Sunday, 23 April 2017

A Break In Norfolk

We spent a couple of days away in Norfolk. Judging by my weather stations reading the weather might have been a little bit sunnier at home. Norfolk was cloudy and cool with a stiff sea breeze blowing at times.

 

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Welney Wetland Centre

 

On Friday we visited the Welney Wetland Centre which is on the Ouse Washes in Norfolk. As you can see from the photo it's an open and flat landscape with not much protection from the wind. As with most of our visits to nature reserves the birds kept themselves out of range of all but the most powerful zoom lenses.

 

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There were lots of avocets nesting in one location and they dared to get a little bit closer than the other birds.

 

On Saturday we visited the North Norfolk Railway who were holding their annual spring steam gala. The steam locomotives were a little bit easier to photograph than the birds but the weather hadn't improved at all.

 

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Down by the beach some were making good use of the breeze that was blowing.

 

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Sorry about the quality of the photo but the beach was quite a way off and the image is a screen grab from video working at absolutely maximum zoom range.

 

Monday, 24 April 2017

A Poor Forecast

Sunday was a lovely sunny day.

 

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It was a case of preparing us for what is forecast to be a few cold days of weather with northerly winds coming our way straight from the Arctic.

As you can see from the graphic above Tuesday night looks as though there could well be a widespread frost.

 

On the plot our early peas Onward and potatoes, planted at the beginning of April, have started to push through the soil.

 

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Peas - Onward

 

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Potatoes - Casablanca

 

If we do have keen frost, they may wish they'd waited another week.

 

At home in our indoor growlight tomatoes, peppers and courgettes have germinated well, apart from a pepper called Snackbite, which is very reluctant to show any signs of life.

 

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Tomatoes - Sungold

 

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Courgettes - Atena Polka & Defender

 

The seedlings are at the stage where they need potting on but, as that means transferring them from indoors into a cold greenhouse, I'm going to delay transplanting them for a few days. Hopefully the cold weather forecast will be over and done with by the end of the week.

 

Tuesday, 24 April 2017

Sunny But Cold

Well the forecast turned out to be correct for Monday. The morning started off dull and cool with a few heavy showers about. Again we didn't have any great amount of rain and it certainly won't have had any effect on our now rather dry allotment. The rainfall for the day came to 0.8mm (0.03in) bringing our monthly total up to 7.8mm or 0.31in.

 

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Temperature, Solar Radiation & Rainfall Records 23-25 April 2017

 

The forecast held out the promise of some afternoon sunshine which duly arrived but unfortunately it was accompanied by a strong to gale force wind.

 

I had thought I might transplant some of our seedlings in the greenhouse into modular cells but the gale force wind put me off.

 

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Instead I spent the afternoon editing Saturday's video taken at the North Norfolk Railway spring gala. I'll have to prick out the seedlings soon or they will grow very leggy.

 

Tuesday morning has started off sunny and cold with the overnight temperature falling to 0.2°C or 32.4°F. It's not what we want as the gardening season gets into full swing.

 

Wednesday, 26 April 2017

Winter Returns!

It's the end of April and I should be reporting that yesterday was the warmest day of the year so far whereas in reality Tuesday (4.5°C or 40.1°F) was the coldest day we've had since the 28th February when the average daily temperature was 4.1°C or 39.4°F.

 

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Temperature, Rainfall & Solar Radiation Records for 25 April 2017

 

The chart above doesn't really do the day justice. Our average high temperature should be about 15°C (59.0°F) in late April not the 8.7°C (47.7°F) it managed.

 

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We had showers throughout the day which fell as a mixture of hail and sleet. In one particular sunny spell in the afternoon I was tempted out into the greenhouse to prick out some cabbage plant seedlings. The sunny spell didn't last very long.

 

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The showers didn't last long and the day's rainfall won't have done anything to help water our dryish allotment. I did manage to transplant a tray of cabbages Lodero and Kalibro. I don't think they would appreciate the watering-in they got with icy cold water.

 

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The forecast is for spring to return by the weekend.

 

Thursday, 27 April 2017

Cold Spell Continues

There's not much gardening going on as the cold spell of weather continues. Plants are starting to get to the stage where they need to move on to the next stage whether that be from inside to the greenhouse, greenhouse to cold frame or cold frame to allotment. Parsnips and carrots seeds need sowing soon. I can't see much point in doing any of the above with daytime temperatures remaining below 10°C (50°F) and nightime temperatures down to almost freezing point.

 

In the greenhouse though it looks like our peach, apricot and nectarine trees have, so far, survived the cold nights with their fruitlets intact. We have tiny fruits developing on each of the trees.

 

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Peach - "Avalon Pride"

 

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Apricot - "Flavourcot"

 

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Nectarine - "Fantasia"

 

Now if only the weather would improve our gardening season could restart.

 

Sunday, 30 April 2017

Catching Up A Bit

The cold spell of weather of last week is over as it's turned milder with temperatures nearer average for late April. It does mean that we have a bit of catching up to do gardening wise.

 

On the plot we've managed to sow our parsnips.

 

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We used what has now become our standard method of sowing parsnips through slits cut in weed control fabric. Drills are hoed in the slits and filled with compost and the seeds sown two to a station in the compost. Another one of our Aalsmeer cauliflowers headed up and was cut. I checked the root and it didn't show any signs of club root. It's a variety I'll try growing again.

 

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The improvement in the weather meant that we were able to start moving plants from the greenhouse into the cold frame to harden them off. Moving our new perennials took up all the remaining cold frame space.

 

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Sue planted up our raised bed salad patch.

 

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There's now a little bit of space in the greenhouse for some of our tomato seedlings which are growing indoors under our growlight.

 

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These are Sungold seedlings sown on 10 April and they should really have been moved outside to the greenhouse and transplanted last week but I didn't see any point in doing that with outside temperatures falling to around freezing point each night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer

This weather site is operated as an amateur weather station site and should not be used as official data. I make every effort to ensure my data is as accurate as possible but I cannot guarantee that the data meets the requirements of the Meteorological Office or other professional weather monitoring organisations.

©M Garrett 2016