Monday, 2 January 2017

Provisional Seeds Orders Underway

A rather belated Happy New Year to anyone who reads the ramblings about my gardening exploits and weather musings.

Sunday wasn't a great start to the new year with a damp, cold and cloudy day. The temperature steadily fell from 10.0°C (50°F) at midnight, as the new year began, to 3°C (37°F) by the middle of the afternoon. The day's rainfall amounted to 6.6mm (0.26in) our wettest New Year's Day I've recorded.
Rainfall & Temperature Records for 01 January 2017
The start of the new year is a time to look forward to a new gardening year and we're busy sorting out our seed and plant orders for the next season. It also involves setting up our new web site for 2017 where I record our planting and harvesting details. Our provisional seed list for 2017 can be viewed by clicking here. I'm sure it isn't a complete list and I'll need to keep amending it as the season progresses.

By the time our new web site is sorted out it will hopefully seamlessly link with both our blogs.
In the garden there are already signs that the start of the new gardening year is under way as the first bulbs push their way through the frosty ground.

Posted by Martyn at 11:33 1 comments

Friday, 30 December 2016

An Afternoon in the Freezer

After an incredible cold start to the day on Thursday (-5.6°C or 21.9°F) I expected it to finish up with the lowest average temperature of the year. However, the coldness relented a little in the evening and Wednesday's -1.1°C (30.0°F) remained the coldest and the lowest average daily temperature since 17 January 2013 with -1.9°C or 28.6°F. Thursday’s low was the coldest December temperature since 22 December 2010 when it fell to -5.8°C or 21.6°F.
The freezing cold weather has brought with it some lovely sunny days. We decided to wrap up well and make an afternoon visit to RSPB Fairburn Ings.
In the afternoon sunshine it didn't feel too cold even though most of the ground was covered with the day's frost. Out of the sunshine it was very different with most of the water still frozen over in the middle of the afternoon.
Part of our walk took us along the banks of the River Aire where mist still hung over some lengths of the river.
It was as we walked along the path by the river that someone asked us if we'd seen the deer. It took a while to spot them as they were in the distance on the opposite side of one of the large lakes on the reserve. Cameras trained and lenses at full reach it was a job to see the deer clearly.
It certainly merged in with the background very well. It was the first time we had seen any deer on one of the nature reserves that we visit. There are always reported sighting of deer and occasionally a photo will be posted on Facebook but I certainly didn't expect to see one on a freezing cold December afternoon. It's easy to forget that Fairburn Ings was once a mining area and isn't far away from major cities like Leeds and Wakefield. Parts of the reserve still have signs of that industrial past.
As we headed for the visitor centre in the late afternoon the sun was already setting on what had been a very cold day.

Posted by Martyn at 11:08 1 comments

Thursday, 29 December 2016

Colder Than Forecast!

It's suddenly got really cold and frosty. It comes as a shock to the system, after a reasonably mild December, when the temperature falls below freezing.
Temperature Record for 28 December 2016
It was the first time this year that the average daily temperature was below freezing finishing at -1.1°C or 30.0°F. I can't remember recording another day where the minimum daily temperature number was equal to the maximum temperature number. The only difference was the minimum number had a minus sign in front of it. The low temperature was -3.7°C and the maximum 3.7°C. It obviously doesn't work in Fahrenheit where the equivalent temperatures are 25.3°F and 38.7°F.
Monthly Records for December 2016
Now I'm not going to go on about how cold Wednesday was as it looks like it will be easily beaten  by Thursday. If you examine the records for the 29 December 2016, shown above, you can see that it has started off even colder with the temperature falling to -5.6°C or 21.9°F around dawn. It's our coldest start to the day since the 16 January 2013 when the temperature was -5.8°C or 21.6°F. Thursday looks likely to be our coldest day of 2016.
It moves into 13 place in my top twenty coldest days listing.

When it's as cold as this on a morning we have a sparrow tree as they wait in the crab apple tree for their turn to eat at the seed feeder.
However, this morning it wasn't possible to fill up the feeder as the top was frozen to the rest of the feeder making it impossible to refill with seed.
There was some seed in the feeder so once it warms up a bit I'll top it up. I put plenty of seed on the bird table so the sparrows shouldn't go hungry. The bird bath was filled up with hot water to thaw out the frozen water left over from yesterday. There's some ice formed on the pond which doesn't happen very often.
I don't think that we'll be visiting the plot as the ground at home is well and truly frozen.
It's now 10:30 on Thursday morning and it's warmed up to -3.3°C (26.1°F) so maybe I'll pop outside and see if I can fill up the feeder for the sparrows.



Posted by Martyn at 11:37 4 comments

Wednesday, 28 December 2016

Equal Coldest

The weather has certainly turned colder after a mild Christmas Day. Wednesday morning's temperature is the equal coldest of the year at -3.7°C or 25.3°F. It equals the same low temperature set on 16 February and 15 November this year.
Wednesday has started bright and sunny and the early morning sun is doing its best to melt the frost on the greenhouse roof but isn't doing too well.
There were some rather good ice formations growing on the greenhouse timber's. This was the best I could manage before my fingers became numb.

Posted by Martyn at 09:57 0 comments

Tuesday, 27 December 2016

Nothing Out of the Ordinary

The storms Barbara and Conor have been and gone over Christmas without too much of a fuss for us. It's been windy with a few showers too but nothing out of the ordinary for the end of December.
Hi Wind Speeds and Rainfall Records for 20-26 December 2016
It was the mildest Christmas day of the last six years with a high of 14.2°C (57.6°C) although that's not the mildest day of the month which was 07 December with 15.6°C or 60.1°C.
Temperature and Rainfall Records for December 2016
It might turn out to be the driest December of the last six years despite the rainfall over the last couple of days. With Boxing Day's rainfall included the monthly total stands at 22.0mm (0.87 in) and the previous record is 27.6mm (1.09 in) back in 2010. The forecast is for colder but more settled weather as we head towards the New Year so it's possible it may remain dry up to the end of this year.

I'm wondering if the strong winds have blown the last few quinces off the tree on the allotment. On our last visit there were only a few sorry looking quinces left hanging on the tree looking a bit like very sparse Christmas decorations. I need to pick up all the fallen fruits that have fallen around the base of the tree.
Quince - Meeches Prolific
I'll have to have a look to see if the resident blackbirds make any use of the fallen fruits as they make a good job of finishing up our windfall apples. Maybe their not into quinces!

Posted by Martyn at 09:52 0 comments

Friday, 23 December 2016

Battening Down the Hatches

For a few weeks now high pressure systems have been in charge of our weather giving some settled conditions. All that is about to change as a low pressure system, named Barbara, moves in from the Atlantic bringing wet and windy weather.

We visited the plot to top up out supply of fresh vegetables and I wanted to make our cold frame a little bit more secure so it has a better chance of surviving the windy weather intact.
The cold frame moved to the allotment a few years ago, when we upgraded to newer wooden cold frames at home. It was in a much more sheltered spot at home and survived many gales without any damage. On the plot it is far more exposed to the elements and constant battering from the wind gradually loosens the fixings which hold the glass in place. Eventually this results in the glass panes falling out and breaking. In an attempt to stop this happening I’ve taken to cocooning the cold frame in environmesh to lessen the effect of the wind. The environmesh isn’t used for anything else over winter.

We have been storing our onions in the shed at the allotment. Conditions in the shed aren’t ideal as it gets too damp during winter and some of the onions had started to go mouldy. We decided to bring all the remaining good quality onions home and store them in the summerhouse. I’m not that convinced it will be much better for them in there but at least we will be able to inspect them more often removing any that start to deteriorate.
Onions - Sturon, Stuttgart and Red Karmen
It’s good to know that the hours of daylight are now starting to lengthen even if it only by a few seconds a day to start with. On Thursday, we left the plot at 15:00 and the sun had already disappeared below the level of the conifers that form one of the boundaries to the allotments.
I'm hoping that we don't get too much rain, in the wet and windy weather that's forecast, to make it too wet to work on jobs at the allotment.

Posted by Martyn at 10:05 6 comments

Thursday, 22 December 2016

Winter's First Milestone

The last few days haven't been too bad for the middle of December. Wednesday marked the winter solstice so now we are past the shortest day of the year. I somehow think of this as been the first milestone of winter whereas it really only marks the official start of winter.
Temperature & Solar radiation Records for Wednesday 21 December 2016
You can see the approximate time my weather station picks up and looses solar radiation readings for the winter solstice. Ossett's official sunrise was 08:21 with sunset at 15:47 giving us 7 hours and 26 minutes of daylight. The daylight hours will now continue to increase up to the summer solstice on 21 June 2017 when sunrise will be at 04:36 and sunset at 21:40 giving us 17 hours and 4 minutes of daylight.

We had a little trip out on Wednesday to see the last of the Christmas steam charter trains running to York.
LMS Coronation Class 8P 4-6-2 no 46233 Duchess of Sutherland with The Christmas White Rose to York
There was a stiff breeze, with spots of rain mixed in, so the conditions certainly weren't ideal especially as smoke from the locomotive obscured the view of the carriages.

Posted by Martyn at 10:42 0 comments

Monday, 19 December 2016

Heaps of the Stuff

It wasn't too bad a weekend. Saturday was the better of the two days with a little bit more sunshine. Temperatures were about average for the time of year and it stayed dry.
Temperature and Solar Radiation Records for 17-19 December 2016
On Friday I finished emptying one of the compost bins on the plot. Well, I call it a bin, it's really a large heap contained by pallets and old fencing panels. After been left for a year or so it's produced some good quality compost.
There's still some material around the edges of the emptied bay but I intend to spread the remainder over the bottom of the bay to start a new heap. The material around the edges needs to break down a little bit more before being spread on the plot.
The compost has been spread around the pear trees, (trying to avoid most of the candytuft seedlings), rhubarb roots, raspberry and blackberry canes, and gooseberry bushes.

My plan was to empty the contents of the adjacent compost bay into the newly emptied one. This would be a way of turning the heap for a final time. However, to my surprise when the compost material was uncovered the compost was ready to be used.
I've already managed to dig out five barrow loads of good compost and started to spread the material over empty beds before digging it into the ground in spring. I'm going to be fairly busy empting out this bay over the next few weeks. Then, once this bay is emptied, the adjacent heap which is full of what I'll call "weeds" can be turned into this bay. It's not easy this composting lark is it?


Posted by Martyn at 10:54 2 comments
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