A Gardener's Weather Diary: December 2017

Sunday, 31 December 2017

Epic Camera Battery Fail

Friday's snow didn't hang about for long as some slighter milder weather arrived and so by Saturday morning all the lying snow had disappeared. As it wasn't a bad morning we set off to do a little bit of train photography. Unusually for us this wasn't to capture a steam locomotive but instead a heritage diesel locomotive.

LNER A4 Class 4-6-2 no 60009 Union of South Africa at Colton Junction with the Christmas White Rose on 20 December 2017

Last week we'd seen 60009 Union of South of South Africa heading up the East Coast Main Line which links London Kings Cross and Edinburgh Waverley station. Steam locomotives like this hauled the fast express trains such as "The Elizabethan" between these two stations in the heyday of steam power. These steam locomotives on the East Coast Main Line were replaced by "Deltics" which were diesel powered locomotives capable of hauling London to Scotland express trains at a sustained speed of 100mph. Some of these locomotives have survived into preservation and one of these D9009 Alycidon was hauling a charter train from York to Liverpool on Saturday.

We arrived at Colton Junction well before the train was due. I connected up my microphone to my camera and checked the battery. Three bars lit up, so I thought plenty of charge, especially as I didn't plan on much more than 5 minutes of video. D9009 Alycidon was approaching and I'd got the locomotive in view approaching my vantage point. Then the dreaded red battery indicator appeared and my camera turned itself off.

D9009 Alycidon approaches Colton Junction 30 December 2017

The picture above is the last frame my camera captured. I watched as the train sped by on its way to Liverpool. There was nothing I could do. It's the first time I've ever had that happen to me. I've now got to work out whether the battery is capable of holding any reasonable amount of charge or if it just doesn’t talk to the camera correctly regarding the amount of charge it holds.

Perhaps I'll have better luck on 16 June 2018 when D9009 Alycidon's next charter train from Newcastle to London is planned.

Friday, 29 December 2017

It's Snowing!

Thursday night into Friday morning was forecast to be the coldest night of the year but it didn’t get all that cold as the temperature fell to -1.9°C or 28.6°F. The coldest night of the year is still -3.2°C (26.2°F) on 11 December 2017. We’ve had some snow too, in fact it’s snowing as I write this post (10:00 Friday) morning but so far it hasn’t amounted to all that much just a light covering.

10:10 Friday morning - light snow falling

First job this morning was to feed the birds. They had obviously been up early in search of food as their footprints were highlighted in the snow.

Our bird bath was iced over and covered with snow but it looked like someone had been trying to get a drink.

A kettle full of hot water soon had the ice and snow melted.

We’ll now have to wait and see how much snow falls by lunchtime by which time the weather should begin to brighten up a bit.

Wednesday, 27 December 2017

No Snow Yet!

The mild few days were forecast to end by Boxing Day, as a band of rain passed through, has turned out to be correct.

Temperature Records 21-27 December 2017

As the rain arrived the temperature dropped. Rain early on Boxing day morning was on the sleety side. The forecast is for any rain to fall as snow from early on Wednesday morning through to Wednesday lunchtime.

So far (Wednesday Morning 09:00) it appears that the snow has fallen further south once again. Here it's remained mostly dry with just a short shower falling as rain.

We'd picked some sprouts for Christmas dinner on our last visit to the plot. We had a little test of them before Christmas and they were a little disappointing. The flavour was fine but there was a large amount of waste on each sprout due to some sort of strange black substance around the base of each one.

Brussels Sprouts - Crispus

Sunday, 24 December 2017

Home Grown Tomatoes - For Christmas!!

For the last few days the weather's been on the mild side for late December. The temperature hasn't varied much through the night with night time temperatures higher than we were getting in the daytime at the beginning of the week.

Temperature & Rainfall Records 18-24 December 2017

We visited the plot on Friday afternoon to harvest a few vegetables for Christmas dinner. What we didn't expect to find were any edible ripe tomatoes.

22 December 2017 - Tomatoes - "Shirley"

22 December 2017 - Tomatoes - "Golden Crown"

It was a real surprise that the tomatoes hadn't gone soft as the temperature in the greenhouse must have been below freezing. It's certainly a first for us to have home grown tomatoes for Christmas. I'm not too sure how the tomatoes even came to be left on the dead remains of last summer's tomato plants. We haven't had many visits to the plot due to the recent cold weather and I can only assume that the last time we considered picking any tomatoes these ones were still unripe and were left. We tested some of the Golden Crown in a sandwich and they were delicious.

Friday, 22 December 2017

Another Train, Some Harvesting and the Winter Solstice

The milder weather has arrived although it hasn't brought much sunshine with it. However, even though it was dull and rather damp we set off on Wednesday morning to photograph the last of this year's steam hauled trains bound for York. I don't think there's another York bound steam hauled charter train until the beginning of March next year.

LNER A4 Class 4-6-2 no 60009 Union of South Africa at Colton Junction with the Christmas White Rose

In the afternoon we thought we'd make the most of the mild weather and have a trip down to the plot to harvest a few fresh vegetables. It all looks a bit desolate now but we did manage to find a few things to harvest.

We made the decision to harvest the biggest of our red cabbages. It's a bit of a monster tipping the scales at 5.2kg.

Cabbage - Red Lodero

Whilst I'm on the subject of monster vegetables one of the parsnips we dug up on Wednesday afternoon also fell into the same category.

Parsnip - Gladiator

We've two generations of parsnips growing. A few are from our first sowing of the year but most are from a later sowing made when the first batch either didn't germinate or got eaten by slugs and snails. My money is on the latter. Anyway, I think the one I dug up on Wednesday afternoon came from the first sowing. I didn't manage to get deep enough to get out the full length of the parsnip but there's plenty of edible root in the part I did manage to get out of the ground.

Thursday was the winter solstice so our hours of daylight each day should be increasing. Thursday was a really dull and drizzly sort of a day in perfect keeping with the short daylight hours. It didn't make much effort to get light all day. It's nice to know that our daylight is getting longer each day now as winter progresses. However, January and February are usually our worst winter months.

I've added a little bit of video below showing our harvesting antics on the plot on Wednesday afternoon.

Monday, 18 December 2017

Two For The Price Of One

According to the weather models our cold spell of weather should be coming to an end today with a milder spell taking over and leading us up to Christmas.

It was a cold start to Monday morning with the overnight temperature once again falling below zero. However, despite a few frosty nights and bitterly cold days I don't think it's been anything too unusual for December.

Temperature Records for 17 November - 17 December 2017

There's often one Saturday in December when two steam train charters head to York and last Saturday that turned out to be the case again this year. On a cold but sunny Saturday morning we set off to see what we could manage to photograph.

GWR Castle Class 4-6-0 no 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe with The Christmas White Rose

First came 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe with a charter train from Tyseley Warwick Road to York. It was running about 15 minutes early at Colton Junction where our photographs and video were taken so it was just as well we'd arrived in good time. It meant we had around an hour to wait until the York Yuletide Express was due.

LMS Royal Scot Class 7P 4-6-0 no 46100 Royal Scot with The York Yuletide Express

Now we're waiting for the milder weather to arrive. We'll have to make a trip to the allotment to pick some fresh vegetables and test our sprouts.

Thursday, 14 December 2017

Watercress - A Bit of a Survivor

The first spell of cold winter weather has passed, although technically winter won’t arrive until 21 December, now it’s turned a little bit milder. After a couple of weeks of December the milder days have lost out to the colder days and as a result our average temperature is currently 4.6°C (40.3°F) a bit below our December average which stands at 5.7°C or 42.3°F.

Monthly Temperature Records for December 2017

Our watercress has survived the cold weather of the last few days. I have to admit that when I took these two photos on Monday morning when the temperature was around -3.0°C (27°F) I didn’t hold out much chance of us having any more sprigs in our lunchtime sandwiches.

11 December 2017

It wasn’t an awful lot warmer on Thursday morning but at least it was above freezing if only by a couple of degrees. However, much to my surprise our watercress had made a remarkable recovery.

14 December 2017

I might even have to venture out at lunchtime to pick a few sprigs to go with our lunchtime egg sandwiches. I wonder if the freezing temperatures will have affected the flavour?

Monday, 11 December 2017

No Snow but the Coldest Night of the Year

Well, we didn’t get any snow on Sunday. I have to admit that by Saturday morning the weather models had adjusted their predictions of where snow was to fall on Sunday and we were unlikely to get either snow or rain. That turned out to be the case. We did manage a few flakes on Sunday afternoon but it would be pushing it a bit to describe it as a snowfall.

However, Sunday night through into Monday morning produced the coldest temperature of the year so far as the thermometer plunged to -3.2°C or 26.2°F.

It's the coldest temperature since 29 December 2016 when the temperature fell to -5.6°C or 21.9°F.

Temperature & Rainfall Records 09-11 December 2017

Last week we didn’t visit our allotment and instead had a couple of afternoons photographing steam locomotives. It’s the time of year when special charter trains head for York. First, on Thursday afternoon, was “The Christmas White Rose” heading to York from Norwich. It was running about two hours late by the time we arrived at our chosen photographic location. We decided to get some lunch in York rather than hang around in the bitterly cold weather. After lunch we returned to our spot in time to see 60009 Union of South Africa speed by on its way to York.

On Saturday lunchtime it was the turn of 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe with “The York Yuletide Express” from London Ealing Broadway to York.

Luckily for us, this train was running only about 15 minutes late so we didn’t have to wait around in the freezing conditions for too long.

Friday, 8 December 2017

It's Here

As forecast the colder weather has arrived as you can see from the temperature chart. The wind chill effect makes it feel even colder.

Temperature, Wind Chill & Rainfall Records 06-08 December 2017

That spell of rain that shows up on the chart around midnight on Thursday fell as snow but by morning there was almost no trace of it left.

I got the impression that it wasn't very warm in our greenhouse this morning as last nights snow had turned into a covering of ice. Hopefully some sunshine will soon thaw it out and warm up the greenhouse a little bit.

The forecast is for snow showers on Saturday and for a more prolonged period of snowfall on Sunday.

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com

We're under that central grey area of predicted snowfall for Sunday morning. That grey area doesn't move much at all through Sunday so we may get a moderate snowfall. The temperature is forecast to be around freezing point all day so the snow might hang around a bit.

Thursday, 7 December 2017

Storm Caroline

Caroline passed through on Wednesday night and Thursday morning giving us nothing more than a typically windy December night with no particularly strong gusts of wind. However, following a few heavy showers as it got light on Thursday morning the temperature dropped considerably.

Temperature and Rainfall Records 07 December 2017

If the weather models are correct the temperature is going to fall even more over the next couple of days.

You may have watched the video that Sue posted yesterday of the birds devouring the sunflower hearts in our feeder.

Whilst I enjoy watching their antics there is a price to pay in that that the chaff from the seed collects below the feeder and needs to be removed. Watching the goldfinches you can see how they roll a sunflower heart in their beak to remove the seed coat which falls to the ground. I've found the easiest way to collect all the fallen waste is to keep some weed control fabric under the feeder so that the fabric can be used to collect all the waste and disposed of as necessary.

On Wednesday afternoon I had a tidy up around the base of the feeder. The weed control fabric is held in place with some hefty prunings from our magnolia tree and covered with a few leaves for good measure. Surprisingly storm Caroline didn't blow them away overnight.

Tuesday, 5 December 2017

Before the Cold Spell

There’s not much to report on the weather front at the moment. The last couple of days have been pretty decent with around average temperatures.

Temperature & Rainfall Records 02-04 December 2017

However, things are set to change as first, wet and windy weather arrives mid week to be followed by a spell of cold weather accompanied by snow showers due to set in over the weekend and into next week.

I made a short video of our visit to the plot last Sunday when we lifted our dahlia tubers.

Monday, 4 December 2017

Dahlias Saved

Considering the time of year Sunday wasn't a bad day. After a bit of a cloudy start the sun broke through to give us some decent sunny spells and it was reasonably mild for December. We decided on an afternoon trip to the plot to lift our dahlia tubers and save them somewhere frost free and dry over winter.

Sue was hoping that our chrysanthemums had survived the recent cold spell and that they might provide us with a few cut flowers.

Unfortunately that wasn't the case and we decided that these too could be cut back and the roots lifted and protected again the worst of the winter weather.

Whilst I cut back and lifted the dahlias Sue cut back the chrysanthemums.

The last couple of months have been on the dry side with not a great deal of rain which meant the dahlia roots came out of the ground easily without too much soil clinging to the roots. Most of the soil was cleared off the roots with a small hand fork. The roots have been placed in a large potato sack and have gone into the garage to be stored alongside our potatoes. I'll leave them in the garage until around the beginning of March.

The chrysanthemum roots were lifted too but these were placed in plastic tubs with the roots packed in wood chip. The tubs were placed in the plot greenhouse for protection.

After lifting the dahlias and chrysanthemums we decided we still had a little bit of time left before it got dark to do some harvesting. We managed to dig up some carrots, parsnips, leeks and beetroot as well as cut a couple of red cabbages and a green one. The main surprise of the day was that some tomatoes and a couple of red peppers in the plot greenhouse had survived the cold weather.

As you can probably tell from the photo by the time we'd finished harvesting it was starting to get dark.

Sunday, 3 December 2017

It's Warmed Up A Bit

The start of meteorological winter has brought some slightly milder weather with it for a few days. Although last month had some cold days it also had some very mild days for November and at the end of the month these balanced one another out and the monthly temperature was around average for November.

It was another month with considerably less rainfall than we might expect. as you can see from the table above only 2011 has been drier since 2010.

A Dunnock Checks Out a Weathered Log for Food

At least it looks like we might be getting a few milder days when the bird bath won't need de-icing. The forecast at the moment is for cold weather to return towards the end of the week. The good or bad news, depending on how you view snow, is that we could get some heavy snow showers on Thursday and Friday accompanied by some cold northerly winds. In terms of computer weather models Thursday is a long way off and there's every possibility that a different outcome will be predicted over the next few days.

Friday, 1 December 2017

Winter's Arrived - Meteorologically Speaking

It's definitely been a bit on the cold side over the last few days almost like winter has arrived a little bit early. It's been cold enough to put us off visiting the plot. On Thursday the temperature barely made it above freezing and combined with a strongish breeze it wasn't a day for being outside. It was the first time this autumn that the water in the bird bath has frozen over. The birds didn't appreciate not being able to get a drink.

Once filled up the birds were happy even if a very thin coating of ice began to form on the surface of the water.

Although it's felt cold it's been nothing like as cold as it was in November 2010. In that year I recorded a low temperature of -7.6°C (18.3°F) which still easily remains as my November record low.

Temperatures Records 23-29 November 2010 and 2017

The chart above shows the temperature records for the same weeks in 2010 and 2017.

We do really need to make an effort to get to the allotment to dig up our dahlia tubers and store them somewhere dry and frost free. I don't think it's yet been cold enough for any frost to penetrate down to the roots and do any damage. All the same, we're pushing our luck a little bit.