It Started off so Well

Tuesday got off to a beautiful sunny start. It was just the sort of morning for having a stroll around the garden taking a few pictures.

The plan for the afternoon was to plant some winter brassicas on the allotment. By the time we got down to the plot in the early afternoon some dark clouds were brewing out in the east over the motorway.

I wasn't too concerned at first as most of our weather comes in from the west and we've normally missed anything that looks to be out in the direction of these ominous looking clouds. After another half an hour or so it was clear to see that these clouds were heading in our direction and we were in for a downpour.

We'd started planting out some of our brassica plants and at first as the rain started gently we decided to carry on, just get wet but have everything planted. As the heavens opened we put our optimistic planting plan on hold and headed for the shed as the thunder rumbled overhead.

We decided to sit it out in the shed hoping for a break in the rain to get our planting finished. It didn't really happen so in a lighter spell of rain we settled for finishing half of our planting and covering the calabrese and savoys with some temporary netting as pigeon protection.

More rain in the evening turned a day that had started off with so much promise into the wettest day of the year so far with the final rainfall total coming to 20.4mm. That’s on top of Monday’s 10.8mm bringing our monthly total up to a healthy 38.4mm. At least the plot won't need watering for a while.

It makes Tuesday our 12th wettest day since 2009 but still a little way short of the record of 39.2mm on 12 July 2012.

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