A Gardener's Weather Diary

Monday, 16 September 2013

A Couple of Days Away

We had a couple of days away in Cambridgeshire visiting Belton House a National Trust property and paying a visit to the Nene Valley Heritage Railway for their Autumn Steam Gala. Unfortunately the weather didn't play ball. We travelled down the A1 on Friday morning through rain but luckily for us the afternoon cleared up and we even managed a little sunshine for a couple of hours in the afternoon as we wandered around the parkland and gardens at Belton House before the rain returned again in the evening.

It was a damp cool start to Saturday morning as we arrived at Wansford station on the Nene Valley Railway. The forecast was for the weather to improve gradually through the day.

At least the rain held off and as forecast it did improve in the afternoon with the sun just managing a very brief appearance.

We missed the heavy rain forecast for Sunday but it was a cloudy and blustery day not very pleasant at all. The forecast for the next few days suggests daytime temperatures just making it into the low teens. It’s supposed to be autumn not winter but the weather doesn't seem to know that!

Thursday, 12 September 2013

Dull and a Bit Wet

The forecast for Wednesday was just about spot on predicting rain to start just after lunchtime which it did. I suppose the morning wasn't too bad, mostly dull and cloudy but without any breeze it didn't feel too bad.

The sun’s disappeared for the last couple of days and the daytime high temperatures seemed to have settled around the mid-teens probably just a bit lower than we might expect for early September.

In the afternoon I roasted some more tomatoes and as an afterthought checked the weight of fruit from each of our greenhouses. Our home greenhouse produced 2.7kg of tomatoes from 15 plants which is poor by anybody’s standards. On the other hand our plot greenhouse has so far produced 7.7kg of tomatoes from 15 plants and there’s plenty of fruit still to ripen.

Each greenhouse had 15 plants, 3 of each of the following varieties, Alicante, Amish Gold, Brandy Boy Hybrids, Pink Wonder and Sioux.

This is how the varieties have performed so far. The home greenhouse totals won’t change as I've already weighed up all the tomatoes including green ones left on the plants when they were cleared away this week to make some space for our onions to dry off. So far it looks like an excellent year in one greenhouse and almost a complete disaster in another. I've used the same seed and they've all been grown in the same compost. I'm at a loss to explain the weird results but this gardening lark always throws up a few surprises for us to deal with.

I’ll update the chart once all our plot tomatoes have been harvested.

Wednesday, 11 September 2013

I Think Autumn’s Here

Tuesday was cool and cloudy virtually all day until the sun just managed to make an appearance in the early evening. It cast rather a strange light over the garden perhaps one that Monty Don would enthuse over but not me. It just smacks of autumn arriving.

After that lovely mini heatwave to start off September it’s all gone to pot a little bit with a couple of night time temperatures well down into single digits and daytimes only into the middle teens.

It’s an early reminder that those tender crops still producing down on the plot might not be doing so for much longer. Hopefully we'll get through September without any frost to give our greenhouse tomatoes and outdoor vegetables such as Crown Prince Squashes time to ripen and mature.

Tuesday, 10 September 2013

A Day Off

Monday was a question of avoiding the heavy showers. We didn't have any rain at home but we did have some heavy rain on our way to RSPB Old Moor. As we arrived at Old Moor the rain was so heavy we thought we'd probably have some lunch in the cafe there and then head back home.

By the time we'd had some lunch the rain had stopped and we decided to have a walk and look around the reserve. The clouds continued to threaten more rain but luckily it stayed away.

Sue managed to capture this heron having lunch too. When I see the size of these birds I’m always amazed that we need to protect our small garden pond from them as they are quite capable of manoeuvring around the obstacles in our garden and helping themselves to our pond fish.

Monday, 9 September 2013

Onions

Sunday wasn't too bad after a very chilly start it was a fairly bright day but without much sunshine the temperature only managed the mid teens.

On the plot we decided it was time to lift our main crop onions and move them into our home greenhouse to dry off and hopefully store well over winter. It was hard to believe that we’d had 17mm of rainfall only a couple of days ago as although the top of the soil was wet it was still on the dry side a little lower down.

This was the first time we’d grown our onions through weed control fabric and it’s been successful at cutting down on weeding and still producing an excellent crop of onions. These were all set off early in cells back on 18 February in the greenhouse before been moved into the cold frame to harden off on 19 April and were finally planted in the plot on 5 May.

We always seem to have more problems growing red varieties but I’m really pleased with the size and conditions of our main crop onions. We’ll be lifting our other onions in the next week or so and comparing how they've done. We've now got to try to keep these onions in good condition through the winter.

Sunday, 8 September 2013

Much Better - Sort Of!

Saturday’s weather was a big improvement with some sunny periods. We had just one of the forecast scattered showers in the late afternoon when the sun was shining. The clear skies of daytime led to the sort of description in my title as overnight into Sunday morning the temperature fell to 4.2°C. That’s not the sort of night time temperature that’s going to prolong our runner bean harvesting season or help ripen tomatoes, apples and pears.

I decided to clear our home greenhouse tomatoes to make way for drying out our onions. Throughout summer most of our home tomatoes have been consigned to the green waste bin with blossom end rot and with only a few tomatoes left on the plants I've cut our losses and will make better use of the greenhouse space by drying off our onion crop.

This is virtually, give or take the odd tomato, our total home greenhouse crop from 15 plants. We've still a few green Alicante tomatoes to pick once they've ripened. Fortunately we've lots of green tomatoes in the plot greenhouse - but will they get some good weather to help them ripen?

Saturday, 7 September 2013

A Rainy Day

Friday brought some much needed rain for the plot and the garden. The rain was heaviest in the morning and caused some local flooding in the usual locations. By the end of the day the total came to 17.8mm. Our new shed roof repairs will have been tested to the full.

On our last visit to the plot we picked some tomatoes which are now starting to crop much better. We've certainly got a heavy crop but they’re going to need a decent September to fully ripen.

This is a selection of the varieties we picked. Pink Wonder have split more than the other sorts and I put the splitting of the skins down to irregular watering but I don’t make trips to the plot just to water my tomatoes they just have to accept going from a good soaking to drying out. As most of them will be used to make tomato sauce for use throughout winter a few split skins isn't too much of a problem.

Chopped and roasted ready for packing into containers and freezing for stews, casseroles, curries and pasta sauces.

Friday, 6 September 2013

Shed Refurbishment

Thursday was another lovely September day although it wasn't quite as warm as yesterday.

Our allotment shed needed some refurbishment work to prepare it for the worst of the winter weather. Last winter’s gales ripped the felting off the roof and I was forced to make some temporary repairs to make the shed waterproof. The repair almost worked but there were a couple of places where water could find its way under the repair.

I thought it looked like a good repair job at the time but the elements thought differently. The inside of the shed got some TLC after last week’s break in. Incidentally we've had more break-ins on Wednesday night but fortunately we escaped any more damage. The only option to repair the shed roof properly was to re-felt the whole roof. It’s best to do this on a warm day as the felt sheeting is more pliable when it’s warm but dealing with the bitumen sealant is always going to be a messy job.