Monday 30 September 2019

Wouldn't You Just Know It!

It seems incredible that it was only a week ago that the allotment was too dry to contemplate autumn digging. Now after a wet week it may well be too wet. We haven't visited since the rain started but over the last week we've had 68.2mm (2.7in) of rain. That's well over a month's worth of rain since last Monday.
Temperature & Rainfall Data 23-29 September 2019
Last Tuesday was the equal wettest day of the year but that has now been superseded by Sunday with 20.4mm (0.8in) of rainfall.

Needless to say we haven't done much on the plot with all the rain but we did visit the North Yorkshire Moors Railway Autumn Gala and rather unsurprisingly it rained there too.


Posted by Martyn at 09:00 2 comments

Wednesday 25 September 2019

Drought Over - Equal Wettest Day of the Year

Following on from Sunday, Tuesday was another wet day equalling the wettest day of the year with 18.2mm or 0.72in.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 24 September 2019
It tied with 28 July this year when we had the same amount of rainfall. Our main weather records for this year are listed in the table below.
It's probably as well that I lifted the last of our potatoes on Monday which were dry enough to store in hessian sacks after drying off on the grass for a couple of hours.
The ground should be moist enough now to start some autumn digging.

Posted by Martyn at 09:54 0 comments

Monday 23 September 2019

A Wet Day - At Last!

Sunday was our wettest day since the end of July. Not that we had any great amount of rain 10.8mm (0.43in) all together but it almost doubled this month's rainfall which now stands at 23.2mm or 0.91in. The month's previous rainfall has all come in small amounts which don't do any good as far as watering the garden or allotment are concerned.
Temperature & Rainfall Details for 22 September 2019
The morning rainfall came as heavy showers with the first one setting a record for this year as the heaviest rainfall of the year at 90mm/hr or 3.54in/hr. Fortunately it only lasted for a few minutes.

Hopefully, there will have been enough rainfall for us to make a start at digging over a few empty beds on the allotment.
Plots 41 & 42
Most of our potatoes were dug up at the end of August and the ground was very dry and didn't dig over very well at all so we decided to leave digging over empty beds until we got some decent rainfall.

The fruit season on the allotment has almost come to an end now. It began with rhubarb followed by strawberries, gooseberries, tayberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, raspberries, blueberries, plums, greengages and finally apples and pears which we harvested during the week.
 Egremont Russet
We've still a few more apples to pick but that will hopefully be completed this week, the only problem will be finding somewhere to store them. Normally, the final fruit of the season to be harvested would be our quinces but this year we've had a crop failure with our Meeches Prolific failing to live up to its name and not producing any fruits at all.

Our remaining brassicas, carrots and parsnips will all remain in the ground over winter and be harvested as required. The carrots and parsnips will be covered with straw to protect them from the worst of any frosts and to help lifting them should any spells of prolonged cold weather occur through winter. Autumn has arrived!

Posted by Martyn at 09:51 2 comments

Sunday 15 September 2019

Weird Sky and Looking Forward to Spring Cabbage

After a very cold start Saturday was a pleasant sunny day but with a very strange sunset.
We are in a particularly dry spell of weather with very little rainfall over the last month. We've had small amounts of drizzly rain on a number of days but it's not been enough to do any good for watering plants. We took pity on our brassicas and leeks at the allotment and gave them a good soaking.
Temperature and Rainfall Records 16 August - 15 September 2019
Over the course of a month we'd expect around 50mm or 2in of rainfall rather than the 25mm or 1in we've actually had over the last 4 weeks. It also includes a very hot week at the end of August so it's not surprising with virtually no rainfall to speak of since that hot spell that the ground is very dry.

I sowed some spring cabbage on 29 July directly on the plot after some sown at home were devoured by snails soon after germinating. Surprising the amount of damage they do even in a dry spell of weather. 
Spring cabbage 'April' sown on plot 
They've been watered regularly and have produced some good plants but they needed thinning out and transplanting into our winter brassica bed. With the ground being very dry I've kept putting off transplanting them but decided on Saturday it couldn't be delayed any longer.
Although it might not look like it from the photo above, they received lots of water during the transplanting process with each row getting a couple of cans of water. Hopefully, they'll recover from the shock and produce some tasty cabbages next spring. They were covered with environmesh in an attempt to keep the cabbage white butterflies and pigeons at bay. There doesn't appear to be much rainfall in the forecast for the next week so it will be important to keep them well watered until they get established.

Posted by Martyn at 11:29 0 comments

Sunday 8 September 2019

Almost a Frost!

September is certainly off to an unusual start. Firstly we've had some strong to gale force winds to contend with and then in the early hours of Sunday morning the temperature fell to 4.6°C (40.3°F) which is unusually cold for the first few days of September. The only other time we've had a temperature below the 5°C (41.0°F)mark so early in the month was 08 September 2013 when it fell to 4.2°C or 39.6°F. 
Temperature Records 06-08 September 2019
Hopefully, the allotment will have avoided a frost as well. Our climbing French beans and All Gold raspberries were still cropping really well but I don't think they'd appreciate a frost.
Raspberries - All Gold
Our Climbing French beans Cobra and Goldfield haven't enjoyed our recent windy weather but we tried a variety called Python and this variety has tolerated the windy weather much better as you can see in the video below.




Posted by Martyn at 10:12 2 comments

Saturday 7 September 2019

Fed Up Of Windy Weather

It has been a very poor start to September and rather than it seeming like summer is continuing it certainly feels like autumn has arrived. We've had some amount of precipitation on the first 6 days of the month. That's not to say it has been a wet start as so far the total amount of rainfall is only 5.0mm (0.2in), but it's a continuation of the weather we had in the last few weeks of August. It seems much wetter than it really is and in truth the allotment is rather dry and it wouldn't hurt from a decent spell of rain. The strong to gale force winds have been the real cause of it feeling like autumn and it's certainly been the windiest start to September I've recorded in the last 10 years.
High Wind Speed Records 01-06 September 2010-2019

I highlight in red once wind speeds reach 20mph. These are wind speeds recorded at plant level not high above the ground and they're in a sheltered suburban garden not an exposed cliff top. A gust of 27mph in August was enough to bring down an apple tree in the garden. Obviously, it's by far the windiest start I've recorded to September.

It didn't stop us having an afternoon walk around the lake at Clumber Park on Friday. It was a bit drizzly as we set off but luckily the sky cleared after a while and it wasn't too bad an afternoon.
Of course the squirrels as usual were only too happy to pose for a photograph.

The forecast for the next few days hints at some cooler than average temperatures but at least it's forecast for the strong winds to abate. 

Posted by Martyn at 10:13 2 comments

Tuesday 3 September 2019

Meteorological Autumn Begins

The first couple of days have certainly had an autumnal feel to them with overnight temperatures down into single figures. We made the most of a couple of warm days at the end of August visiting Sandringham Estate and the North Norfolk Railway.
Sandringham Estate
North Norfolk Railway
Both visits were enjoyable although I was a little disappointed with some parts of the Sandringham Estate. The visit to the railway's steam gala didn't go without any problems either as they'd had a few "technical problems" which meant the trains weren't running to the timetable. The staff were very helpful though so it didn't cause us any problems.

September sees the start of meteorological autumn so it's time to have a look at August's temperature and rainfall comparisons over the last 10 years as well as the last 10 years' summers.
 August Temperatures and Rainfall Records 2010-2019

I shouldn't be surprised that this August finished up the warmest of the last 10 years. It started off on the warm side with a cooler spell in the middle and ended on a very hot note with 26 August becoming the hottest August day I've recorded when the temperature reached 31.2°C or 88.2°F. I'm more surprised to find out how dry August was. We had 18 days with some rainfall which probably made it seem wetter than it actually was. Obviously, we didn't have much rainfall on most of those 18 days. I was surprised how dry the ground was when I was lifting a row of potatoes towards the end of the month. To confuse things even more we had our windiest August day on 15 August when the wind was strong enough to bring down one of our apple trees.
Summer Temperature and Rainfall Records 2010-2019
Temperature wise it's been a pretty good summer for us but obviously it didn't match up to last year's glorious summer weather. Once again I'm rather surprised it's so high up in the amount of rainfall through summer. There's certainly been times when the allotment and garden seemed very dry although you wouldn't think it from the rainfall figures.

I'm hoping to get our remaining potatoes lifted before any really wet weather arrives. The weather forecast for the next week to ten days looks to be unsettled with showers rather than any spells of heavy rain and the temperatures look to be slightly below average so no excuses for not getting the last of the potatoes lifted. 

Posted by Martyn at 10:32 0 comments
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