By the time you read this, I will be away in the Scottish Borders – a British arable farmer on holiday in August? This is unheard of. I’ve never done it myself in 30 years of farming. The reason I’m going away is that, remarkably, I have very little to do, and it’s all down to this destructive modern climate.

We have finished the harvest, all done in almost entirely the month of July. Overall our farm will be 20% down on our long-term average yield, with winter cropping 2 tonnes per hectare and spring cropping 1 tonne per hectare below normal. Winter barley will be the only crop close to normal yields due to its natural maturity at the time of the first heatwave in late May. Beans finished five weeks ahead of schedule, and are almost 50% down on expectations.

The bean yield, which is half of expectations. Photograph: Colin Chappell

So, what to do? Normally I would be drilling cover crops and soon oilseed rape, but there is no point – the soil is just too dry. Instead, I’m doing odd jobs like digging up “blown” land drains (bursts in the piping deep underground that is the backbone of our healthy soils).

Meanwhile, traditional hedgerow plants such as blackberries have appeared early, and I worry for the wildlife (which seem to have a decent number of young this year) if winter is prolonged.

The heat will make the headlines, but only a few months ago the farm was suffering from excess rainfall. This, I feel, has done more harm to our crops than the high temperatures, as the clay loam here can tolerate dryness to some extent.

The new normal is all boom and bust: long spells of either extreme, with little in the way of typical seasonal weather, making growing any form of food challenging. Some think we can import our way out of this problem, yet the UK is not alone in having such issues.

So for now it is a bit of rest, but as the season changes I will be back to do what we do best: grow the nation’s food. If the climate lets us.