Page: Aug 2015 wk 1

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Saturday 01 August 2015

July What an Odd Month

Saturday started off brightly but that only lasted until lunchtime when it began to cloud over. Soon the first light showers began and it wasn't long before it was tipping it down. Our after lunch coffee in the summerhouse was extended somewhat while the rain eased off!

It wasn't what I'd planned to do on Saturday afternoon as I intended to do some pottering around in the garden at home. Our raised bed needs a bit of a sort out and I wanted to get our new rhubarb plants into bigger containers. As we planted out our brassicas on Friday the cold frame now has some space for moving some seedlings around. I guess it will have to wait until Sunday.

Well July is over and it's set a few new weather records not all of them were wanted. It started brilliantly with the first day of the month setting a new record high temperature of 33.1C (91.6°F). The next few days were lovely suggesting we might just be going to be at the start of a good summer. It wasn't to be and it's been downhill ever since.

After the first of the month set a new high temperature for July the 26 did the opposite and set a record low of 6.1 (42.8°F) for July. It's also turned out to be the windiest with a gust of 23 mph on the 19 July the highest I’ve recorded in July.

Temperature and Wind Gust Speed Records for July 2015

Despite that hot start it's turned out to be one of our cooler Julys too, like I said most of the month‘s records are of the unwanted variety. I might have forgotten to say that it was also one of the dullest Julys I've recorded too.

It goes a long way to explaining why we're still waiting for some ripe tomatoes and a first picking of runner beans or climbing French beans. Normally we would be picking our first Oullins Gage plums by now but there's no sign of them ripening and the same can be said for our apples.

It now means that the first seven months of 2015 have all been cooler than the corresponding months last year.

The Met Office CET figure is provisional to the 30 July and so may change slightly once the final day of the month is taken into account.

We're hoping for something a bit better in August. It's worth remembering that last August was a poor month and pretty cool so it shouldn't be asking too much for a better August this year.

Sunday 02 August 2015

A New Way of Harvesting Lettuce for Us

Sunday turned out to be a nice summer’s day eventually. After a spot of drizzle early on in the morning it took until early afternoon to brighten up. It was a little warmer than recently with the afternoon temperature reaching 23.8°C or 74.8°F.

This is the first year we have made full use of of our WoodBlocX raised bed. Our aim has been to use it to raise salad crops. We've sown radishes, lettuce, spring onions and salad leaves.

Our first batch of lettuces didn't do so well but radishes and salad leaves have been much more successful. Even under the mesh the first batch of lettuces had white fly which must have been on the plants before they were planted in the raised bed. Rather miraculously the white fly have disappeared.

A couple of rows of salad leaves have served us well and we seem to have been picking leaves from these two rows for weeks now. Another row has been sown next to these and has germinated well.

At the other end of the bed one of our lettuces is a variety called Red Fire and is really a heading type but I've found I can use it as a cut and come again variety by continually picking some of the inner  leaves as they grow which stops it forming a heart.

The raised bed hasn't completely solved our problems with spring onions although we are pulling some immature onions to add to lunchtime sandwiches. We've already had more lettuce and salad leaves to use than when we used to rely on growing them on the plot. We're also aiming to have some crops to pick well into autumn extending our picking season well beyond that we were used to planted on the allotment.

Monday & Tuesday 03/04 August 2015

Second Cropping Fruit

We don’t seem to be able to string a few decent summer days together this year. Monday was nice with some decent sunny spells and pleasantly mild with nothing more than a gentle breeze. It didn’t last into Tuesday which was duller with a strong breeze making it feel pretty cool at times. We got showered off the plot after it threatened rain all afternoon.

When we picked the last of our ripe figs a couple of days ago I mentioned that a second crop of fruits were already forming but I’ve no idea whether these will produce a crop before the weather turns too cold for them to ripen.

It’s not the only fruit in the greenhouse that’s trying to produce a second crop. Some of the longer shoots of our Himrod grapevine, which have avoided my secateurs, have flowered for a second time and have produced some tiny bunches of grapes. I’m sure these wont get to maturity but I might leave one little bunch to see what happens.

For comparison our main crop grapes are now almost ready for eating. Perhaps another week or so.

For the second year in a row our Invincible pear tree growing on the plot hasn’t lived up to its name and having flowered reasonably well and set some fruit in the end all that fruit fell off. We noticed a few weeks ago some flowers on the tree obviously much later than normal spring flowering pear blossom. Those flowers have set and we have some tiny pears on the tree. Not very many, maybe half a dozen.

Rather strangely this is exactly how the tree behaved last year and late on into the autumn we did manage to harvest a few small but tasty Invincible pears.

I wonder if we have any other second cropping fruit that I haven’t noticed.

Wednesday 05 August 2015

Already Clearing Away

Wednesday deteriorated as the day went along and after a bright sunny morning, the afternoon was cloudy with the threat of rain.

It’s only the beginning of August but some beds on the plot are being cleared of their summer crops and either being dug over or replanted with some quick maturing crops. Monday saw our early peas cleared away and a row of Tom Thumb and Red Fire lettuces planted hopefully to mature in autumn.

The weed control fabric wasn’t lifted but the soil where the peas had grown was given a little bit of a spruce up and the lettuces planted out. The longest job was covering with netting to keep the birds at bay.

In the bed next to the lettuces our early brassica plants from Marshalls have done their bit and the cabbages and cauliflowers have all been harvested.

The calabrese Marathon has been left as this continues to produce some tasty side shoots.

Our first early potatoes Casablanca and Foremost grown conventionally without weed control fabric have been lifted. These are much easier to lift as required than ones under fabric and so are the first to be used. Casablanca produced a crop of 9.76kg and Foremost a larger heavier crop weighing in at 11.18kg. I was really pleased with the quality of the potatoes as there was no slug or other insect damage at all.

The bed dug over reasonably well after the rainfall over the last week. It could still do with more rain to soften up the soil a little bit more and then it needs digging over again to make sure I haven’t left any potatoes in the ground to grow next year.

I’ll have to compare the yield and quality of these two varieties grown under weed control fabric on another part of the plot. I intended to do this last year but my plans were thwarted by blight. This year blight hasn’t struck to date which I suppose is due to the dry and cool weather so far this summer.