Where's the rain!

There was rain forecast for Friday but it never materialised and it turned out to a rather dull but very mild day. We had some evening sunshine which gave us a beautiful warm evening.

Our garden tulips have surprised me as they have been in flower for a long period given the exceptionally dry conditions I expected them to be over quickly but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Garden tulips

A bit of a shock and a change of plan

Thursday had some sunny spells but was mostly cloudy and mild. By early evening the clouds had really thickened promising bucket fulls of rain which didn't happen.

We did get some light rain which amounted to a measly 0.6mm. I have found this chart on Dr Ryan N Maue's site at The Florida State University - Tallahassee. It's a great site if you're looking for weather forecasts for anywhere in the world.

link to website http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/weather/

I've circled the UK and Ireland in red as we're under a blanket of green and blue. If I'm reading this chart correctly most of us should received some rain between the 6th and 14th May. The units on the coloured scale are in inches.  Now for the scare. I reckoned it was time I removed the remaining winter straw protection from our  banana plants. I picked up one piece of a bale of straw and there was suddenly bees everywhere. I don't know who was most surprised me or the bees. I didn't hang around to find out if they were angry or like me just surprised. After giving them time to calm down I returned to take some pictures. Bees nesting in straw After a bit of thought we decided to move as much straw as possible without disturbing the bees any more leaving the rest of the straw in place for the bees to do what bees do. After all the bees need all the help they can get at the moment. We also have a banana shoot coming from ground level after we thought the cold winter had killed off our plants completely. And of course some of our blue tit chicks hatched. More on that elsewhere on our blogs.

Is it May!

The early hours of Wednesday morning saw the temperature fall below 0°C for the first time since March 14th. Just as well I gave our nectarine some protection. Wednesday itself turned out to be another very pleasant sunny day.

I made a trip down to the plot to see if the frost had done any damage to our crops. All the usual suspects had been caught by the frost and to some extent the exceptionally mild April might just have been wasted on some of our crops.

I thought that our emerging potato sprouts would be caught and I was correct.  The potatoes should recover but will crop a little later but hopefully before blight strikes, usually the beginning of August.

Frosted potato Red Duke of York

Our outdoor grapevine on the plot also had its new shoot frost damaged. Our Boskoop Glory vine growing on the shed escaped almost unaffected unlike Madeleine Sylvaner growing on some trellis in an open part of the plot.

Grape Vine - Madeleine Sylvaner

After all the discussions on Mrs GL's blog about our Kiwi and the possibility of some fruits this year that too was damaged by the frost. I'm not sure whether the unopened flowers are damaged though.

Kiwi

Ending on a positive note I was able to harvest enough sprouting broccoli for a small helping our first harvest from a normally prolific crop at this time of year.

White Sprouting Broccoli

Anglers Country Park

The wind was much lighter today but still from the east and more cloud about. Warm in the sunshine and out of the breeze. We had a pleasant afternoon walk around Anglers Country Park established on the site of a previous open cast coal site.

Link to Anglers Country Park

The forecast is for an overnight frost so our nectarine was given some special TLC by way of a fleece jacket for the night.

Nectarine with frost protection

As a precaution I covered our tender tomato plants and peppers in the greenhouse with fleece in case of a frost. On the plot things will have to take their chance.

Tender plants with fleece for frost protection

A plan coming together

Bank holiday Monday was sunny but we had a cool stiff easterly breeze taking the edge of the temperature. The heavy rain forecast by the BBC for Friday has changed to become light rain. This is more like the American forecast model I check. It seems the weather will be more unsettled over the week end and the chance of some proper rain on Saturday or Sunday.

The video below was taken yesterday between watering our seedlings and recently planted crops on the plot.

Will it rain on Friday?

Sunday was another sunny, dry and windy day. With already dry conditions the wind will be drying out the ground and plants even more.

I've noticed a couple of times heavy rain forecast which miraculously never arrives. The BBC 5 day forecast has some heavy rain predicted for Friday. I wonder if it will arrive.

Rain forecast for Friday

The weather charts I keep an eye on suggest that the high pressure system will break down next weekend with the likelihood of some rain next Monday the 9th May. In the meantime the watering will have to continue.

In our garden we think our nectarine has set some fruit which will be a first for us. We will need to keep a check for any forecasts of frost and cover the tree with fleece if necessary to protect our fruitlets. Wednesday night looks a bit of a worry at the moment with the chance of a frost.

Nectarine - Fantasia

April - Driest and warmest!

Saturday was once again dry and sunny but with a cool gusty easterly breeze. The breeze is probably the worst thing the plot needs now in its very dry state. Our onions are starting to grow but have needed regular watering to get then to this stage.

Onions from sets

April has set several records for lack of rain and the warmest on record since 1659 when records began. Read about it on Paul Hudson's blog.

Click here for link to blog or on image

What an entry!

Friday continued the fine spell of weather. There was a little more cloud around today but still no signs of any rain. It looks like April will set both a high average temperature and low rainfall record.

I spent some time trying to capture images of our blue tits entering or leaving their nest box. The speed at which they enter the nest box is amazing. As shown in the picture below our blue tit heads for its nest in an arrow shape blur!

Blue tit heads for nest box