What a strange year ...

[Odsox]

... this is turning out too be, weather wise that is.

Here along with other places in the British Isles we had a very warm April followed by a very cold May and so far June is no different.
At least we don't have the drought problems that some areas are suffering, but instead we have had a lot of very unseasonal strong winds, very nearly every day for month or more.
That combination of odd weather has had some strange effects in my garden, for instance I have three blackcurrant bushes .. one early season, one middle and one late. In reality it just means the the flowering period is spread over about 3 weeks, 3 bushes - staggered flowering.
This year the early one flowered in April and is now ready to start picking while the late variety is still in flower, in fact it still has unopened flower buds on it.
I have one apple tree that has sizeable fruit on it's lower (sheltered) branches and still has blossom on the top branches.

I'm also awash with pests this year. We actually had some quite severe frost last winter (for here) and I foolishly thought that last year's pests would be killed off, but no .. even more this year than last, plus I have a new one , lettuce root aphid which I had never heard of before. Fairly mature lettuces keel over and when I pulled them up the roots are smothered in tiny greenfly and white powdery stuff.
I Googled it and it gets weirder, that aphid has to spend it's first year in Poplar trees and then migrates to lettuces or their wild equivalent.
I have never seen a Poplar tree within 20 miles of my garden, but they still managed to find my lettuce plants in the centre of TWO different polytunnels.

At least it makes gardening a bit more of a challenge to stop people getting bored by it all.

[Mrs Moustoir]

We've got aphids on our lettuce too and those 'orrible mealy, woolly aphids on the brassicas. Haven't looked too closely at the lettuce ones but we have had the odd plant keel over in the middle of a row. I thought it was just the lack of rain or that a vole or something had munched the roots.

Lots of poplar here though so it could be your lettuce root aphids.

[Green Aura]

Same here Tony - but as we usually get your weather later on it's to be expected I suppose The wind and rain has been as bad as in October!

We're growing as much as we can cram into the polytunnel and apart from the onions and brassicas, which withstood the worst that winter could throw at us, I've still got cold frames on everything else in the raised beds! Which then, of course means watering. But what can you do?

No new bugs, just the usual molloscs trying to munch everything in sight - we've had to resort to slug pellets this year - it's been so wet they're having a field day

[grahamhobbs]

Topsy-turvy it might be but actually I've found the year almost parallels last year. 12 weeks no rain, April very hot like summer, then May reverting to spring going cooler with cold nights (last year also one solid week very cold) with typical March weather of winds followed towards the end of the month and in to June of April showers.

Last year, summer briefly returned towards the end of June, petering out and the beginning of August saw the complete end of summer and the start of Autumn.

[Odsox]

That's odd Graham, last year here was a reasonable year with a proper summer.

Four years running 2006 - 2009 were terrible summers, similar to this year with warm dry March, washout chilly summer and warm dry September & October. For that reason I bought my second tunnel only to have a "normal" summer last year.
This year though has been particularly windy and cold, quite sunny but when the sun goes behind a cloud you realise just how cold it still is.
Last night they forecasted a ground frost further up country, don't know if they actually did, but a frost on 10th of June ?

I think you have had more wind than us Maggie, quite a few of those vicious low pressure systems only clipped us and then headed straight for you.

[JulieSherris]

There actually WAS a touch of frost - ok, not a great deal, but it was there all the same.

Because I was waiting for my polyhouses to be rebuilt, a lot of my planting/sowing got delayed this year.... and it was a good job as well! All of my instincts would usually have had me filling those pots & sowing those seeds at the first sign of sun, but I waited... and although I ended up being a few weeks late, everything usually catches up anyway - at least that's MY theory....

[scrap]

We're having pretty much the same issues,aphid-wise.
Even had those woolly ones on our buxus hedge,never seen those before.
Still,things will even out in the long run I guess...
The ladybugs are having one helluva year

[Millymollymandy]

Well we've just had dry all year since January, March was sunny, April and May were warm and sunny and since Sunday when we put the summer duvet on I've been shivering.

I'm picking cherries a month early, have already frozen 4.8kg of blackcurrants, and strawbs and raspbs were about 3 weeks early. Lots of problems getting anything like pumpkins/squash/courgettes to germinate (tried every which way) so am really behind on those. Have aphids all over the potimarrons which looks really sick (never had that before ) but far fewer black fly on the broad beans which are a foot taller than they normally are. The ladybirds which overwintered here mostly dispersed as soon as they were needed in the garden!

Every year is a challenge here but we still reap the rewards, even though with the water bill to come it would be a lot cheaper to just buy fruit and veg. But actually most of the water goes on my flower beds and fruit.

Oh and this year thank goodness I do not have maize on the north side of my veg patch, but guess which way the prevailing wind is coming from this year instead of from the south/west.