Page: Oct 2015 wk 3

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Wednesday to Friday 14-16 October 2015

Settled but Naff

The weather has been settled for the last three days but the problem is it's not been good settled.

We also need to decide if I want quinces are ready to pick. Last year we had a couple of testers on 1 October and then picked the remaining quinces on 8 October so obviously this year we are at bit later. Perhaps we need to do a test this weekend to check for ripeness.

Looking at the chart for the last three days we had a short spell of sunshine around lunchtime on Wednesday since then virtually no sunshine. Friday has been dullest of the three days hardly getting light all day with the temperature only managing a high of 11.4°C or 52.5°F. On Thursday and Friday my weather station recorded a very small amount of rainfall on each day. The time  indicated on the chart doesn't actually refer to when the rain fell it's when the drizzle which fell off and on through the day amounted to 0.2mm (0.01”) the smallest amount my weather station records.

With the temperature around 10°C (50°F) mark and damp it's not been gardening sort of weather. We could do to visit the plot over the weekend to harvest a few fresh vegetables and do a little more tidying up.

Saturday & Sunday 17/18 October 2015

A Dull and Dreary Weekend

The miserable weather continued through the weekend. My weather station managed to record only 30 minutes of sunshine all weekend. The last seven days have resulted in a miserly three hours of sunshine.

The weather didn't stop us making the trip to the plot on Saturday. We changed our minds about harvesting a couple of quinces as a test. The fruit looked a nice golden colour so we decided to take the plunge and pick all the fruit on the tree. These have now joined our apples stored in the summerhouse. There's a few quinces that need to be used quickly and I'll make apple and quince crumble as soon as I can with them.

On Sunday we had a trip over to Lancashire to visit the East Lancashire Railway’s autumn gala. The weather there wasn't any better. It was misty over the top of the Pennines on the way to the gala.

Once there the weather wasn’t any different to home with heavy cloud and occasional light drizzle. It didn't really spoil our day but it wasn't a day for standing about waiting for trains. We kept on the move.

The steam locomotives seemed to want to add to the damp and misty weather by departing stations hidden in clouds of their own making.

Hopefully we will see a little bit more sunshine next week.

Sunshine hours are recorded under BS Hours

Monday 19 October 2015

At Last Some Sunshine for Our Late Veggies

We were treated to some long sunny spells on Monday. It made a welcome change from the dull and dreary weather of the last week. It was a little bit milder too as in the afternoon sunshine the temperature managed to reach 14.2°C or 57.6°F.

In the middle of summer we had a rather long spell of dry weather. It meant planting in the plot was almost impossible. The ground resembled concrete and planting and sowing were delayed for a few weeks until some rain arrived. Eventually some brassicas and peas Onward joined our late sown carrots Early Nantes. In another vacant part of the plot we planted a few lettuce plants. These were a mixture of Tom Thumb, Red Fire and Little Gem.

To be honest we didn't really expect to harvest anything from these late sowings. To date we've managed to harvest one small head of calabrese Monclano a few small carrots and our lettuces are doing a good job of supplying some tasty leaves for salads and sandwiches. I think our peas are on borrowed time. They have flowered and produced a few small pods. We'll need some good weather for them to produce some peas.

Still it seems that sowing and planting past the recommended dates might keep us supplied with some fresh produce for a few more weeks especially if we avoid any night-time frosts.

For the record here’s the listing of our late sowing and planting times.

Still the carrots we have managed to use have been very tasty. The fact that they've forked isn't really too much of an issue they just take a little more preparation time for the pan.

Tuesday 20 October 2015

Carrot Trials

Tuesday was another nice late autumn day with plenty of sunny spells and dry.

I blogged yesterday about harvesting carrots and I've called this post carrot trials. I'm not referring to trials in the sense of testing different varieties but in the problems we've had growing any carrots at all this year.

The tale begins back in late April this year when we sowed our main crop carrots. Things started off well enough and after a couple of weeks our young seedlings emerged and we thought things were going well.

First sowing 21 April 2015

Good germination on 15 May 2015

However by late May all our seedlings had mysteriously disappeared. We put this down to slugs and unperturbed decided to re-sow more carrot seeds in the same place. As you may be aware we had exactly the same problem and after germinating all our seedlings disappeared once again.

We were tempted to give up on carrots this year. By this time it was towards the end of June but I remembered that we once sowed carrots in the beginning of July in an attempt to avoid carrot fly. I seem to remember it didn’t work. That was before we discovered environmesh. Anyway we decided to have one more attempt at sowing which we did in a different part of the plot on 26 June. These germinated well and avoided any damage by slugs. The veggie mesh was laid over the soil rather than constructing a tent. These are the carrots we harvested on Saturday.

No seedlings left by 26 May 2015

Our Third attempt took place on 26 June 2015

Carrots on  17 October 2015 when veggie mesh removed

The soil for growing carrots probably wasn't ideal for them. It was too firm and stony but that was down to the dry weather making soil preparation difficult. The result is the carrots have forked. Some carrots have also split which is probably down to irregular rainfall and my irregular watering regime.

Definitely not our best carrot growing year.