Friday, 21 September 2018
Summer Ends, Drought Ends - Big Time!!
I'm not sure of the official date when astronomical summer ends but weather wise Thursday saw our very dry summer come to a very abrupt end. The rain began reasonably gently early afternoon and continued through to almost midnight with some bouts of very heavy rain mixed in.
Temperature & Rainfall September 2018
After a very dry summer Thursday saw a rainfall total of 41.6mm (1.64in), in less than 12 hours, making it the wettest day of summer. That's a typical month's rainfall in half a day! Since May we haven't had a monthly total as high as that. It's certainly brought our drought to an end. However, as you can see from the table below, it's also taken over as the wettest day we've had since 2010.
There seems to be a few instances of local flooding as drains not used to rainfall couldn't cope. We managed to find one such spot in Wakefield last night.
It will be interesting to see what effect all the rain has had at the allotment. Will we have gone from too dry to do any digging to too wet with almost one month's rainfall in less than 12 hours?
To add insult to injury it became very windy Thursday night into Friday morning with my weather station recording a wind gust of 30mph. That's another September record as it's the highest wind speed I've recorded in September.
The wind abated through the early hours of Friday morning and a quick look around the garden doesn't reveal any damage apart from a blown over bird feeder. That's now back in an upright position and the feeders filled up so the birds will be happy.
We'll have to plan a trip to the plot to check if there is any damage there and to see if soil conditions are suitable for digging or whether the ground will have gone from too dry to too wet. If the latter is the case we will have had an amazing turn around in the space of one day!
Wednesday, 26 September 2018
What A Difference!
After last week's storms the weather has settled down again bringing us some sunshine through the day but some very chilly nights, or more appropriately chilly mornings. Tuesday morning has been the coldest with the temperature falling to 3.1°C or 37.6°F.
Temperature Records 23-25 September 2018
We had a visit to the plot on Monday afternoon and were pleased to find no storm damage worth noting. However, I was most interested in seeing if all that rainfall had made the ground "diggable" once more.
I last tried to dig over this summer's onion bed on 27th August. After trying to turn over a couple of spadefuls I gave it up as a bad job and decided I'd wait for some rain to soften the ground.
27th August 2018
27th August 2018
Our clayey soil more resembled concrete than soil. It was in such a state I was beginning to doubt my cultivation methods developed over 20 years of allotmenting. After a month's worth of rain in 12 hours would the soil still be dry or would it have become waterlogged. On first inspection the ground looked much better than it had for the last few months. I wanted to plant this bed up with some green manure to grow over winter before being dug in next spring. I decided to see if my hoe would break up the top few inches of soil to allow me to sow some green manure seeds.
Amazingly, that concrete had become easily workable soil. Once more it was easy to hoe through the top few inches, sow some green manure a variety called Autumn Mix", and rake the seeds into the surface of the soil.
There's a video below covering the sowing of the green manure and I also managed to dig over the bed where our climbing French beans had been cleared away.
Sunday, 30 September 2018
Old Fashioned Transport
The last few days have been lovely and sunny but a bit on the chilly side. Night time temperatures have dipped low enough for a touch of frost.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 27-29 September 2018
At the allotment our last three rows of potatoes were dug up and once again they were on the disappointing side following a similar pattern to the rest of our crop this year which has suffered from a lack of rain. If I hadn't grown potatoes before I might think that they weren't worth the effort. I'll be trying the same varieties again next year.
We had a couple of days visiting the North Yorkshire Moors Railway's annual steam gala. On our journey we spotted another form of older transport as some hot air balloons appeared in the sky around York.
There are a bit difficult to spot in the photo but there are three little black dots in the sky which were hot air balloons. The other old form of transportation, steam locomotives were much easier to spot.
The photo shows an old restored southern region locomotive 926 Repton with a demonstration freight train between Pickering and Goathland. It was far more difficult to get the photo we wanted at the stations as it was a case of jostling with the crowds.
The scene at Goathland station as a Pickering bound train arrives and crowds line the footbridge and platforms to get a photo.