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Wednesday, 24 January 2018 Warmest Day of the Year Tuesday was the mildest day of the year reaching 13.8°C or 56.8°F. It’s been windy overnight into Wednesday morning but I’m not sure if it’s storm Georgina or not. I'm not sure if named storms are supposed to bring exceptional weather or just run of the mill storms we get every winter. Certainly for us this wasn't anything out of the ordinary for January. ﷯ Temperature, Hi Wind Speeds and Rainfall Records for 22-23 January 2018 The last couple of days have been milder and we’ve made the best of the weather with a visit to RSPB Old Moor and an afternoon tidying up in the garden. As is usual on our visits to Old Moor the birds tended to keep out of photographic range. ﷯ These cormorants were just about at the limit of my camera's range. However, at the tree sparrow farm we had a bit more luck. ﷯ This particular sparrow couldn't have got much closer although I don't think he was aware of my presence. It was also a case of trying to get some pictures of a pair of reed buntings. They were alternating between perching on tree branches and then on a large seed feeder. A photo of them in the natural settings of the tree was the preferred option but they had no intention of making that easy. ﷯ I managed to capture the male but not his elusive female partner. On Tuesday afternoon I started to tidy up our home greenhouse in readiness for seed sowing time which will be late March or the beginning of April. ﷯ Interestingly these sweet peppers which had been left on the plants were good enough to harvest. It's certainly fallen to below freezing in the greenhouse so I'm surprised they haven't rotted away or at least gone a little bit mouldy. A bit of a bonus crop you might say. Thursday, 25 January 2018 Wettest Day of the Year The mildest day of the year on Tuesday was followed by the wettest day of the year on Wednesday with 8.8mm or 0.35in of rainfall. ﷯ Temperature & Rainfall Records 24 January 2018 We haven't visited the plot since New Year's Day when the soil conditions were on the wet side. We've had 61.2mm (2.41in) of rain over the last few weeks so the plot will need to dry up a little bit before the soil is in a workable condition. ﷯ As the garden was so wet as well I decided to do a little bit of tidying up in our home greenhouse.
We do have a few jobs to do on the plot, such as winter washing the fruit trees and cutting back a hawthorn tree, that don't depend on the soil drying out. Maybe we'll get some suitable weather next week. Monday, 29 January 2018 Potato Day It's been very mild over the last few days considering that it's only the end of January. ﷯ Temperature & Rainfall Records 23-29 January 2018 There's no record breaking high temperature amongst them but it's going to be a bit disappointing when this rather spring like weather is replaced with winter conditions. February can be one of our coldest months. It was a spring like morning on Saturday as we headed off to our local garden centre which holds an annual potato day every year at the end of January. ﷯ There's always some cooked potatoes ready for a taste test. We didn't bother with the taste test though and decided to select half a dozen varieties that we hadn't grown before. Surprisingly this wasn't difficult to do. ﷯ Once the six new varieties were safely bagged and labelled it was just a matter of finding our main crop potatoes which are a carefully selected mix of tried and tested varieties and some from successful trials of previous years. ﷯ Below is a short video of our visit to the garden centre
Wednesday, 31 January 2018 Chitting Potato Decisions The last day of January is shaping up to be cold and showery, like lots of days this month. It's going to finish up as one of the wettest Januarys I've recorded and nearly all of that rainfall has been of a showery nature rather than prolonged spells of rain. ﷯ Temperature and Rainfall Records for January 2018 Having bought our seed potatoes over the weekend the question was what to do with them until planting time. I did consider storing them in the garage in potato sacks, where they will be frost free and in the dark, at least until the end of February. That would stop them from sprouting. Once March arrives and hopefully the keenest of frost are finished with then they could be moved into the greenhouse to chit. However, quite a few of our seed potatoes already had a few sprouts starting to form so I wasn't sure that storing them in the dark was the best option. I decided to store them in the summerhouse which I don't think gets quite as cold as our greenhouse. ﷯ 2018 Trial Varieties Stored in Summerhouse to Chit There wasn't enough room in the summerhouse to store our main varieties. The summerhouse still has some of last year's onions in store, a couple of Crown Prince squashes and this year's onion and shallot sets. I decided the main varieties would have to be set to chit in a partially tidied up greenhouse. ﷯ Main Potato Varieties Stored in Greenhouse Provided we don't get any really keen frosts I'm sure that they'll be fine but if some extremely cold weather is forecast I might have to think about moving them into the garage overnight for some extra protection. ﷯ They're covered with a couple of layers of fleece for protection. Hopefully, they'll survive and be ready for planting in the allotment by the end of March or beginning of April. I might put a few Casablanca tubers in pots before then to treat us to a few extra early new potatoes.

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.

©M Garrett 2017