Have the seasons gone wrong?

[novice cushie shooter]

Out walking the dog and there are packs of swallows fluttering around aand skeins and skeins of geese high above.its wonderful but a bit weird, are we losing autumn and going straight to winter? Even my peas are still flowering!

[scotslad]

Never mind losing autumn we're still waiting on bloody SUMMER up here, went straight from spring into winter.

 

Now tends to be 8-10 months of drizzle with possibly cold month and a warm/hot month. Seasons have changed a lot in last 30 years

[islandgun]

Spring growth was at least a month late , but trees are holding on to the leaves longer now, worst summer in anyone's memory

[kennett]

Lovely autumn so far down here, slight grass frost first thing with a little mist, clearing to fine mild days. Swallows are still here and when you look along the hedges and woods they have lost the vivid greens of mid summer and taking on autumn colours. Not long till Nov 7th, can taste the sloe gin already!

[secretagentmole]

Spring growth was at least a month late , but trees are holding on to the leaves longer now, worst summer in anyone's memory

No I can remember some really bad summers in the 1980's, worse than this! Grey, cold and wet, camping in Cornwall was not fun!

[islandgun]

No I can remember some really bad summers in the 1980's, worse than this! Grey, cold and wet, camping in Cornwall was not fun!

I'm talking about for the Hebrides ! cold grey and wet has been the norm

[Blackpowder]

Spring growth was at least a month late , but trees are holding on to the leaves longer now, worst summer in anyone's memory

Same with us in the Borders, right into May there was not enough cover for ground nesting birds to hide clutches from crows. Still quite a bit of wheat and spring barley to combine also along with field beans a slow start with everything.

 

Blackpowder

[novice cushie shooter]

I noticed a fair few wheat fields still needing cut. Not great.

[sako751sg]

Still loads to cut here and the fruits are very late in ripening too.

Worst summer i have known and the insects this year have been at huge numbers probably due to the last 2 very mild winters.

Be fine if the seasons were in order but we seem to have them any day of the year.

[grrclark]

There are more slugs this year than I have ever seen. Walking the dogs at night time I reckon there were 10 - 20 slugs every square metre on the areas of mown grass, a bit less in the last week or so, but still loads of them. Only seen a couple of hedgehogs this year too.

 

Although September has been drier than average in my part of the world, August was a little wetter than average and July was almost twice the average for rainfall and it has been persistently cool and grey. A real miserable summer and not enough sunshine to develop natural sugars in veg or fruits so a rotten summer for farmers and growers.

[Scully]

One of the local landowners reckons that due to the cold wet spell we had following what we thought was an early spring his winter barley struck twice and there is still spring barley to cut on another.

Had seen very few butterflies on our Buddleia until very late Summer, but already the grass has stopped growing. Have seen no Sloes at all but the Damsons are out, helluva crop of apples on my tree and on others locally, the Swallows are gone and have spotted two Hedgehogs recently, the first I've seen for a few years.

Some of the women in my art group (Blue rinse club) were complaining their garden fruit and veg' were going to do nothing this year as they were so late, and now all have said they're having bumper harvests.

It'll all sort itself out eventually.

[norfolk dumpling]

Been a funny year so far in Norfolk - quite a dry summer although we've had a couple of days where a months rain was dumped in one day. We've not had many warm evenings where you can sit outside into darkness however and SWMBO commented only yesterday not had a night where too hot to keep the covers on. Autumn however starting really nice. A few warm days this week and nearly all fruit tress cropping heavily. Getting slightly fed up with figs, pears, raspberries and windfall apples. Loads in freezer. Lots of sloes and damsons. Daily Express I see predicting a dire winter so should be a mild one!

[clumber]

Swallows arrived nearly a month late and have gone on to have two broods. 6 in the first and, hopefully should fledge this week, three in the second.

A late hard frost killed off the apple blossom so only had a few. To go with the Law of Sod, loads of blackberries this time so I'll have to buy apples in for the B&A crumble.

Very little blossom with the plums also this year so not that many, cut back two trees so hopefully should get new growth on next year.

[Blackpowder]

There are more slugs this year than I have ever seen. Walking the dogs at night time I reckon there were 10 - 20 slugs every square metre on the areas of mown grass, a bit less in the last week or so, but still loads of them. Only seen a couple of hedgehogs this year too.

 

 

Ben a nightmare on the allotment, hard to believe that something so small could devour so much. On the plus side few cabbage white butterflies. It may not have been much of a summer but salmon angling on Tweed tributaries has suffered two small rises of water in mid-May when I managed a spring run fish both times. Both fresh and sea liced but returned under Tweed Rules, roll on rain from the north east and get some spate water in the Whiteadder.

 

Blackpowder

[novice cushie shooter]

Not many sloes here either, blossom was blown early. Cracking warm day today.gutted am away on work business or would have been a great day on the kayak.