Dry - or it Could Be Wet

Five or six years ago every gardening section of the Sundays and every green-fingered programme on TV here would feature ways to prepare your patch for drought. Experts would suggest plants that needed little water, come up with methods of saving the few drops that fell from the skies, and visit sun-drenched lands for insights into dealing with dryness.

Since then it has poured down every bloody summer. Much of the rest of the year too.

It is not just the domestic gardener who is suffering of course, commercial growers have had poor yields: wheat crops too wet to cut; drowned fields of cabbages and carrots; orchards whose blossom and the hope of a harvest has washed away.

The upshot for us is that we're wondering about a polytunnel again. Not for the allotment, as sadly they offer too tempting a target for vandals who think slashing the plastic while nobody is around is the height of daring. They are not things of beauty, but we love growing our own food, and maybe could camouflage it to avoid it being seen from the house, our garden being helpfully long.

It is the second half of May, and we already worry that this year's harvest will be poor. Nature has a way of fighting back, but if the cold weather - we lit a fire yesterday and it was very welcome - and the daily rain continue then potatoes and strawberries will rot again, courgettes struggle to get started, and salads look bruised and battered.

British weather is seeing higher peaks and lower troughs, the extreme weather events of newsroom cliche. Given the choice I'd prefer dry to drown though.

Barbecue Summers and Dire Winters

It was alarming this morning to hear that several weather forecast companies (now there's a gig - I predict it will rain in Preston next week - that'll be £1000 please) are expecting a very harsh winter. Then I remembered these are probably the same people who assured us a year ago that 2010 would see a barbecue summer.

Strangely I feel rather drawn to the idea of a harsh winter, selfish though that is, as I love the cheerful cosiness of eating in a room with a wood-burner throwing light and heat about the place. We have bought some of our winter log supply, and half of Sunday was spent sawing up two fallen branches from one of the apple trees. Odd how the wood smells of apples, distinctly so. Those logs are now in the greenhouse drying out, there is precious little plant life beyond a big tarragon plant competing for the space.

Economic doom and gloom that sometimes gets to depressive depths, and food inflation running way ahead of the general level, is nudging me to lay in a load of tins and other keepable stuff, may as well invest the money in such stores as see it lose value in the bank. I am reminded of just such a suggestion on the bloody awful Nationwide in the Seventies. And if the world spirals into total economic meltdown we will be able to have tomato ragu and various bean dishes. Add indispensible olive oil to the list then.