Sunday, 14 October 2018
Confusing Weather
The weather this month has certainly been confusing. Early last week the temperature fell to around freezing, cold enough to nip some of the dahlia leaves.
Some of the leaves had been turned brown but the plants weren't completely frosted and we still had some flowers to pick.
Then Friday saw the arrival and departure of storm Callum which brought us some windy weather but very little rain. Saturday saw another weather system bring heavy rain overnight Friday into Saturday before more windy weather arrived through Saturday. Although it wasn't much of a day for being out and about on Saturday it was a noteworthy day for its record high temperature this late into October. The temperature reached 22.6°C (72.7°F) with an average for the day of 18.7°C (65.7°F) also a record high this late into the month.
The windiest day this month here was the 02 October with a peak wind gust of 28mph compared with 20mph and 25 mph respectively for Friday and Saturday.
Temperature, Rainfall and Wind Gust Speed Records 12-14 October 2018
It's raining steadily on Sunday morning so I don't think we'll be visiting the plot today. We did manage a visit last week to trim back our apple hedge which had got a little bit out of control and needed attention as shown in the video below.
Friday, 19 October 2018
Checking Out The Professionals
We've been busy doing other things and haven't visited the allotment for almost a week. After the warm wet weather of last weekend, through the week it's turned much drier and cooler with temperatures much more like we can expect in the middle of October.
Temperature & Rainfall Record 13-19 October 2018
Thursday was a lovely sunny day and we decided on a visit to Clumber Park to have a walk around the lake and photograph a few birds.
I can't usually manage to walk around the lake without photographing a squirrel or two as they scurry around amongst the leaf litter. It looked like they were busy burying sweet chestnuts for winter storage.
I think it always worth a look around the walled kitchen garden to see if there are any tips to be picked up for use at home or at the allotments. The walled garden wasn't as bare as I thought it might be considering it's the middle of October.
If you'd like to see more of the walled kitchen garden there's a short video below of our look around.