Arctic Blast Arrives

The well forecast Arctic blast arrived as scheduled on Saturday. Saturday's highest temperature was a chilly 6.7°C (44.1°F) which is the lowest high temperature for October that I've recorded since 2010. The previous October record low daytime temperature was 7.3°C (45.1°F) set on 26 October 2012.

Temperature Records for 22-28 October 2018

It's forecast to remain on the chilly side until the middle of the week.

We have made some good progress on renovating beds on plot 30 as well as preparing other beds for winter.

I’m not sure how these two beds on plot 30 got into such a state. At the end of last year both beds were growing crops, one with leeks and the other with winter brassicas, both of which were cleared away this spring. The third bed which is still covered with weeds was cleared last autumn but it was too wet to be dug over.

At the beginning of spring the weather was very unusual in that we had a very cold spell of weather with some late snowfall followed by a spell of very wet weather. All this meant that gardening wise we had a very late start to spring as we had to wait for the soil to dry out.

What we didn’t appreciate at the time was that we were going to go from very wet to very dry conditions without anything in between. Whilst we were busy planting and sowing beds with summer crops the beds to be used for autumn and winter crops were getting drier and drier such that by the time we wanted to dig them over our clay soil was baked hard like concrete. The only thing to do was to wait for some rain to arrive.

I’m hoping that now we’ve made a start at sorting out plot 30 the weather will remain good enough for us to get the job finished. We certainly managed to clear all the apple tree and fruit bush prunings away with an early bonfire. 

Of course the problem is that beds on the rest of the allotments need to be dug over for winter. The last thing we want is for more beds to fall into the same state so Sue has been busy getting some of these beds dug over ready for next spring.

This one's been dug over and the weed control fabric has been replaced and covered with wood chip. These four beds shouldn't need any more work on them until they're ready for planting up next spring. I'm planning on leaving the two beds with green manure growing in them until early next spring before I cut down the crop and incorporate it into the soil.

Sue's also got this bed dug over which had a crop of broad beans in it through summer. We'll replace the weed control fabric and then cover it with wood chip to keep the fabric in place.

We’ve got a couple of other jobs that we’d like to tackle over winter too if we get a chance but I’ll save those for another post.

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