So is the glass really half full or really half empty or about to shatter into pieces?

‘DA, are you an optimist or a pessimist?’ Young Persephone is not one who asks easy questions. She posed this one just as I was sitting down to assess the year to date. The wise gardener never ceases learning. Crop failure and success alike have lessons for minds capable of absorbing the signals which nature throws at us. Unfortunately, my mind is as absorbent as granite, while an inability to spot signals would cause chaos on the railways if I were employed as a train driver. No one would ever mistake yours truly for that wise gardener.

I always forget the recipe for mixing weed-killer. I always let docks and dandelions invade the vegetable patch in early summer. I always allow my shears to rust. Worst of all, I persistently set about dirty gardening tasks with bare hands. When realisation belatedly dawns that protection is needed against thorns or stings or muck, I find that all the gardening gloves abandoned in a dusty pile in the darkest corner of the potting shed are left-handed. Where on earth did all the right hands go?

It is becoming obvious, even to one as bone-headed as I, that mere enthusiasm is no substitute for craft and common-sense. So before summer is completely extinguished, it behoves the not so wise gardener to record in writing the knowledge gained during the past six months. Then there is some chance that the blunders of 2018 will not be repeated in 2019.

Next year, please goodness, the peas will be planted on time rather than stuck into the earth so late that they yield straggly plants with a couple of reluctant pods. Next year the courgettes will be grown in a sunny spot out of the greenhouse rather than being over-heated under glass. Next year’s garlic will be put in the ground this year so that it has a head start rather than obliged to play a game of catch-up in spring - a game which it can never win.

So, in answer to Persephone’s question, I wish to declare that of course I am an optimist, full sure that the garlic will be gorgeous next year, the peas prolific and the courgettes copious. I will devise a measuring jar for the weed-killer. The docks are doomed, the dandelions damned. It will be the work of a moment to put some oil on the shears. And a bale of gloves will shortly be on order from the Our Town gardening centre, so that injury and infection will be things of the past…

Naturally, the review of 2018 covers the drought. The talk around the fruit and vegetable stands at the recent Bridge Castle Show was of how the prize winning growers had managed to produce such marvellous specimens in Saharan conditions. With nature failing to provide moisture, many had resorted to using dishwater from the kitchen sink to sustain the most valuable plants. The word was that at least one competitor set an alarm to rouse him at four o’clock each morning so that breaches of the hose pipe ban could be undertaken unobserved.

Putting mains water on prime cabbages or beans is perfectly justifiable in my book and anyone who sneaks out in pyjamas to irrigate the onions under cover of darkness is due a medal rather than a conviction. Edible produce should be exempt from the blanket prohibition. However, no such derogation should be extended flower beds or grassy areas. It was, frankly, great to be spared the effort this summer of mowing while the lawns shrivelled as they morphed from the usual lush green to Serengeti brown.

One worrying aspect of the drought was how weather forecasters acted as cheerleaders for the sunshine. The message broadcast from Met Eireann was clear skies good, rain clouds bad, pandering to a childish view of the world wishing to spend all summer on the beach. Never mind that crops were wilting. Never mind that temperatures were more Khartoum than Kerry. Never mind that farmers were tearing out their hair for lack of fodder.

Normally, a bright start to the day puts a spring in the step but the novelty wears off on waking up to sun for the umpteenth morning in a row, fostering the thought that apocalyptic climate change is underway. The prospect looms of repeated summer dustbowls and endless winter storms.

Apologies, daughter, it seems that I am an optimist only in small matters. The bigger picture is frightening the hell out of me.