A Gardener's Weather Diary: September 2016

Friday, 30 September 2016

Another Windy Day

Thursday was another windy day although on the positive side it was sunny for most of the day. The wind did abate a bit into the early evening.

Temperature & Wind Speed Records for 29 September 2016

Unusually the highest temperature for the day occurred at midnight as the temperature fell from the warmth of Wednesday. Thursday never managed to recapture that warmth.

It didn't stop us venturing down to the plot to get on with a bit more tidying up and a little bit of harvesting.

Beneath the alpine strawberries and grapes are yellow raspberries. The alpine strawberries came as a bit of a surprise but together they made a tasty bowl of fruit to finish off our evening meal.

Tuesday, 27 September 2016

Preserving

Monday was our worst day of the month so far. It was cloudy and cool all day with the temperature only managing 13.9°C (57.0°F) a little below average for the time of year.

Temperature & Rainfall Records

I haven't included the sunshine records on the graph as the sun didn't bother to put in an appearance. With light rain on and off all day it was a day for staying inside and converting tomatoes into tomato sauce -

and apples into apple puree.

It's now just a case of finding a little bit of freezer space.

Monday, 26 September 2016

Large Scale Tidying Up

It wasn't a bad weekend weatherwise. Sunday was easily the sunniest of the two days and despite a lack of sunshine Saturday was slightly the warmer of the two days. We had some heavy rain in the early hours of Sunday morning amounting to 8.6mm or 0.34in.

We spent a couple of afternoons at the allotment. It's amazing how quickly that season of harvesting changes to one of tidying up the plot as much as possible before any bad weather sets in. I left Sue to do some harvesting and pruning back gooseberry and jostaberry bushes as I'd decided it was time to sort out the area around our greengage trees. It's an area that has suffered from neglect for a good few years now.

It had become a bit of a dumping ground for all those things that might come in useful on the plot one day. As a consequence weeds had taken over much of the space and it was difficult to venture into the area without getting stung by overgrown nettles and thistles.

To add to the confusion there's a large elder bush and a large laurel bush growing in amongst the weeds. They were once planted, or allowed to grow, to give part of the plot some protection from prevailing westerly winds but now cause more of a problem from the amount of shade they cast.

There's all sorts of other debris too that will have to be disposed of, like a couple of old plastic chairs we once used on the plot. I'd already cut down a large conifer tree growing in this area and yesterday's debris was added to this pile of rubbish. It's all compostable or burnable but it's going to take me some time to deal with it all.

I think I might have a winter project.

Saturday, 24 September 2016

Last Word on Blight - Promise and Trench Composting

Friday was yet another lovely September day although we had a chilly start to the day as the overnight temperature fell to 6.5°C (43.7°F) a reminder that autumn has arrived.

Temperature & Sunshine Records for 23 September 2016

It's notice that I'll now be posting about coldest nights rather than hottest days.

I visited a friend in Leeds this weeks who's also growing some Crimson Crush tomatoes. Like me all his other tomato plants have been struck down with blight along with some of his potato crop. Crimson Crush however is standing up to the blight pretty well.

I don't think I need to point out which is Crimson Crush.

You may remember I blogged about trying out hot composting which I'd seen on the Grow Veg website. Well I've seen another method on their web site called trench composting. It's similar to how runner bean trenches can be prepared with lots of compostable material been dug into trenches on top of which runner beans are planted. This is essentially the same method except that it is not necessarily for the sole benefit of runner beans.

At this time of year I've mountains of material that either goes on the compost heap or gets put on a bonfire a little later into autumn. Well this year's runner beans have been buried in a trench as I redug this year's main crop potato bed.

I incorporated a couple of trenches in this half of the bed and I've probable enough green material to repeat the process on the other half. Once the bed had been dug over the weed control fabric was replaced.

Will the material form compost by late next spring? I do hope so!

Thursday, 22 September 2016

Tuesday, 20 September 2016

It Was Going So Well - Until

Sunday was a lovely dry sunny day compared to Monday which was dull for most of the day until late afternoon when the sun managed to break through the cloud cover.

Even though it was sunny on Sunday the heavy overnight dew on the grass didn't dry up and so I decided against mowing the lawn. After a little overnight rain into Tuesday the grass was again wet but I decided to get it mowed even if it was on the wet side.

After watching a You Tube video last week, suggesting the demise of little point and shoot cameras, as almost everyone now can take a decent photo with their mobile phone, I decided to give my phone a bit of a test.

I didn't think that they were too bad. Now it was at this point that I decided it was about time we tried some of our Vales Sovereign potatoes. This is the first year we've grown this particular variety. Since they were lifted a couple of weeks ago they have been stored in a potato sack in the garage. As the potatoes weren't that easy to reach I put my hand into the sack to feel for a few potatoes. The ones I pulled out looked like this!!

Unless I'm mistaken it looks like blight. The next few potatoes that came out of the bag were okay. I'd better have a look through the bag and see if any more potatoes are affected. I suppose I ought to check through all our sacks of potatoes to see if these few were an isolated occurrence or if it's affected the whole crop of potatoes.

Sunday, 18 September 2016

September Arrives

Over the last few days the hot unseasonable weather that we've been experiencing for the first half of the month faded away and we are now back at the sort of temperatures we might expect for the middle of September.

Temperature, Rainfall & Sunshine Records for 15-17 September 2016

On the allotment we've cut back our butterflyless, butterfly bushes (buddleia) on the plot. Apart from cabbage whites we've seen very few butterflies on the buddleias while they were in flower over summer. This year's flowering had finished so we decided it was time to give them the chop.

This is how they looked in all their glory through the summer months. Now they look very different with just a few bare stalks remaining around the bases of the plants.

It's also left us with a very large heap of buddleia prunings to be disposed of. Some will make good pea supports for next year once some of the leaves have been removed.

I'm hoping that left over winter they won't root when pushed into the ground as pea supports next spring. Buddleias do seem to have a habit of taking root and producing a new bush given the slightest opportunity.

Thursday, 15 September 2016

Blight Resistant - I'm Not Convinced

Wednesday was another lovely mild day for mid September with some sunny spells for good measure. Tuesday night's storms had cleared away leaving us with a dry day.

This year we've grown a blight resistant tomato called Crimson Crush. We grew this variety for the first time last year and thought that the tomatoes tasted good enough to give the variety another go. As nothing on the allotment suffered from blight last year it wasn't much of a test of its blight resistant qualities.

That's not been the case this year. This is how our Sungold tomatoes growing on the plot look. Devastated by blight the crop went from looking lovely and green to this brown looking mess in a few days. Growing alongside these Sungold are three Crimson Crush tomatoes.

At first sight these don't look too bad. They still have some green leaves and the tomatoes appear to be surviving but a closer look reveals they haven't all survived the blight.

These tomatoes on Crimson Crush aren't going to be any use in the kitchen and will be consigned to the compost heap. However, some trusses of tomatoes are still looking OK to harvest and have managed to delay the blight.

This little truss of tomatoes looks to have survived but we're probably going to have more chance of ripening the fruit off the plant.

I'm not sure I'd bother growing Crimson Crush again. It obviously does have some blight resistance but blight will win and take over the plant eventually. Our outdoor plants are the odds and sods that didn't get planted out into the greenhouse and would have been consigned to the compost heap in any case so if we do loose them to blight it's just bad luck.

Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Hot & Wet Records

Well Tuesday went in for record breaking in a big way. Through the morning the cloud gradually cleared and as the sun broke through the temperature soared. By late afternoon it reached 29.4°C (84.9°F) the highest September temperature I've recorded taking over from 29 September 2011 when the temperature reached 28.4°C or 83.1°F.

Temperature, Sunshine and Rainfall Rate Records for Tuesday, 13 September 2016

That temperature record wasn't the only one of the day as in the early evening we had a thunderstorm and heavy rain. We only had 6.6mm (0.26in) but it fell in a very short space of time and at a highest intensity of 83.4mm/hr (3.28in/hr) the highest of 2016 so far.

In the afternoon we had a trip down to the allotment. I had planned on digging up the last of our potatoes but thought it was a bit too hot for that particular task. I settled for picking some of our apples instead.

I had a look around the plot and our recently planted autumn onion sets and brassicas looked a little bit on the dry side so I decided to give them a drop of water. If only I'd known what was to fall naturally from the sky in a few hours time I needn't have bothered.

Monday, 12 September 2016

On For A September Record?

Sunday was a lovely day with almost dawn till dusk sunshine. It wasn't as warm as it has been but it was still rather impressive for almost mid September. Last year we had a very cool September but this year looks as though it could be a record breaking warm one.

Last year's average temperature, shown by the dark blue line, never wavered from the bottom of the graph and was the coolest September I've recorded.

Certainly from the records, that I can find from the Met Office, suggest that it might be the warmest in last 100 years. Of course we aren't quite half way through the month yet so I might be a little premature in suggesting the possibility.

Sunday, 11 September 2016

Weed Control Fabric Rotation

The weather was a little cloudier and cooler on Saturday but basically rain free. The forecast into the middle of next week is for fine warm conditions to return.

After our visit to Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Thursday, Friday was back to allotmenting to get our autumn onions planted. Last week I'd dug over this year's broad bean patch.

Broad Bean Bed with Weed Control Fabric Removed

As you can see covering the bed with weed control fabric meant that once the remnants of the broad beans had been dispatched to the compost heap the bed was ready to be dug over.

Once dug over the fabric was replaced over the bed. The next stage of cultivation to get this bed ready for planting autumn onion sets would be to give the tiller a run through to break down the soil making it suitable for planting.

On Friday the bed was tilled and some fish, blood and bone fertiliser was incorporated at the same time. Then it was just a case of rotating the existing pieces of fabric to get them into their new positions. In the photo above the bed in the foreground grew this year's summer onions. That means that the fabric is cut into long slits to allow us to plant onions. This piece of fabric was moved to the bed in the centre of the photo ready for our autumn onions to be planted.

Any mulch that was left behind which was used to hold down the fabric was dug into the bed. While Sue planted up our autumn onions the summer onion bed was dug over.

Rather than leave this bed open to the weather all winter the weed control fabric that had been used for the broad beans was used to cover the bed until next spring. This may not be in line with the crop rotation for the beds on this part of the plot but this will be sorted out next spring when preparing for next summers crops.

Oddly we haven't finished harvesting the autumn onions we planted at this time last year. Usually by this time of the year last year's autumn planted onions have deteriorated so badly that they are only fit for the compost heap.

I think it is true to say that this little bed planted up last September would have been overrun with weeds by now if we hadn't used any weed control fabric. Another couple of weeks or so and we will probably have used up these few remaining September 2015 sown onions. They still taste good by the way.

Saturday, 10 September 2016

A Day at the Wildlife Park

The weather has continued to be warmer than we might expect for early September with temperatures into the low to mid twenties Celsius (70°F to 75°F). It will be a bit of shock when we return to more normal temperatures for the time of year.

I recently bought a new zoom lens for my Panasonic GH4 camera. It's a 100mm-300mm zoom lens in micro four thirds lens descriptions meaning it's equivalent to a 200-600mm lens in DSLR photography. To be honest the first couple of times I used it I was a little bit disappointed with the results.

I'm now getting a little bit more used to using it. A visit to Yorkshire Wildlife Park gave me plenty of opportunities for a bit more practice. These cute meerkats are excellent subjects for a few test shots, well lots of test shots.

After exploring a few other areas of the park we came to one of the tiger enclosures. A couple of tigers were having a nap and didn't seem to be taking much notice of any onlookers or photographers. Why would they!

I thought I might check out a paw taken on maximum zoom.

A video test came as we arrived at the polar bear enclosure where three of the polar bears Nissan, Pixel and Nobby decided to take to the water and do a little bit of play fighting to entertain those watching.

We were lucky to catch them playing as we walked passed their enclosure before lunchtime. As we passed by later in the afternoon they were taking a well deserved afternoon nap.

Thursday, 8 September 2016

Not Much Room as Tuesday Breaks a Record

Sometimes I write up my blog post the night before it's posted which means that sometimes I can miss the odd weather record. As it happens Tuesday's average temperature was the highest September average I've recorded in seven years of keeping records.

Ossett September Average Temperatures from 2010 to 2016

The daily average temperature for Tuesday was 20.8° C (69.4°F) unusually high even for early September. Although the daytime high was 25.6°C (78.1°F) we only managed a little over two hours of sunshine. The nightime low was a very high 15.6°C (60.1°F). We will soon be wishing we could have that as a daytime high never mind as a nightime low.

I had to take a photo of these cyclamen flowering in a corner of our small pebble garden.

I'm not sure what they'll make of such high overnight temperatures but I'm sure the weather will cool down soon.

Wednesday, 7 September 2016

A Double Whammy

The last couple of days have been warm and muggy. We've only had a few limited spells of sunshine but it's felt very hot in any brief sunny spells. Much of the time we've had dark clouds giving the impression that it might tip down at any moment but it's remained dry.

It felt too warm to do anything too energetic on the plot but our brassicas that had been growing on in the cold frame since arriving in the post on 19 August were ready for transplanting into the allotment. The plants are to replace a few weak specimens already planted and to plant up a new bed of autumn and winter cropping brassicas.

In this photo you can see that our cauliflowers (Clapton) are growing well and I'm expecting some decent harvests from them in the coming weeks. However, if you look to the left of these plants you'll see some weak looking specimens of a Romanescu type of cauliflower planted at the same time as the Clapton ones.

On removing the weak looking plants it looked like they were suffering from club root.

The other possible cause might be from cabbage root fly but in that case I would have expected to see little maggots in the plant roots and I didn't. Cauliflower Clapton is considered to be a club root resistant variety and on this showing it certainly lives up to its billing. My only concern is that the replacement brassicas aren't club root resistant varieties either so it will be interesting to see how they perform.

Making it into a double whammy our outdoor tomato plants have succumbed to blight.

It's taken just a few days for them to go from healthy looking plants to this. The tomatoes in the foreground are Crimson Crush and are supposedly more blight resistant. They are certainly not as badly blighted as the other varieties but I'm not holding out much hope for them over the next few days.

If you're interested in checking out the varieties of brassicas that I've planted up you can check out the details here.