On 23/08/2011 10:33, michael wrote:
I am surprised not to hear about lack of rain in gardens/allotments
this year.There was a lot of comment on the BBC weather news earlier
this year when the SE and E were threatened with drought,but now that
they have had some rain,it is not thought to be newsworthy when other
regions are suffering.

Dunno which regions are suffering. We had over two inches of rain last
week here in North Yorkshire. I will be growing webbed feet soon!

I know about two microclimates-one in S.Manchester where there has
been some rain occasionally but nothing more than half an hour of
light rain.Crops on my allotment are not doing well and are drying up
before cropping even after some watering.Dwarfing rootstock (M27)apple
trees are producing small early fruit with not much flavour.

I have apples almost ripe now and some splitting - I suspect because of
last weeks rain. They are usually ripe a few weeks later.

And remember the incredibly early glut of strawberries this year...

The second area I know about is S.Herefordshire where I have a cider
apple orchard.Here there has been even less rainfall-essentially none
since March.The orchard grass has completely burnt off and three trees
(medium sized) have already died with their apples smaller than table
tennis ball size.All fields around are totally brown-sunflower crops
locally are about 9" tall only and it is a serious drought condition.I
am sure that the water table has dropped dramatically and we will need
some very heavy winter rain for it to recover.
I would be interested to know whether I am unlucky to have two small
microclimates without rain,or whether it is a more widespread
phenomenon.
Michael

I think you are just unlucky. We could use a bit more sunshine up here.
Grey and cloudy but not actually raining at the moment...

Regards,
Martin Brown