Rain

[ideasguy]

I never thought I'd say this, but we had a very welcome deluge of rain overnight (accompanied by thunder and lightning)
Up until now, we seem to have ducked the showers which fell in other parts of the province.

I left containers out in anticipation to measure the fall and I've recorded a good 2ins 

When we were in Manchester last week, we could see the grass had shrivelled, much worse than at home (here in Ireland).
It must be pretty bad in the South of England.

Its a long time since our soil was so hard. Ive been out this morning weeding - its much easier today

[Eric Hardy]

Woke up to find it had rained here too during the night. It's hard to know how much, it's dried off a lot now. It is the first rain we have had on the garden since the beginning of the month.

On Tuesday we were driving home and had just about 1 1/2 miles to go when the heavens opened. It rained so hard that I had to pull in and wait because the windscreen wipers weren't coping. After a couple of minutes I was able to move off and imagine our surprise to find our garden bone dry, it hadn't reached here.

Eric H

[ideasguy]

Yes, its quite localised Eric. I can imagine you are very pleased your garden finally got a good watering!

[NightHawk]

Haven't had too much rain here.

Started about 3am this morning and rained steadily until around 7.30am.

Skies cleared and it's been sunny and dry since then.  Quite a cool wind too, which brings welcome relief to the sweltering temperatures we've been getting.

The rain wasn't heavy or prolonged enough to give the garden a good watering though.  Still have to manually water the plants in the meantime, and the grass is looking a bit brown in places through lack of water.  Don't really want to put the hose or sprinkler on it just yet, even though we don't have a hose-pipe ban in force here.

[ideasguy]

Yes, there was no mention of hosepipe bans, rather surprisingly.
We should be OK here for a while! I guess the reservoirs are filling up again after those downpours.

[barryl]

we had two lots of heavy rain in Cambridge; Monday/Tuesday night (2am onwards) with lots of thinder and lightening, and a deluge last night (wednesday/thursday) starting about 4pm.

[ideasguy]

Your gardens should be well watered Barry.

My garden has softened up real quick! Hopefully we will have some sunshine to make the plants thrive.
Busy harvesting Tomatoes, Raspberries, Blackcurrants, Peas and pulled a few beans (not quite big enough yet but very tasty).
Also pulled some Beetroot, Carrots and Parsnips. They are doing really well this year.

[Eric Hardy]

Busy harvesting Tomatoes, Raspberries, Blackcurrants,

We were doing the same, yesterday, George. The blackcurrants are particularly good hanging like bunches of miniature grapes. We adopt a method learned from Anthea's parents years ago; I prune out the old wood then we sit comfortably on garden chairs in the sunlight stripping the currants into containers. The raspberries are tasty but on the small side, I think they needed the rain. The deepfreeze's soft fruit department is beginning to fill up 
The redcurrents are next. The tomatoes are not quite ripe enough for harvesting yet. We don't do root crops but we have been enjoying the perpetual spinach. Eating it within a few minutes of it being picked it tastes delicious. The runner beans are still in flower having had that setback when the muntjacs ate the first lot.

Eric H

[Palustris]

What's rain?

The amount we have had this month I could spit more!