on them, but they look very unhappy - a sickly yellow colour.

Leeks and carrots are ok. Beans and sweetpeas (lathyrus) are drowned.

The only plants that really seem to like the water are the gemsquash (Rolet) which are clambering everywhere. They are more vigorous than the butternut squash which are also struggling to keep up with the water damage. The fruit trees and bushes have done extraordinarily well with a ten kilo harvest from my plum tree and several kilos from the berry bushes. The plums were early and the apples look as though they will also be early.

Today I plan to put black semi-porous sheeting under my butternuts so that they can grow across the sheeting without the leaves rotting. Hopefully it will make a difference.