More Gales and Cute Tiger Cubs

The weather doesn’t seem to know it’s June as we were treated to more gales force winds on Saturday. Only 6 days into the month and it’s become the windiest June of the last six years.

It’s the first time in June that I’ve recorded gust in excess of 26mph in the month.

Although it was lovely and sunny outside we decided against trying to do any gardening in the very unpleasant conditions. It gave me some time to do a little bit of video editing of our visit to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Thursday. After watching one of the polar bears diving into the lake we thought we would be hard pressed to see something else as entertaining but we were wrong.

 The three Amur tiger cubs born on the 29 March 2015 came out to play and have a little bit of lunch with their mum, Tschuna.

Some better weather is now required so that I can get on with some gardening.

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

That Didn’t Last Long Did It?

Friday became our warmest day of the year as early in the afternoon the temperature reached 24.0°C (75.2°F). By mid afternoon the weather was already changing as the clear blue skies of the morning clouded over and a stiff coolish breeze picked up. I suppose we have to be thankful for a day and a half of decent weather.

The wind from last week has already damaged some of the main stems to one of our cardoons. It’s not supposed to be windy in June!

On the plot Sue planted out our squash, pumpkin and courgette plants. By the time we left they already had a bit of a lean on due to the strong breeze. It felt like we might be planting them out a bit early but then again it is June so if they can’t safely be planted out now I don’t know when.

The forecast for the next few days is not that impressive for early June. We might get some sunshine but the temperatures are fairly disappointing.

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

A Polar Bear Trick on the Warmest Day of the Year

Wednesday wasn’t a bad day but Thursday was forecast to be much better. On Thursday morning we set out for a visit to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park near Doncaster on what turned out to be the warmest day of the year at 23.3°C (73.9°F).

We’d been meaning to visit for a while as we wanted to see the two male polar bears Victor and Pixel which have arrived at the park since our visit last year.

The Wildlife Park is planning for the arrival of more polar bears and new paddocks are under construction ready for their arrival. Victor who is fifteen years old and Pixel who is two years old aren’t exactly cramped for space.

Both polar bears are in the picture but they’re not that easy to spot. The lake is 8.0m (26ft ) at its deepest point and covers an area of 6500 sq/m (70,000sg/ft). As we watched one of the bears decided to perform its party trick much to the amusement of all the children watching.

Note
A quick technical note about this video. I made my first attempt at recording and editing in 4k video at the Park. If you watch this video on Youtube you can select the option to watch in 4k by clicking on the little cog in the bottom right hand corner and clicking on the appropriate quality from 4k down to 144p. 

After watching the polar bear for a while I though I might be struggling for a better bit of video especially as the lions, tigers and leopard only seemed content to remain almost hidden in the shade. It turned out I was wrong but a little bit of video editing will be required to sort out the afternoon’s star turn.  

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

A June Record Broken Already and a Strange Tomato

There’s no getting around it Tuesday was a horrible day for June. It was windy most of the morning but it picked up in strength through the late morning and into the afternoon. A gust of 27mph set a new 6 year record high breaking the previous highest of 23mph.

Temperature and Wind Speed Records Monday 01 June - Wednesday 03 June 2015

You may remember I posted about a tomato plant I’d been given called Crimson Crush. It’s grown considerably since I last posted and I thought it was about time it moved on into a larger pot.

As you can see the plant is making a very good root system but it is growing in a most unusual way for a tomato. It’s as if the plant is enlarging rather than growing and it doesn’t appear to want to make new leaves or a central stem. The existing leaves just seem to be getting bigger.

Now in its larger pot it should be good for a few more weeks growing. My aim is to plant it outside on the plot next to some other tomato plants and see if blight strikes any of the plants leaving Crimson Crush free of blight which is its claim to fame.

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

Meteorological Summer Begins -Really!

The start of June hasn’t changed the weather and the first day of the month was cool and windy with a few showers throughout the day.

Our rose White Cloud has produced its first flower of the season tucked away in a sheltered spot in the back border.

I’m glad to see the back of May weatherwise as it’s been a very disappointing month. Based on my records over the last five years it’s turned out to be the windiest and by a few hours the dullest. It’s avoided the reputation as the coldest May by the enormous margin of 0.1°C with the average temperature coming in at 11.3°C (52.3°F), the coldest May that I have recorded being 2013 at 11.2°C (52.2°F). For good measure it’s turned out to be the second wettest too so you can see it hadn’t too much going for it. The appropriate tables are shown below.

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

Supporting Role

Saturday wasn’t too bad by recent standards but after overnight rain Sunday turned into another windy and disappointing day to end the month.

Saturday was a day of erecting supports on the plot for our sweet peas, runner beans and climbing french beans. Our sweet peas will be supported using the hazel poles cut down in winter. These have been used to support our early peas and mangetout too.

It’s made quite a dent in our supply of hazel poles but I think we’ve enough for another couple of rows of peas. The hazel cutting aren't long enough to use as supports for our runner beans or climbing French beans so we use bamboo canes to support these. This year we’re reducing the number of runner beans and incorporating more climbing French beans.

Normally our dwarf French beans come under attack from slugs. Last year we tried Cobra (recommended by Mark’s Veg Plot) as a climbing French bean with excellent results so this year we’ve decided to try our luck with three different varieties Cobra, Corona D'Oro, and Cosse Violette. It does mean a few extra supports and some extra bamboo canes will be required but our crop will only take up the same amount of ground as the runner beans did last year.

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

Something Different

I’m sure I hardly need to write it down as once again Friday was cool and windy. We had some rain through the morning which cleared away to leave sunny spells and scattered showers for the afternoon. 

The last time we visited the plot we found that our new wheelbarrow had developed a puncture. We don’t normally have enough space in the car to fit in a wheelbarrow so the wheel was removed and brought home for a repair.

I can’t remember doing a puncture repair since I had a bike many years ago which once was my main mode of travel. A trip to Halfords to buy a puncture repair kit reminded me of all those different little items you need. Some levers to get the tyre off the wheel rim then there’s the chalk dust, marker crayon, a bit of sandpaper to roughen the area, adhesive and last but not least some patches. There’s the fun of finding the hole in the inner tube. Our greenhouse water butt came in handy for dipping the inner tube in to find the leak. The leak was found the patch stuck on and after a lots of messing about the inner tube and tyre were put back onto the wheel rim and the tyre inflated. 

Having checked the tyre this morning the pressure hasn’t gone down so hopefully my efforts have worked. 

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

Gales Just Keep On Coming

Thursday turned out to be another windy day. It doesn’t seem to be enough for this May to become the windiest I’ve got on record, which it did a week ago now, but the wind just keeps on blowing. 

A gust in the middle of the afternoon blew over our potted kiwi Issai. It stands in this pot in the same position all through the winter gales but now it’s in leaf it takes much less of a gust to blow it over.

It’s not as though it’s in a small pot. For the time being it’s been moved behind the summerhouse out of the strong westerly winds. It will be replaced into its normal sunnier position once the winds abate. I’m not at all sure when that will be.

Weather forecasting models are known to be fairly unreliable at getting the weather correct for more than a few days in advance. The forecast is for a wet and windy weekend and not all that good for the first few days of June.

This is the GFS forecast for Friday 06 June 2015 showing some much warmer temperatures for most of the UK taken from http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/. Of course that’s a whole week away so there’s plenty of time for the forecast to change but just maybe it will be correct.

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