Rain, rain go away

It was all going so well. Ok, so a bit behind intended schedule what with Mrs D being in hospital earlier in the year, but quite happy with progress really. Showed off the allotment to a group of people on the local organic gardening course on Monday night - didn't get home 'til gone 10pm! - and thought must pop down to pick the strawberry crop (all three of them!) in a day or two.

Pretty much since mid afternoon Tuesday it has been raining. But I was passing the site today on the way to the local farm shop, so I thought I'd just check to see if the strawberries had survived... The lane the plot is on was a river! I was no exaggeration to say that thousands of gallons of water were pouring off the hill (presumably having passed through numerous other allotments) and down the lane. Sadly most of this appeared to be flowing into our allotment...

Most of the left hand side of the allotment was being flooded, completely water logging the peas, beans and potatoes. Some of the onions and shallots didn't look so good, but the water was draining away or had found a definite channel by then. It was collecting nicely in the two new ponds/swimming pools where the play area and old greenhouse used to be.

I was truly shocked at the sheer amount of water there and went back this afternoon with the camera to capture this, and see if there was anything I could do. On the plus side there was a lot less water. Don't get me wrong there was still far more than you'd ever want to see running down your allotment...

I took a few photos, which don't really show just how much water there is.

The lane our plot is on:


The view through the 'gate':


There used to be beans and sweet peas here:


Attempting to divert some to the water tank - i.e. making the best of a bad day:


Looking on the positive side, the site is on the side of a mountain so it drains well, so fingers crossed...