[Odin]

Apologies for ones absence, not that I have had anything positive to contribute regarding the growing of vegetables this year, which in essence is the 'raison de etre' of this site.
The year started out positive and from there on went down hill. I had a brilliant offer of help from a Polish lass, Mariella, whom is married to a disabled English lad. She has had a cancer scare and blames it on chemicals in food? (rightly or wrong, whom am I to question). They brought Polish veg to plant in furrows that I had ploughed with the agreement that they would do the general weeding and hoeing, brilliant. Everything was growing, we were on top of the weeds, then the rain kept coming. Then Mariella has had a re-lapse of the dreaded 'C' and I have not seen or heard from her since June.
Then the slugs and snails, the veg could not get growing through lack of warmth, more rain, the weeds loved it. Very busy at work struggling for time and then by mid August, I went down there to look at the struggling green canopy and it just looked as if the Yanks had Napalmed it! Dead black vegetation with healthy weeds. Blight , what a surprise after the spells of rain, sun, rain, sun, rain. 


I have started lifting my spuds, some small ones have survived but most are rotting in the ground. I have some salad blues that are a blue/purple colour right through when cooked. Unfortunately I have lifted less that planted.
On the positive side, I have got pally with a farmer who grows his own veg and is interested in doing a bit more on a larger scale with my tackle. A local shop has also told me that they will take as many onions and garlic as I can grow ?? Does God love a 'tryer' ? is the question.    Soldier On. 

[fairhaven]

What a nightmare.. I can only say that I hope things pick up... But yes.. All you can do is soldier on.

 My veg plots are small scale compared to your set up but not one of my crops has come to anything this year (Except courgettes but not all of the kids will eat them!)  So I'm back to buying veg for a few months again.  After so much work & time put in only to have nothing to show for it is dis-heartening, But here's to downing a good strong coffee & picking up the garden fork ready to face misfortune on the field... (Could do with an icon for this really!)
 

[Fleecewife]

....and next year WILL be better.....
 
Actually it probably won't - supposedly the ice caps are melting much faster than predicted, thus moving the jet stream south and dragging in plenty of Atlantic lows.   So wetter for us here, especially in the northern half of GB.
 
Because of some recent dry years in England, many veg varieties seem to have been developed for coping with drought.  Well, whatever is drought ? - we certainly haven't seen any here in the south of Scotland   
 
So do you think we should be assuming that every year from now on will be cool and wet, therefore we should be growing wet tolerant veggies rather than plodding on fighting the inevitable?
 
If we do that, what are the best veg varieties to grow ?

[Lesley Silvester]

Personally, I don't understand how global warming means it's been colder.  We were told that we would have a more Mediterranean climate.  When I was at school, that was Warm, wet winters and hot, dry summers.  I'm still waiting.

[Womble]

If we do that, what are the best veg varieties to grow ?

How about rice? 

[Beewyched]

Hiya Odin - welcome back 
I really thought we were on to something with the rice idea, but there's no way we get enough sunlight/warmth in the uk to grow it outside - wet enough though 

[Fleecewife]

Personally, I don't understand how global warming means it's been colder.  We were told that we would have a more Mediterranean climate.  When I was at school, that was Warm, wet winters and hot, dry summers.  I'm still waiting.

It's no longer called 'Global Warming' but is now 'Climate Change' which is more accurate.
 
Overall the World temp is rising, so the ice caps are melting.   This speeds up as it happens because areas which have been white and reflective ie ice/snow are now dark ie bare exposed rock, and absorb light and heat (the albido effect).   So the more ice that melts, the faster the temp increases and more ice melts.
 
Because of the melting ice and higher temps at the poles, the Jet Stream - which governs our temperate maritime weather - is pushed further south.  In the summer it is normally centred somewhere over Britain and brings in air from the Azores on its south side, and from the north Atlantic on its north side.  As it waggles around it would sometimes bring 'warm wet westerlies' all over Britain, sometimes just to Scotland and sometimes it would bring up High pressure from the Azores and give us our haymaking weather.    Now that it is keeping more to the south of Britain, we are getting far more wet weather, and rarely any prolonged High pressure sunshine.
 
I think this has caught out some of the climate change predictors who hadn't allowed for the albido effect, although it's been known about for as long as climate change has been researched.
 
As well as Mediterranean weather we have also been promised a return of the Ice Age when the North Atlantic Drift (which is a sea current bringing warmer water to us from around the West Indies in a majestic sweep around the Atlantic) stops as a result of the warmer oceans towards the poles.  The North Atlantic Drift usually keeps the west coast of Britain quite warm and wet, and keeps our whole island slightly warmer than one might expect from our latitude.   But if it stops then we can expect temps more in keeping with how far north we are.