Thursday, 24 May 2018
Fading Fruit Blossom
Although it's taken most of the morning for the sun to break through over the last few days the exceptional warm and dry spell of weather has continued this week. The only downside for us being the lack of rain which means digging over beds for planting is slow going and there's lots of watering of seeds and seedlings to be done at the allotment. Heavy showers are forecast for Friday and if they materialise they’ll be most welcome.
On the plot the best of the fruit blossom has finished and our perennial flowers are starting to take over. Our first roses are opening.
Rose - Jacqueline du Pre
The first of our poppies are also coming into flower.
On the plot Sue managed to get our sweet peas planted out. The support for the sweet peas is constructed from our coppiced hazel bushes. The ground was very dry so we gave the planting area a good watering before and after planting.
I erected bamboo canes ready for our runner beans and climbing French beans. We’ll have to do some improvement to the soil before planting if we want a decent crop of beans. I’ve only just sown the beans in pots at home so hopefully we’ll get some rain before they’re ready for planting out. That will be the first stage of improving the soil where they are to be planted.
Our Onward peas, which are growing really well, I also got some twiggy sticks added along the rows for support.
Using twigs seems a very flimsy form of support as each piece is pushed into the ground. Each year I have my doubts about whether or not this method will work but it always has to date.
Saturday, 26 May 2018
A Drop of Rain
As forecast we had some rain on Friday. It rained on and off through most of the day giving us a total of 8.0mm (0.31in) by late afternoon when it stopped. It's brought our monthly May total up to 17.0mm (0.67in) but still well short of our average of around 50mm or 2in.
Temperature & Rainfall Records for 25 May 2018
It was the first day this month with zero hours of sunshine and oddly whilst it was one of the lowest daytime temperatures of the month it was the mildest night.
Rose - Etoile d'Hollande
It will be interesting to see how the rainfall has affected the ground at the allotment and if some of those hard, dry and cracked beds can now be dug over. I suspect that our vegetables will have enjoyed a drink of rainwater rather than tap water.
Spring Bank Holiday Monday, 27 May 2018
What Rain?
There was plenty of coverage on the TV news last night about thunderstorms in the south of the country and flooding from heavy rain especially around the Birmingham area. Not for us though. It was warm or maybe hot, sunny and breezy in Ossett with the afternoon temperature making it up to 24.8°C or 76.6°F.
Temperature & Rainfall 22-28 May 2018
It was back to watering duties at the allotment as all signs of Friday's rainfall have disappeared. To be honest, while any rainfall is appreciated at the moment, Friday's effort didn't do much at all for our parched allotment.
I haven't made any effort to dig over some of our beds which are bone dry and resemble concrete rather than soil. From the weather forecast this morning it seems the only water these beds are likely to get over the next week to ten days is from a watering can.
I've managed to get a bed prepared for our runner beans and climbing French beans and yesterday Sue finished off tying in canes for the supports.
The beans themselves are growing in pots at home and will be ready for transplanting over the next week or so. The problem is as more and more crops get sown or transplanted the amount of time spent watering increases as well.
Thursday, 31 May 2018
What A Spring!
Wednesday remained dull all day. At times the cloud was thick enough to produce some light rain although it was never heavy enough to do any good as far as watering the garden and plot goes.
There was enough to wet the leaves of plants but not the soil surrounding them.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 01-30 May 2018
The rain scale of 50mm or 2in represents an average month's rainfall so it's certainly been a very dry month.
As May comes to an end so does meteorological spring and what a spring it's been. I keep all my blog photos archived by year and season, for example spring 2018, and each time I add a new photo to my blog I see the first few photos I used for my first blog posts of spring.
Archive blog photos - Spring 2018
As I add photos to my last blog posts in May this window opens reminding me of the very cold and snowy start we had to spring. After a dry February, March turned out to be very wet with a mixture of snow and rain on top of some very cold days and nights. April started off very wet with almost a month's rainfall on the second day of the month, and a bit more snow, adding to the problems caused by an extremely rainy March.
Snowfall - 02-April-2018
Then the weather changed and rather than record cold or wet we were talking record hot days as the temperature hit 28.8°C or 83.8°F making it one of the hottest April days on record. Blossom on our fruit trees started to open and we had a real treat as all our fruit trees produced the most blossom I can remember.
Plum Blossom - 21-April-2018
What we didn't appreciate as April drew to a close was that we weren't going to get much rainfall all the way through May. After complaining that we couldn't get any planting done because the ground was so wet we were about to encounter the exact opposite where sowing and planting was difficult because the ground had become so hard due to the lack of rainfall. We even got to air our views on BBC Radio Leeds.
BBC Radio Leeds Visit 26-April-2018
For most of May the weather has been hot and sunny and there's little doubt this May will turn out to be one of the warmest on record. However, it's also been a very dry month and we've found getting crops into the ground very slow and the more crops that are sown and planted the more watering there is to do.
Still To Be Dug 28-May-2018
Our roses are coming into flower on the plot and early indications are that, like the fruit blossom, they intend to put on a fantastic display.
Rose - Jacqueline du Pre
As meteorological spring moves into summer there doesn't seem to be any great change in the weather forecast for the first few days of June. Hopefully we will start to harvest a few more crops as we move into summer as spring has been limited to rhubarb, a few herbs and cut flowers.
How long will this spell of mostly fine sunny and dry weather continue?