Thanks for all the kind comments on my last posting. After a busy summer of continually emptying the rain gauge, I have found time to turn the computer on again. The bookies have already paid out on the annual rainfall prize - go collect your winnings.

2015	Snab	Brize
January	103.4	65.5
February	22.6	43.9
March	32.2	27.4
April	58.8	20.9
May	55.3	66.2
June	53.2	27.8
July	128.5	63.4
August	75.5	65.4
September	77.4	64.6
2015 to date	606.9	445.1

You may have heard it's been the worst summer in Scotland for 40 years. Ok, July was wet, but taken in isolation July and August were unremarkable. But they came on top of a truly cold and miserable May and June. September was typically lovely apart from two downpours that wrecked the monthly total. As a result, most things have come late this year. If I kept accurate records on these things, I could tell you that my Warwickshire Drooper softened up 30 days later than in the not altogether very special summer of 2014. But with a few exceptions, the harvests keep coming. Roll on the good times...

• Gluts: blueberries, raspberries, plums/greengages/damsons, apples, alpine strawberries, blackcurrants, honeyberries, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, kale, parsnips, basil, eggs, weeds.
• Other notable achievements: grapes, apricots, cherries, flax, oats, spelt, barley and rye.
• Must do better: asparagus, beetroot, carrots, broccoli, strawberries.
• Jury's out: quince, medlar, mulberry, chestnut, hazelnut, goji. 
• No shows: pears, pumpkins, sunflowers, honey, Al Lotment.

The autumn in pictures.

Yard of kale

Stan-dried tomatoes

Free product APLs - soon to be made into a aqueous phase liquids -
(strangely similar in colour to the groundwater in Slough)

I found my thrill...

Marjorie's ripe just as my Drooper's finished

The art of gardening: still life with landscape

The season of infeasible unseasonality

After a spectacular show from the orchard these last few weeks with weather that makes only a rare appearance in July, we have a scene rarely glimpsed in the last two winters. You have to fear for your plums in these circumstances, let alone your rainfall stats. All this on the first blossoming of Al Lotment's sixth decade. Mother Nature has a wry sense of humour.

Flight of Fancy

Here is my highly individual commemoration of Al Lotment's fine half century - a fitting monument, I hope you'll agree: the garden Al Stairs.

It comprises a stone for every day of our hero's existence. Born out of a scruffy environment that no-one knew what to do with, and with limited available resources, it is an impressive structure in its own way, although it has a few ragged edges and so beauty may be in the eye of the beholder.

It performs no great function and doesn't go anywhere, and so would be the perfect route to the upstairs club that such a veteran will surely now take. Global Lead on Soils Reclamation for Human Advancement, perhaps?

And as a gift? Last month's rainfall figures.

	Snab	Brize
January	103.4	65.5
February	22.6	43.9
March	32.2	27.4
2015 to date	158.2	136.8

Quinquennium Quiz

After last year's figures were quietly washed into the septic tank, the rain stats can now be brought back by popular demand since the dry (windy) season has started in earnest. Hopefully, a less soggy denouement this year...

	Snab	Brize		Snab	Brize
November	65.7	85.8	January	103.4	65.5
December	119.9	54.8	February	22.6	43.9
2014 total	916.4	835.0	2015 to date	126.0	109.4

Time flies on the plot, and can you believe it? - we've reached the fifth anniversary of the cutting of the first sod - and five years of comments from cutting sods. Progress has been slow yes, but, if you stop and reflect, it's possible to see the changes we have wrought. To join in the celebrations, in the absence of anything else to report, see if you can match the March 2010 photos (A to C) with their 2015 counterparts.

A

X

B

Y

C

Z

Answers in five years time.