It’s Gone

The forecast was correct and for us the hot weather moved away and cooler conditions arrived for the weekend. The cooler weather meant that we could do a few more energetic jobs down on the plot. We needed to dig some more potatoes and as our Swift have suffered badly in the hot dry conditions and the foliage has turned brown or disappeared I decided to lift what remained of the row.

As you can see the soils is very dry. The potato tubers planted back in April hadn’t rotted and in most cases were far larger than the potatoes I harvested. The crop weight for this 5.0m long row came to just 4.9kg which I reckon is pretty poor. 

On the brighter side apart from one tuber which has some scab all the others are undamaged and the potatoes do have a good flavour. I’m hoping the other varieties with tops still in good condition will provide us with some heavier crops to last us through winter. 

Now that the “heatwave” is over it’s about time we had some rain as we’ve had only 4.0mm this month. From the forecast at the moment it looks like things are about to turn much wetter this week.

A good rain would be most welcome for both the garden and allotment.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett