Aug wk 1

Monday, 01 August 2016

Slug Weather Again!

We move into August with the best of the summer weather probably behind us. It's not common for August to be warmer than July although it does happen. In the end the average temperature for July was a fraction above the average over the last six years.

It was a dry month for us with only 33.6mm of rainfall making it the second driest July I've recorded and also the driest month of 2016.

It was a bit windy for July equalling last years record which was the windiest I've recorded. Despite the hot and sunny spells around the middle of the month it wasn't particularly sunny over the remainder of the month being the sixth least sunny July out of seven.

As you can see this cardoon hasn't managed to make it to the end of July before the windy weather took its toll. Usually the flowers continue to open even on the stems that have broken and fallen over so the bees won't be too disappointed as they love cardoon flowers.

Although July was a dry month there seemed to be numerous occasions when we were rained off down on the allotment. Not that there were great quantities of rainfall but just enough to think jobs would be better put off until another day. Monday was no exception with some light rain in the afternoon that was absolutely useless as far as watering the plot goes but will be enough to wet the top of the ground and encourage the slugs out of their daytime hiding places.

Before the rain arrived, I did manage to pot up some strawberry runners from what we think is our best strawberry of the year called Malwina. I've potted up 12 runners to fill some gaps left by other varieties which didn't do too well. I'll have to make sure to water the plants on visits to the plot to encourage the runners to root. Unfortunately our strawberry harvest is coming to an end now.

Tuesday, 02 August 2016

Oullins Gets the Chop

Monday wasn't very Augusty as far as the weather was concerned. It was cloudy all day and although it felt reasonably mild the temperature didn't make it to 20°C (68°F).

I've been planning for a while now to reduce the height of our plum trees on the plot before they get completely out of control. However, I didn't really want to just hack them back and leave them looking like overgrown lollipops. The intention was hopefully to leave them looking like mature trees.

Oullins Gage was the first to get the chop and the tallest few branches have been removed. It's the centre tree in the photo above. I'm also intending to reduce the height of Marjorie's Seedling (on the left of the photo) but I've left that job for next week. The cutting down doesn't take too much time but clearing up the mess takes a lot longer.

I removed six reasonable large branches from the top of the tree. Once sawn through extricating the cut branches from the rest of the tree is quite a job. I'd like the tree to be even lower as its not possible to harvest any plums growing at the top of the tree but I'll reduce it a bit more next year.

I'm starting to gather a few heaps of rubbish around the plot that's going to need a serious bonfire in autumn.

Wednesday, 03 August 2016

Well This Isn't Much Like August

Wednesday was a hotchpotch of a day weatherwise. A shower of rain early in the morning before it turned windy (well windy for August) for the remainder of the day. We had some sunny spells and it felt hot in the sunshine and out of the wind as the afternoon temperature reached 22.8°C or 73.0°F.

Rainfall, Sunshine, Hi Wind Speed & Temperature Records for 03 August 2016

I've at least one row of potatoes waiting to be lifted on the plot as the haulms have died down. It seems a bit early in the season to be leaving the bed unplanted for winter so I've sown some lettuce and salad leaves in modules in the hope that they can be planted out in the plot in a few weeks time.

My main problem will be keeping the slugs and snails at bay. So far this year has been hopeless for growing lettuces as they've been eaten at all stages of development by slugs or snails with the result we've been almost lettuceless all summer. Maybe now I can have a bit better success.

Rose - Mermaid

At least our roses have avoided the onslaught from slugs and snails.

Thursday, 04 August 2016

RSPB Dearne Valley, Old Moor

Thursday was another poor day for early August. After early morning rain the forecast was for showers for the rest of the day. We missed those. It was another unseasonably windy day.

Rainfall, Sunshine, & Temperature Records for 04 August 2016

We had a visit to RSPB Old Moor in the afternoon. It's only a short trip down the motorway.

The birds were up to their usual tricks when we visit and stayed out of camera range. They like to keep a really good telescopic lens away to ensure their safety and that we'll keep returning trying to get some better photos of them.

We managed a gentle stroll around the reserve and check out each bird hide in turn to see if we could spot any birds to photograph.

A video of our visit is included below.

Friday, 05 August 2016

Blasted Slugs Get Everywhere!

Friday was a much better day with the temperature into the low 20's Celsius, more sunshine than the last couple of days and the wind abated.

It's easy to see from this tub of violas that we've had a strong westerly wind blowing across the pond for a few days now and the pot has taken on a very lopsided look. The violas have stood up to the wind remarkable well.

This week you may remember I sowed some lettuce seeds with the aim of filling some bare ground on the plot where our early potatoes Casablanca are growing but are about to be harvested as the haulms have died down. I've planted the lettuce seeds in module seed trays and moved them to the cold frame. As we've been pestered with slugs and snails devouring seedlings all year I decided to go for full protection for these seedlings to see if the slugs could be defeated.

The module containing the seeds is sitting on a plastic florists bucket which in turn is sitting on some polystyrene. The bottom of the bucket has been sprayed with WD 40 to make it a bit tacky and smelly to crawl over and hence hopefully send the slugs looking for food elsewhere. The bucket, seed tray and plastic module were all carefully inspected before any seeds were sown to ensure they were slug and snail free. I've checked each morning to see that the seeds were damp enough. Funnily enough I wasn't expecting to see any signs of slugs. But this morning!!

Checking out if any watering was needed or if any of our sweet Williams or spinach had germinated I spotted the tell tale signs of a slug trail over a few of the modules. I inspected the bucket and seed tray and found no trace of a slug so I removed the module out of the seed tray and lurking underneath was the culprit. There's no photograph of the culprit which is not going to get another chance to eat any of our seedlings.

Next stage might be to put a thin layer of grease around the florists bucket and see if that keeps the blasted things off our emerging crops. You might just be able to make out in the module next to the bucket our sweet Williams are just starting to germinate. These too are sitting on a florists bucket coated in oil. I might have to use some slug pellets and cover the top of the cold frame to stop any birds getting in and eating poisoned slugs.

Isn't gardening glamorous!

Saturday, 06 August 2016

Best Day of the Month

Saturday was a lovely August day with the afternoon temperature reaching 25.1°C (77.2°F). We had lots of sunshine and only a gentle breeze.

Our strawberry harvest has come to an end but we are already doing some planning for next year's crop. This year some of our new varieties grew really well producing excellent plants.

Strawberry - Cambridge Favourite

Others however didn't do very well at all and we will have to replace some plants next year.

Strawberry - Vibrant

As you can see Vibrant didn't live up to its name and the plants grew very poorly. All the plants were in the same bed and given the same treatment producing such vastly differing results but its obvious that Vibrant doesn't like the soil or hasn't been suited to this year's weather conditions. Either way we are planning on replacing it with Malwina which grew well, producing an excellent crop of late season strawberries. We've already potted up runners from our plants to fill the space left by the Vibrant plants. In some cases we've had a good crop of strawberries but a plant has died or is not growing very well and we have potted up some runners from that variety to fill any gaps.

Strawberry - Marshmello

We'll need to ensure that the pots don't dry out if the weather stays dry and once we think that once the runners have rooted they can be cut away from the parent plant.

Sunday, 07 August 2016

Windy Again

Saturday was certainly the better day of the weekend. We had plenty of sunshine on Sunday but it was windy once again.

Temperature & Wind Speed Records 05 - 07 August 2016

The forecast seems to be for the early part of this week to be windy and cooler before summer weather returns for a couple of weeks at least through the middle of August. We shall see!

There doesn't appear to be much rain in the forecast for the next few weeks so it looks like watering cans will need to be put to use on an already very dry allotment.

Can you spot the difference in the two photos above? We had a self sown ash tree growing in the garden which we had left to its own devices for a considerable amount of time and it had become rather large. It was casting an awful amount of morning shade over our cold frames and herbs and we decided it needed to be felled.

As you can see from the remaining trunk it had become a sizeable tree for our small garden. It has produced a sizeable quantity of stakes and supports which we can use around the garden and allotment.

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.