Wednesday, 22 February 2017
Started Chitting Main Crop Potatoes
The month began with average or slightly below average temperature but for the last week or more it's been very mild for late February. Our main crop seed potatoes went into the garage in a paper sack to keep them in the cold and dark to stop them sprouting. Obviously in recent days the cold bit hasn't been appropriate so I thought I'd better check them over. It was a good job I did as they were nearly all starting to sprout.
Left in the dark in the garage these shoots would get long and leggy as the new shoot searches for light. So the condition of the potatoes made up my mind for me. They need to be placed in good light to produce good strong healthy shoots instead of weak and straggly ones.
All our potatoes have been moved from the garage into the greenhouse. They've got a couple of layers of fleece to give them a bit of frost protection. I'm sure now I've moved them into the greenhouse we'll get some cold and frosty nights.
I did check out our special individual potato tubers which have been kept in the summerhouse since we bought them.
These too have started to sprout but as they have been kept in better light the shoots are green rather than white. I'm not intending to plant out any of our seed potatoes until the middle of April at the earliest. We do have a few extra Casablanca first early tubers that won't be needed to plant up our first early bed of potatoes so I might plant up a couple of potato sacks to see if I can get a very early crop of tasty new potatoes.
We got a taster through Tuesday night into Wednesday morning of what is to come. It was wet and windy through the night although the gale force winds have abated a little bit on Wednesday morning.
Temperature, Rainfall & High Wind Speed Records 20-22 February 2017
If the weather models and forecasters are correct storm "Doris" looks like it will produce the worst storm of the winter arriving on Thursday morning and lasting into the afternoon.
Thursday, 23 February 2017
Preparing For Storm Doris
We're waiting for "Doris" to arrive over the next few hours on Thursday. We've already had some gale force winds this week which for the second time in a couple of days toppled our bird feeding station.
Normally the tops of the bird feeder come off as they hit the ground casting seed over the garden. I'm not sure how that large stone block is moved over a metre or 3 feet as the station topples over. To see if I can stop "Doris" from blowing it over I've added a piece of old paving slab onto the base of the station for a little extra ballast.
Over to you "Doris".
Friday, 24 February 2017
Missed Us
Storm Doris came and went and we certainly missed the worst of the storm. Luckily for us the worst of the storm passed to the south of us.
Temperature, Rainfall & High Wind Speed Records 21-23 February 2017
We didn't escape without any gale force winds though and the rainfall from Wednesday night and Thursday amounted to 12.2mm or 0.48ins. Thursday's rainfall of 9.4mm (0.37ins) made it our wettest day of the year. You can see from the table below that we've had four very windy days in a row.
Based on average wind speed and gust speed both Monday 20th and Wednesday 22nd were worse than storm Doris.
If you have been following the saga of our bird feeding station I'm happy to say that it managed to remain upright through storm Doris.
Saturday, 25 February 2017
Frost Free February?
It is just possible that we might get a frost free February. More accurately I should say a February without the temperature falling below 0°C or 32°F. It will be the first time this has happened in my seven years of weather recording.
Temperature & Rainfall for February 2017
Like December and January, it's also been another dryish month. The drier winter weather has allowed us to get some winter digging done on the allotment but the recent rainfall has left some of the soil on the wet and claggy side.
It doesn't help that, in this bed, stiff clay is less than a spit deep and that prevents water draining away.
I've still to decide whether to cover the bed with weed control fabric. There are lots roots left in the soil which are impossible to remove in the soil's present claggy, clayey condition. I don’t want the lumps of soil to completely dry out as, with the amount of clay in the soil, they'll resemble bricks. Covered in weed control fabric the ground will dry out more slowly which will hopefully give us chance to break down the clods of soil and remove as many of the roots as possible.
Sunday, 26 February 2017
Allotment Progress
Despite the wet and windy weather we did make some progress on the allotment last week. Mostly it was a case of getting a few tidying up jobs done that if we don't do now will be left for another year once the main growing season gets under way. We did get our early brassica bed ready for planting and one of our strawberry beds was tidied up too. Progress is shown in the video below.
Monday, 27 February 2017
Behind Already?
Sunday finished up not being too bad a day. The trouble was that even though we had some sunny spells there were very dark clouds about threatening a downpour. The dry weather won out and we didn't have any more than a few spots of rain through the daylight hours. It was another very mild and breezy day.
Temperature, Solar Radiation and Rainfall Records for 26 February 2017
If you're not sure of planting dates for your crops in the UK, I came across a link to this web site that may be of some use to you. It's called GardenFocus.co.uk.
If you are in the UK there are option to select which varieties of fruit and vegetables you are growing and also where you are growing them. Once you've done this you can produce a month by month listing broken down into weeks of what you should be sowing, planting out, harvesting and pruning.
Planting, Pruning, Sowing, Planting and Harvesting Tasks for Wakefield West Yorkshire
I've had a look through the timings for Wakefield, based on my typical dates for the tasks, and they seem reasonably close and certainly act as a reminder of what jobs need doing at any time of the year.
I really need to get our leeks sown. Perhaps as a result of sowing a bit later over the last few years our leeks have been a bit on the small side. I think the other tasks are all in hand as I prepared our early brassica bed last week and our early cauliflowers will arrive as plug plants next month.
I must admit it might be a few weeks before I get round to preparing our autumn cauliflower bed. For one thing I haven't got as far as working out which bed it will be under my crop rotation system.
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