Sunday, 25 February 2024

Swapping Rain for Frost

The start of the weekend produced our first dry day for 14 days. We’ve had some amount of rainfall each day from the 8th to the 23rd of the month.


The problem hasn’t been due to excessive amounts of rain. Lots of the rainfall we’ve had has been as showers. It’s more the fact that the rainfall that has fallen hasn’t had time to dry up. I’m sure some areas will have had larger amounts of rainfall than us.

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Sunday, 18 February 2024

To sow or not to sow – Is it too early?

It’s that time of the year when social media posts are full of “should I start sowing some seeds or is it too early?” There’ll be pictures of long leggy seedlings and people asking what to do with them. Of course, the answer is far from simple and depends on where you live in the country. The trick is knowing the dates of the last frosts where you live. Once you have managed to germinate your seeds where will you be able to grow them until the danger of frost is finished?


Sunday, 11 February 2024

I'm back with some weather stuff

I've been busy making gardening videos and have rather neglected writing any blog posts about the weather.

So how did 2023 finish up for us? Well in general 2023 is supposed to have been the hottest, warmest year ever but in our little neck of the woods that wasn't the case. 2023 wasn't even the runner-up, that place went to  2014 with 2022 holding on to the number one spot and 2023 coming third equal with 2011.

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Tuesday, 4 July 2023

Gorgeous June – Poor start to July

The weather in June was gorgeous for taking Ruby on long walks at Temple Newsam, Rothwell Park and Nostell Priory. A few days were particularly warm and we decided on evening walks for Ruby once the heat of the day had died down. Indeed this June turned out to be the warmest since I started keeping records in 2010.

Tuesday, 20 June 2023

An end to our record dry spell

We’ve just gone 34 days without a single drop of rain. The last time it rained was in May on the 14th of the month. Not that it was a great deal of rain just a meagre 0.4mm hardly detectable in the table below.  The remaining 17 days of May were totally rain free. I’ve included the rainfall and temperature records for May 2023 and June 2023 below.

Saturday, 10 June 2023

All planted up but..


As I’ve stated in the title the allotment plots are all now planted up. There are a few more brassica plants to go in to fill up one bed to hopefully provide us with a successional crop of cabbages and cauliflowers. However, you’ll notice the but at the end of the title and that’s because the allotment is very dry. It’s a month since we had any rain.

Monday, 22 May 2023

Oh No! Here we go again

We’ve had to start watering at the allotment. It’s not on the scale of last summer but seeds and newly planted crops are in need of some regular watering.

Monday, 8 May 2023

At last we manage 20°C

At last, we made it to 20°C or 68.0°F. Sunday afternoon turned out to be sunny and warm with the temperature reaching 23.4°C (74.1°F) late in the afternoon.