Jun wk 3

Tuesday, 14 June 2016

Brightness Required

Tuesday turned out to be another dull and damp day. We didn't have any rain during daylight hours only drizzle off and on but such was the cloud level that it remained damp all day.

Ideally the roses need dead heading but it's a lot too wet to stand on the soil to remove them so until it dries up a little they'll remain where they are.

We've a few things to finish planting on the allotment. Our sweetcorn, autumn and winter brassicas, leeks and outdoor tomatoes to mention only a few are all waiting patiently in the cold frames for their turn to be planted out. We didn't fancy planting in the drizzle and with a decent amount of rain falling on Monday afternoon and evening we decided against trying to plant out in the wet. Things may yet get desperate and we'll have to do some allotment planting in the rain. Not only that, the rain encourages the grass paths to grow at an alarming rate so no doubt they will need strimming again soon.

There's lots of baby birds about in the garden but the problem's finding a decent spell of weather between showers to get some pictures. I know Sue managed some photos of a baby blackbird and I spotted this young robin waiting for its next meal on our little bistro table.

I'm tempting fate but so far we've managed to keep the slugs and snails off our hostas which are in pots around the pond.

I'm sure that with all this damp weather it's only a matter of time before a marauding slug or snail finds a tasty leaf.

Wednesday, 15 June 2016 & Thursday 16 June 2016

Enough Rain For Now

The first 10 days of June were dry with a spell of lovely warm sunny days thrown in for good measure. Since that dry spell broke we've had some amount of rainfall each day.

Temperature & Rainfall Records 01-16 June 2016

The outcome is that in the last seven days the rainfall has amounted to 40.8mm (1.61") about what we might expect over the whole month. It would be nice now if the rain would go away for a few days and allow the allotment to dry out a little bit. In the seven days of sunnier weather at the beginning of the month we managed 36.6 hours of sunshine compared with a miserly 2.5 hours over the last seven days. The forecasters like to refer to the current weather as changeable compared to settled conditions of the early part of the month. I don't see what's unsettled about the current weather as it seems settled on cloudy with heavy showers, drizzle or longer spells of rain. It's been like that for the past week and it's forecast to be very similar for the next week. Summer is rushing past without much summer weather.

I last visited the plot on Wednesday and the soil was extremely wet and would have been difficult to plant in. With another good dousing of rain on Thursday it's going to be even wetter. I'm not sure which is our most pressing crop to plant out but it would be good to get our leeks, brassicas and sweetcorn in the ground.

I might find out how well some of these crops perform when planted out in mud rather than soil. If they stay in the cold frames much longer they will spoil in any case.

Friday 17 June 2016

More Cloud and Rain

At one stage I thought Friday might turn out to be a dry day, the first for over a week. It was dull all day and not particularly warm for mid June but then as I was thinking the lawn might be dry enough to mow, more rain arrived.

Greenhouse Temperature 10-18 June 2016

The chart above shows the greenhouse temperatures for the last week. Normally in June it's a case of trying to keep the temperatures down with all the windows and the door wide open. That's not been the case over the last week. Normally the indoor temperature is in the mid thirties centigrade even with all the windows open. As you can see over the last week it has only managed the low twenties centigrade or temperatures that wouldn't be out of the ordinary as outside temperatures for the middle of June.

One rather unforeseen problem with cool greenhouse temperatures during the day and no hot sunshine through the glass is that it gives marauding slugs and snails even longer to maraud.

I caught these two just after 10:00am in the greenhouse. If the weather was anything like decent it would be far too hot for them in the greenhouse to be out and about. On a more positive note these individuals won't be out and about during the night anymore!

In the garden our clematis flowers are standing up to the poor weather much better than the roses.

Hopefully the weather will improve before too long.

Saturday, 18 June 2016 & Sunday, 19 June 2016

Picking Strawberries in the Rain

It was almost a dry weekend but the rain just couldn't keep away and late on Sunday afternoon we had more rain. It would be more encouraging if we at least had some brighter intervals between the bouts of rain but all we get is dull weather with rain at times. After a decent first few days of June the weather has been abysmal. The last 10 days have yielded a measly 5.0 hours of sunshine and 51.0mm (2.01") of rainfall which is above our average for June.

We made the most of the dry weather getting as much planted in the mud on the plot as we could. It was a case of now or never as far as our sweetcorn and leeks were concerned. Most of the grass paths were strimmed between planting sessions. Eventually we were rained off on Sunday afternoon.

As the rain began to fall, we packed away quickly but still had a few strawberries to pick. This year's strawberry harvest is rapidly turning into a bit of a disaster. The constantly damp weather means slugs and snails are a real nuisance and the almost complete lack of sunshine results in the strawberries ripening very slowly. We've been tempted to remove strawberries before they are fully ripe in an attempt to harvest some fruits rather than leave them to the mercy of the weather.

These are the strawberries picked on Sunday afternoon. Any that had been partially eaten by slugs were left in place. Even then the berries aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

From this side this strawberry doesn't look too bad, although it does still look like it has a little bit of ripening to do. Then when turned over it looks like this!

It looks like a slug has caused some initial damage and the damp weather has done the rest turning the fruit mouldy. It's never going to ripen is it? It is only fit for the compost heap. We have lots of strawberries like this.

The weather forecast doesn't seem very promising for the next week so it looks like our strawberry harvest is unlikely to improve.

Monday, 20 June 2016 & Tuesday, 21 June 2016

It Must Be Summer - Banana's Out

Monday and Tuesday have seen a big improvement in the weather and we've actually had some sunshine. We had some rain on Monday morning but it had cleared away by lunchtime to leave us with a lovely afternoon. Tuesday was warm with some decent sunny spells.

As it's now officially summer and the weather has improved I decided our banana tree could move out of the greenhouse and into its summer spot just outside the door. It's not much of a move in distance, a couple of metres at most, but I'm sure our banana won't appreciate the move if we get some windy weather.

It's a tight fit to get it out of the greenhouse door without doing any damage to its leaves. Another week or so in the greenhouse and it would have been much too large to go through the door without damaging those glossy leaves.

We spent Tuesday afternoon pottering about in the garden filling up the last few pots with plants to produce some good summer displays.

With all the rain the garden is now set up for summer.

Disclaimer

This weather site is operated as an amateur weather station site and should not be used as official data. I make every effort to ensure my data is as accurate as possible but I cannot guarantee that the data meets the requirements of the Meteorological Office or other professional weather monitoring organisations.