Reservoir now half empty, never been this empty.
There is not a moments peace just at the moment, we all of us in Europe, seem to be crashing from one crisis to another. The Ukrainian situation unresolved, we have all moved into a weather crisis not dissimilar to 1976. At this moment probably not as bad as 1976, in that year we had no food for the cows and we had to drive up into the Blackpool area to buy hay, the rain eventually arrived on Romsey Show day with thunder storms.We are having to feed the cows winter rations but we did carry some forward from last year, so nothing going to waste.
In 1995 we installed a 25 million litre reservoir for the irrigation of the vegetables, and have never used more than half the water, however this year, with another three weeks of needing water for Runner Beans and Courgette, we are going to be pushed to the limit, we are going to need a really wet winter to put things right.
Runner beans don’t enjoy this very hot weather, they are happier with a normal English summer, but the courgette and sweetcorn look fine and should survive. Pumpkin, are under pressure and going to be small, don’t expect monster pumpkin this year, they are not there.
The Great Taste awards give us a 2 Star gold for Old Winchester and a 1 Star Gold for Stoney Cross, a nice little bonus for August.
