September Ends on a Milder Note

Sunday turned out to be milder than the last few days with the thermometer making it up to 16.6°C. It was breezy and cloudy with spits and spots of rain in the air from midday onwards.

In view of the weather I decided to do some tidying up sorting out our onions, shallots and apples which have been stacked in boxes under the patio roof to keep dry. I made some space in the greenhouse for the onions and shallots. They’ll keep OK in the greenhouse unless any really severe frosts are threatened in which case they will need moving into the garage and covering with fleece for extra protection.

 

Below is what’s left of last year’s autumn sown onions lifted this summer and they’ve kept in good condition stored in the greenhouse since lifting.

The tomatoes are now turning red in the garden greenhouse after what seems like a very long wait. I also picked another couple of bunches of Himrod grapes but like most other fruit and vegetables this year they’ve under performed.

 

Turning Out Cool and Wet

Saturday wasn’t brilliant weatherwise. The morning started full of promise with clear blue skies and cool. It soon clouded over and a cool blustery breeze developed.

 

After a poor summer the hope was for a good spell of weather into the autumn but that hasn’t happened so far with the cool wet weather of summer continuing. September will turn out to be the coldest for 18 years with an average temperature of around 13.0°C. September 1994 was the last time the average for the month was below 13°C. I suppose our last hope is for an Indian summer but I’m not too optimistic on it happening.

 

On the same day last year year the temperature soared to 28°C as September ended with some superb weather.

 

The poor weather hasn’t stopped our cyclamens from putting on a good display.

A Day On the North Yorkshire Moors

Friday morning was dull and a bit drizzly so we hummed and ahhed about a trip into the North Yorkshire Moors to visit the autumn steam gala that is being held over the next three days by the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. We decided to risk it and it didn’t turn out too bad a day with just a little light rain at times but we did get some sunny spells in the afternoon.

 

On the journey to the Moors the area around York is still showing signs of all the heavy rain with the rivers still in flood. It can be quite difficult to spot the difference between the river and the fields.

Once into the Moors the effects of the last week’s rainfall were less obvious as all the water has now flowed into the major rivers around York.

 

Sue’s camera had a very busy day capturing our visit to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway as you can see from the collage of pictures below. She even managed to capture the odd train!

The steam trains fit into the spectacular North Yorkshire Moors scenery pretty well too.

 

Last Apples Harvested

Thursday was a big improvement as it didn’t rain. We had some sunny spells and it was a bit milder.

 

I’m sure it would be too wet to do much on the plot 　after all the rain so I decided to harvest the remaining apples on our trees at home. Our garden Bramley hasn’t produced at all this year but the Peasgood Nonsuch has managed a reasonable crop although smaller than usual.

 

This variety gives our Bramleys a run for their money as far as being a good cooking apple. They were certainly ready for picking almost falling of the trees as I touched the apples to pick them.

 

This year’s crop of apples is certainly much smaller than last year’s as shown in the comparison table below. The weather has a lot to answer for.

Also worthy of note today we picked our first ripe tomatoes from our home greenhouse. We do now have a few ripe tomatoes in this greenhouse and Alicante produced a nice punnet of fruit at last.

 

Cool As Well As Wet

Wednesday was a sort of an improvement on the previous couple of days. There were spits and spots of rain throughout the day but at one point we even had a brief glimpse of sunshine. We had a couple of very heavy showers late afternoon 　and early evening which accounted for most of the 4.4mm of rain.

Last year September went out in a blaze of glory with temperatures into the high twenties. 　It doesn’t look like we’re going to get a repeat this year as September looks like turning out to be rather on the cool side. At the moment the average temperature for the month is 13.33°C making it the coldest since 1994.

 

This collared dove found a pleasant roost in the afternoon on our bird table roof just outside our study window. It didn’t seem too bothered that I was standing at the window trying to take its picture. Perhaps it was guarding the remaining food left on the bird table.

A Lucky Miss

It was wet and rainy again on Tuesday but at least we avoided the heavy rain which struck a little further north resulting in severe flooding and major delays to road and rail networks.

 

It’s amazing how much rain we’ve had since Spring when the predictions were for lots of dry weather leading to devastating drought conditions. It started to rain and it’s continued to do so ever since those forecasts were made. Out of the last 6 months we’ve exceeded the expected rainfall in each month apart from May which was a pretty dry month. April, June and July all produced over twice our expected rainfall with August not far behind.

At the end of March the previous 12 months had produced only 393.5mm of rain against an expected amount of 651.5mm or 60% of our annual expected rainfall. Now almost at the end of September the previous 12 months have produced 793.7mm of rainfall or 122% of expected.

 

All this rainfall may impact pretty drastically on our allotment activities. Autumn and winter digging might have to be put on hold whilst the ground dries out something the plot is not good at in Autumn and Winter especially if this wet weather continues.

Wet - Very Wet!

It rained all day on Monday with no let up at all. It wasn’t torrential, thank goodness, but just steady rain all day. It always seems to be on really rainy days that I find out that my main rain gauge has become blocked with pigeon doo doos. As you may know Woody likes to sit on my weather station and take in the surroundings. 　

I guessed there was a problem when my old back up gauge was recording far more rainfall through the day than the newer gauge and sure enough on inspecting my main gauge on Tuesday morning I found the collecting bucket full of water. At least I’ve found out how to make the totals of rainfall correct on my charts if not the hours the rain actually fell.

Monday’s rainfall amounted to 29.0mm putting into 4th placed in the wettest days I’ve recorded.

2012 now holds 6 spots in the top ten of wettest 10 days since September 2009.

 

　

Potato Summary and a Short Lived Record

First thing Sunday morning was fractionally colder than Saturday and it remained cool and cloudy all day with rain setting in mid afternoon. This meant Sunday took over the record of coldest September day I’ve recorded at 7.7°C breaking 8.3°C set yesterday. The rain started mid afternoon and is still falling mid morning Monday although it’s not been particularly heavy. The forecast is for much more wind and rain over the next 24 hours. Autumn has definitely arrived big time.

 

Now all our potatoes are lifted I’ve summarised the crop from each of our varieties in the table below. Despite this spring and summer’s poor weather and the potatoes getting away to a very late start the total crop weights for 2011 and 2012 are very similar with a total for 2011 of 152.304 kg. As lots of you measure in pounds 150 kg is equivalent to 330 lbs.

To finish on a rather gruesome note. I’d accidentally placed a bucket full of potatoes on top of a snail on Saturday night. I heard that crunching sound of breaking snail shell as I put the potatoes down onto the patio. I didn’t think too much about it as there are plenty of other snails in the garden to take its place. I was really surprised on Sunday morning to find a large slug tucking into the remains of the crushed snail.

Apparently after a little Internet research slugs will clear away the remnants of dead snails. That’s something I hadn’t expected and I’ve certainly not noticed happening in the garden before.