Monday, 30 March 2020

Lockdown Day 7 - What to Sow!

It's the end of the first week of lockdown. The weather at the start of the lockdown was really good. It was the first time since the end of September that we'd had anything like a decent day's weather as the temperature soared to a little over 19°C (66°F) and the sun shone.
Temperature and Wind Chill Records 21-30 March 2020
It's the first time since last September we've had a whole week without any rain. Looking back through my rainfall records, I'm surprised that I have to go back to 18-24 May 2019 for the last time we had a week without any recorded rainfall. Rather amazingly, we've now had 10 dry days in a row. Last year we had 19 dry days in a row from 05 to 23 April leaving us with a few days to go to match that record.

However, there's been a definite change in the weather over the last week. Although it's remained dry the wind has moved into a north or north easterly direction turning the weather much colder, with Saturday and Sunday feeling particularly cold with the wind chill.
Gardening wise things are very much on hold due to both the weather and Covid 19. Whilst the vast majority of our seeds were ordered online at the beginning of the year, I tend to buy in compost as I need it for sowing seeds and potting on plants. As a result of Covid 19 that leaves us with a very limited supply of compost as all garden centres are closed. I'll have to consider carefully the seeds we should sow and how they will be potted on. At the moment I think I'll leave sowing any seeds at all until some milder weather returns.

Suggestions at the government Covid 19 briefing yesterday were that social distancing measures might need to be in place for the next 6 months. Life, as we used to know it, has changed completely with little hope of it returning to anything like normal in the near future. Hopefully, when the lockdown measures are reviewed in another 2 weeks they will have had some effect on the spread of the disease and at least these measures will be relaxed slightly. 

Posted by Martyn at 13:16 7 comments

Wednesday, 25 March 2020

Lockdown Day 1 - Warmest Day of the Year!

Tuesday was our first day of UK lockdown. We expected it was coming as the request made on Friday for responsible social distancing was in many quarters simply ignored as over the weekend many tourist attractions saw crowds more associated with a Bank Holiday. The official lockdown came on Monday evening. It is not as severe as some countries have adopted but nevertheless requires some major lifestyle changes. The rules state that you can have one trip outside the house to 'exercise' once a day. We wondered what exactly could be considered as exercise and whether a trip to the allotment would come under this rule. 
We had to wait until Tuesday morning for confirmation, when a government minister replied to a question on TV that it was indeed okay to work on an allotment provided all the social distancing and other requirements were adhered to. We often have the allotments to ourselves apart from our plot neighbour so we didn't see any great risk in a visit to the plot. 

On a beautiful, sunny Tuesday afternoon we did indeed virtually have the allotments to ourselves. It was easy enough to maintain the required distance from our plot neighbour who is fully aware of the necessity of social distancing. It was very unusual to see a clear blue sky without any aircraft contrails. Tuesday turned out to be our warmest day of the year with the temperature reaching a very pleasant 19.5°C (67.1°F) the warmest day since the 23 September 2019 when the temperature reached 20.7°C or 69.3°F.

On the allotment things are looking up. March has been a much drier month and beds have dried out very well after their winter water logging.
Temperature & Rainfall Records March 2020
There's a few more dry days forecast before it's predicted to turn cold and damp over next weekend. I decided to try to get a few beds dug over before the weather turns and to my surprise the soil was in pretty good condition for cultivating. 
Hopefully, our early potatoes might get planted in early April, once next week's cold snap is over, which would be not much later than normal. 

One drawback of the lovely sunny days has been cold nights. Early on Monday morning the temperature fell to -2.4°C (27.7°F) colder than anything we had in December, January and February. It comes just as the plum and greengage blossom is coming into flower.
Greengage - Mannings
Hopefully, this time people will stick to the new lockdown rules or I'm sure they will be made even stricter and even tighter restriction on travel will be imposed. The lockdown is due to be reviewed in 3 weeks time to see if it is managing to slow down the spread of the Coronavirus.

Posted by Martyn at 11:13 2 comments

Monday, 16 March 2020

To Sow Or Not To Sow

It's about time I'd normally be starting to get some seeds sown but I'm not sure that would be such a great idea at the moment. Although the weather has been a bit better over the last few days, we've had a little less rain at least, the allotment is still very wet and not fit for sowing or planting. All our beds need some sort of treatment to prepare them for spring after the winter's heavy rainfall. I decided to have a look and see if we'd had similar conditions in March over the last ten years. 
Running 12 Month Rainfall Values
The above chart shows the rainfall in the previous 12 months for each month. The high spot at the very end of the chart indicates we've had 867.1mm (34.2in) of rainfall in the previous 12 months between March 2019 and February 2020. The only other time we've been in this position was in March 2013 when the previous 12 months had resulted in 926.1mm (36.5in) of rainfall between April 2012 and March 2013.

I looked back at March 2013 and found that not only was it wet but it was cold and snowy too. However, much of that rainfall had fallen through the very wet summer of 2012 rather than through the winter months unlike this spell of wet weather.
 March 2013
Checking through my planting records it was mid way through April before the early potatoes went into the ground. I'm not sure there is anything to be gained by planting potatoes into cold wet ground so my plan is to leave them chitting in the summerhouse for a few more weeks. Of course, the downside of planting them later is they may be more susceptible to blight but that's a risk I think I'm going to have to take.

I'm considering sowing our leeks this week as they take a long time to grow and they will remain in the greenhouse under cover for a good few weeks. I'm not so sure about when to sow our early crop of broad beans. They are quite slow to germinate but grow pretty quickly and soon need transplanting into the allotment or they become very leggy and can't stand up to the strong winds we get at the allotment.

We did get some tidying up done at the plot over the weekend.
The grass paths were strimmed for the first time since the middle of September last year. It made the plot look a little more cared for once the strimming was done and a few of the edges around the beds cut back. The ground still looked far too wet to dig. Hopefully, we'll get some drier and warmer weather as we head further into spring. 
At least the daffodils this year aren't covered in snow.


Posted by Martyn at 10:45 2 comments

Monday, 9 March 2020

Started Planting - But Only Inside

The last week has seen a bit of an improvement in the weather or at least it's fair to say we haven't had as much rain. That's not to say it's been dry but the rain arrived as showers rather than prolonged spells. 
Temperature & Rainfall Records 03-09 March 2020
On Saturday the temperature reached 14.2°C (57.6°F), becoming the warmest day of the year. The previous high had been set 3 months earlier on 07 January 2020 at 13.8°C or 56.8°F.

There doesn't appear to be any change from the wet and windy weather for the next couple of weeks, but there are hopefully signs that, towards the end of the month, some drier weather is possible. However, it's going to be a while before the plot is in a fit state to start cultivating, so we've decided to make a start sowing some seeds in our home and plot greenhouse. We've planted lettuce and parsley in our home greenhouse. 
Lettuce - All Year Round and Parsley - Moss Curled
At the plot we've sown some carrots (Aron) and radishes (Multicoloured Breakfast) in one old recycling crate and made use of two more old crates to plant potatoes. If the worst comes to the worst, and the poor weather continues, all these plants apart from the potatoes can be grown to maturity in the greenhouse or cold frame. The potatoes will need to come out of the greenhouse to make way for tomato plants, probably sometime in May, and hopefully the weather will be much improved by then.

Last year, we filled the recycling crates up with compost and planted two potato into the compost using a trowel. This saved us having to top up the compost as the potato haulms grew. It worked very well last year and so we're giving it another try this year.
Once planted up the tubs were given a good watering. The potato varieties we planted were Casablanca and International Kidney. 

Posted by Martyn at 10:35 2 comments

Friday, 6 March 2020

First Sowings on the Coldest Day of Winter - Err Spring!

It's funny how the weather likes to play tricks on us. We've had only a few frosts through winter and even then they haven't been all that cold. We're now in the first week of meteorological spring and what do we get the coldest night since last November.
Temperature Summary for 2020
The coldest night of the year, so far, has occurred in the first week of meteorological spring. It's worth noting the mean temperature for the month so far of 3.7°C (38.7°F) is well below average. The last night colder than -2.6°C (27.3°F), was on 30 November 2019, the last day of meteorological autumn when the temperature fell to -3.8°C or 25.2°F.

However, Friday has been a mostly sunny day. It felt nice and warm in the greenhouse and after a little bit of tidying up I sowed our first seeds of the year. First sowings were made of parsley, Moss Curled, and lettuce, All Year Round. Each seed packet contains lots of seeds so I can risk sowing some early in the hope of some early lettuces and parsley but, if they fail to germinate I've plenty of left over seeds for sowing when the weather hopefully warms up a little bit.
The seeds have been covered with a propagator lid which I'm hoping will serve to keep the seeds a little bit warmer and protect them from any mice hunting for food in the greenhouse. 


Posted by Martyn at 19:08 1 comments

Tuesday, 3 March 2020

February Turned Out To Be A Record Breaker

If you've followed my blog post through February you will be well aware that it's been an extremely wet and windy month. I've now finalised the rainfall figures and wind speeds records for the month. It's turned out to be both the wettest month and windiest month of the last eleven years.
Wettest & Windiest Months 2010-2020
What's more neither record has just crept over the line into top spot but is there by some considerable margin.

There seems to have been an awful lot of talk about how mild this winter has been but my weather station records didn't confirm it as the warmest of the last eleven years, with the winter of 2014/15 still holding on to that record. Rather unsurprisingly with all the rainfall of the last month, this winter's turned out to be the wettest I've recorded.
Winter Averages for Rainfall & Temperature 2010-2020
It seems rather incredible that in the middle of September last year the plot was very dry. Some parts of the plot were in need of watering and I didn't start any winter digging because the ground was too dry. I thought a little bit of rain would make digging over the ground so much easier. Little did I imagine that once the rain started it was going to continue through the rest of autumn and winter without any break.
Plot 18 September 2019
February's average temperature was a little above normal but only managed fifth place out of eleven years. However, as you can see the amount of rainfall in the month was more than double the previous wettest February I'd recorded.
February Averages for Rainfall & Temperature 2010-2020
This winter has been remarkably frost free and it's meant that our early rhubarb hasn't had its early stems knocked back by any frost. We managed to pick a few stems at the weekend which I suppose you could say was our first "fruit" harvest of the year.
I'm rather glad to see the end of February and I'm looking forward to some better weather in March. Hopefully, we'll get some dry and sunny days to help the garden and allotment dry out for the start of the main planting season at the beginning of April.  At least our only concern from all the rain is how it will impact on our start to the gardening year rather than those whose homes have been flooded and will need months of drying out and repair works before their homes are fit to live in again.

Posted by Martyn at 11:35 4 comments
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