Climate change is effecting everything in the garden

First the good news

OMG - my tulips are flowering on April 2nd.

I just love spring!  I planted these lovely Yellow-with-a-bit-of-Red tulips last year. This means the wonderful early and cheerful burst of yellow flowers that starts with crocus and daffodils, will continue that little bit longer. Hooray.

Now the bad news

The local government that provides my vegetable garden has decided to meter our water. First they measured the amount of water the allotment gardens use, then they banned using a hosepipe for watering. Now we have push button standpipes instead of taps. These mean we gardeners have to stand and push the button in to fill our buckets and watering cans. These taps will be locked in drought conditions.

Seeing these taps is such a sad day in a country where it rains so much! The now private water companies have not invested in ways of storing enough of the free rain to make this unnecessary.

How things are

In my garden I have 14 raised beds, all narrow and long. I can reach across all of the bed from the path and  I don’t need to stand on the soil.

Over the years that I've gardened here, the soil level  in my beds has risen between 4 and 6 inches.

I like this way of gardening. The soil stays open as its not compacted by my boots and I don’t need to dig with a spade.

Instead I can turn the soil easily with a fork. This is much better for the worms (and my back) and doesn't create a break with the subsoil at spade depth (called a pan).

The one downside of gardening like this is that the top few inches and the bed edges dry out very quickly so small plants and seedlings need to be watered more often than with other ways of cultivating the soil.

All change

Now I have to carry my water its harder and slower work. I need to change to a way of gardening that conserves more water otherwise I will spend all my time walking back and fore to the tap.
The first thing to do are:

• Add more organic matter to the soil. The more organic matter contained in the soil, the more it stores water, so my first job is too add loads more compost to the soil. Luckily I was given enough garden waste to make two huge composts last summer. 

Digging out compost from last years now ready pile

• Reduce bed edge evaporation.  I'm removing every other path, which will half the amount of the bed edges and reduce the amount of  dry edges.

First side planks removed and path dug through

• Reduce wind evaporation. I’m going back to the traditional humped bed where the soil at the edge of the bed is more or less the same height as the path and the bed rises towards the middle. This will keep the wind from drying out the soil.

Compost added and height equalised -

Thats my first two beds combined, although I  still have a bit of work to do. The last third needs turning over and I will add a few more loads of compost. Then a good rake and with luck, some rain and it'll be ready for planting.
As soon as its warm enough I'll plant French beans but while I wait for the summer to arrive, I'll plant some quick salad crops.