A Cold September

Tuesday was another day of misty and cloudy conditions lasting until the early afternoon before the sun broke through giving us a lovely late afternoon. One thing’s for sure now is that this September will be our coldest of the six years I’ve been keeping weather records. Although there’s still one day to go it’s not going to make any dramatic changes to this month’s average temperature.

We made the most of the afternoon sunshine with a walk around RSPB Fairburn Ings. As usual the birds kept a long telephoto lens away but we did manage one or two pictures.

The long range forecast seems to be suggesting a rather more unsettled pattern of weather for October. We shall see.

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

Will They Wont They?

The settled pattern of weather continued on Monday except that the morning mist and cloud didn’t clear away until the early afternoon.

Back on the 29 July we sowed a row of very late Onward peas as a bit of an experiment to see if we could manage a very late harvest or if they would succumb to the cooler weather. 

Despite a cool September they’ve not grown too badly and are now starting to produce a few flowers

Perhaps if we’re lucky enough to get a good October we might yet get a few late fresh peas as an tasty treat.

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

A Settled Spell

The weather has been fairly settled for the last few days. It’s meant some cool, cloudy or even foggy mornings with some afternoon sunshine if we’ve been lucky. Sunday produced the coldest day of autumn so far despite a mild and sunny afternoon. A cold night with the temperature down to 4°C (39.2°F) followed by a foggy morning left us with a daily average of 9.8°C or 49.6°F.

The foggy mornings do show how many spiders webs we have in the garden. Our palm tree seems to be particularly favoured.

After a couple of days away in the North Yorkshire Moors photographing birds and trains it was back to the plot on Sunday to plant our winter onions. I think that completes all our sowing and planting on the plot for this year.

It will soon be time to start planning next year’s crops. Those tempting seed catalogues are already falling through the letterbox. 

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

Out with the Tomatoes and in with Some Growbeds

A couple of decent September days with temperatures around average for late September and no rain.

I decided it was time for a change around in the greenhouse. Our tomato plants were taking up an awful lot of space for the amount of tomatoes that were left on the plants. The tomatoes were removed and will be ripened elsewhere, perhaps in the summerhouse.

This year we are trying something new in an attempt to have some winter salad crops. Rather than the greenhouse be left empty or worse still filled with “stuff” we can’t be bothered to clear away before winter sets in we’re trying our luck with some growbeds.

Three of these beds have been set up down one side of the greenhouse. They’re pretty big and take a large amount of compost to fill them up. Each one so far has the contents of two extra large growbags emptied into it. These were used through summer for our tomato plants so I’m going to add some fish, blood and bone before topping them up with some extra compost.

All we need to decide then is what crops to try in them.  

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

Too Hot for Planting Onions

After the pleasant weekend Monday was mostly wet. The rain didn’t stop until the middle of the afternoon when the sun managed to come out. It never felt very warm even in the late afternoon sunshine.

Temperature, Rainfall and Solar Radiation for Monday 21 September 2015

The days rainfall came to 4.4mm (0.43”) bringing this months total up to 29.6mm or 1.17in. Average rainfall for the month is 43.2mm or 1.70in.

Rather bizarrely we were told in our local garden centre yesterday that their supply of winter onions hasn’t been delivered because their suppliers think the weather has been too warm. I wonder where they live? 

Ossett Average Low Temperatures for Recent Septembers

Last year our winter onions were bought from the same garden centre and planted on 25 September during a much warmer spell of weather. They went on to produce one of our best winter onion crops. We’ve found that if planted too late the onions don’t do any growing before the cold weather sets in and then they just rot away over winter. 

We might have to look elsewhere for this year’s supply of onions.

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

Varied Weekend

The weather over the weekend was pretty decent and we made the most of Saturday’s weather with a little bit of harvesting on the plot. Although we can harvest a few bits and pieces on each visit production is beginning to wind down as we move further into autumn. 

On Sunday we visited the North Yorkshire Moors Railway to get some pictures of 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, a steam locomotive making its final appearance on Sunday before been withdrawn for a major overall. This will take several years to complete and be a costly exercise.

It was one of those days when the Sat Nav went a bit haywire. Once into the North Yorkshire Moors things seemed to be going alright and the chosen route was alone decent enough roads. 

Then all of a sudden we were off the main roads and heading along little used country lanes. We got a little bit worried but we’ve had this sort of thing happen before and it’s usually turned out okay. 

This time it didn’t as we were instructed to turn right down nothing more than a bridleway which was narrow and unsurfaced. It didn’t look like the sort of road that you could turn around on if things got really tricky. Eventually we found our way back to some proper roads. However we did have to cross this ford which Sue wasn’t too happy about at all.

We managed to make it to Grosmont to get some picture of 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley leaving the station for the engine sheds. It was much later than planned and took place almost in darkness.

There were lots of other folk who hung about into the darkness to see the locomotive steam into the engine shed.

As Sir Nigel tooted its farewell, out of the darkness a male tawny owl hooted back.

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

Surprising Spuds

Thursday wasn’t bad. After another cool start to the day it wasn’t too bad although the morning’s short sunny spells disappeared altogether in the afternoon.

I decided it was about time I lifted our second bed of maincrop potatoes. I've been putting off lifting these potatoes for fear of what was underneath the weed control fabric. In some areas of the plot it's been a very bad year for slugs and I expected plenty of damage to our main crop potatoes thinking slug damage would be much worse underneath the fabric.

The potato tops have mostly died down. It seemed like that at each cut in the weed control fabric a nasturtium plant had grown through. The flowers were attracting a few bees but there was no way I could dig up the potatoes and save the nasturtiums.

I pulled back the weed control fabric and I've become accustomed to seeing a good number of potatoes on the surface of the soil but this wasn't the case.

The crop turned out to be better than we had obtained by planting more conventionally and even more surprisingly there was less damage from slugs and other pests. 

I'd half expected the soil to be a bit wet for digging after the recent spells of rain but that wasn't the case and the soil dug over very nicely. All I need to do now is tidy up around the edges of the bed and replace the weed control fabric and the bed can be left over winter and it shouldn't need much preparatory work to get it ready for next season.

Out of interest the larger bed planted up conventionally produced a total crop weight of 36.4 kg against 38.4kg in the slightly smaller bed where the potatoes were grown under weed control fabric.

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

The Two R’s

The last three days have been a mixed bag as far as the weather goes. Monday and Tuesday were wet as forecast although we didn’t have much rain on Monday. It was more persistent very light drizzle all day. It made it feel wetter and damper than it really was. Wednesday was forecast to be wet but it turned out to be sunny and easily the best of the three days.

Temperature and Rainfall Monday 14 to Wednesday 16 September 2015

The temperatures have remained on the cool side for September with some chilly nights. It’s our coolest September since I started keeping records. 

Our tomatoes are ripening fairly slowly which I’m putting down to the chilly nights and often dampish daytime conditions. I did pick this bowl of John Baer tomatoes on Tuesday a new variety for us which has done well this year.

However we’ve quite a few tomatoes that are beginning to rot away on the plants before falling off onto the greenhouse floor.

Not a pretty sight are they? Carrying on unscathed though are Sungold which have reached the eaves of the greenhouse and are using the grapevine for support. They’re still continuing to give a regular supply of very sweet and tasty tomatoes.

I might remove our remaining green tomatoes and see if they will ripen indoors rather than leaving them to rot on the plants.

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