Tuesday 11 August 2020

Too hot for digging potatoes

We went to the allotment this afternoon (Monday) with the intention of digging up the rest of our trial potatoes. At home it didn’t seem all that hot but once at the allotment it soon became clear it was a bit too warm for digging up potatoes. The afternoon temperature reached 27.2°C or 81.0°F.
The tops of the potatoes are dying down now so the crop underneath isn't going to do any more growing.

I needed to change the crop protection for two of our beds. We had environmesh over our salad bed and normal netting over our new brassica bed. The better option was to have the Enviromesh over the brassicas to give some protection against aphids as well as cabbage white butterflies. It was hard work making holes, in our now rock hard ground, for the plastic piping supports for the netting covering our salad bed.

Besides swapping around the coverings on these beds we managed to do a reasonable amount of harvesting. We picked our first kohlrabi Ballot but we have no idea whether this is the right size for picking or not.

The intention is for this to be grated and added to our coleslaw mix. We also harvested cabbage and carrots both of which will be added to the kohlrabi in the coleslaw.

The forecast is for another warm day on Tuesday and Wednesday before temperatures fall back to normal towards the end of the week. I will probably leave digging any more potatoes until the weather cools down. We will probably have to do some watering this week as it’s been almost a month since we had any reasonable amount of rain.
 
Temperature and Rainfall Records 12 July - 11 August 2020
There is just the chance that we might get a thunderstorm which will save us from having to do any watering.



4 comments:

  1. Hope you have 'lucked out' on the thunderstorms. They have been soaking Edinburgh - as is traditional during the (cancelled) Festival.

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  2. Saw some pictures from Edinburgh this morning on social media. Looked like Aberdeen? got a soaking too. As you might have guessed any thunderstorms missed us although we did get an overnight shower. It amounted to 2.0mm and with the temperature at 28.5°C in the early afternoon it wont have done much to water the allotment!

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    Replies
    1. Around 11 last night it got very scary. A months rainfall in a couple of hours and lightening galore. (Did I say something about rain at night recently?) Sadly the flood defences at our allotment got overwhelmed and the site was flooded again. I spent today emptying the shed, hosing things down or throwing them away - as did our plot neighbours. No more salads - everything has to be cooked before consumption now.

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    2. Sorry to here you got flooded out again Mal. Doesn't seem all that long ago since the last time. Shouldn't there be some flood defences in place before it gets to the allotments or are the allotments on a flood plain? It's a pity the wet weather can't be shared out a bit better. Dare I say it still no rain here going to have to do some serious watering at the allotment this weekend. At least the very hot weather seems to have gone just 18°C today and dull rather than sunny and humid with a temperature of 31°C yesterday.

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