Friday 22 January 2016
Still a Mild Winter
The cold spell to start off the year came to an end on Friday morning with rain spreading from the west and the temperature lifting. However after that record breaking mild December the last couple of weeks of colder weather haven’t completely managed to offset that mild December.
From the chart above it looks as though fairly average late January and February temperature would still give us a very mild winter.
If you haven’t visited your allotment plot recently then I’ve finished editing the video of our visit on 18 January. If we hadn’t anything to harvest I don’t think we would have bothered but as it turned out we managed a decent harvest.
Saturday 23 & Sunday 24 January 2016
Turned Mild Again!
The milder weather arrived as forecast along with a drop of rain. Saturday morning was very pleasant and we set off for Cumbria to do a little bit of steam train chasing.
The day’s plan was a mid morning coffee stop in Bedale moving on for lunch in Hawes at Calvert’s Restaurant at the Wensleydale Creamery.
It was pleasantly mild for late January as we arrived in Hawes. Lunch over, we headed to our chosen location for some pictures and video of the first Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express of the year. Initially it had ben planned that the world famous locomotive, The Flying Scotsman, would be hauling this train but a braking issue had meant that this wasn’t possible and two other steam locomotives took over.
The afternoon didn’t go as planned. Remember the floods in Cumbria not many weeks ago? Well some of the roads and bridges are still closed due to damage caused by the floods.
We didn’t fancy risking this old masonry arch bridge which was damaged in the floods and it meant access to our chosen spot was impossible before the train arrived. We did try and made our way along a few rather narrow roads before giving up and settling for a rather less than choice spot.
This particular road seemed to be a single track without passing places. Fortunately we didn’t meet anyone coming in the opposite direction.
I’ll have to keep a lookout to see when Flying Scotsman is next due to be out on the main line.
Sunday 24 January 2016
An All Time Record for 2016 Already
Sunday wasn’t a sunny day but it was very mild in fact the mildest January day since records began, well since my records began in 2010. The high temperature managed 14.7°C (58.5°F) and with a low for the day of only 9.2°C (48.6°F) giving a daily average of 12.9°C (55.2°F) also a record for January.
It looks like mild and wet weather is due to last through the week and into next weekend. It might just tempt our snowdrops to flower.
Monday-Thursday 25-28 January 2016
Mixed Up
The last four days (Monday to Thursday) have been a bit mixed. In general it's been very mild for late January but with a few cooler spells thrown in for good measure. We've avoided any further frosts but had to put up with some windy weather instead. It's rained at times but not to any great extent and not enough to cause any more localised flooding problems.
The rainfall on my chart looks a bit more dramatic then it’s been in reality due to scaling issues. Wednesday's rain amounted to 2.0mm (0.08”) so less than that on other days with a total amount of 6.2mm (0.24”) by mid morning on Friday.
Friday 29 January 2016
Ready For the Off?
Friday was another blustery day with gale force winds and some intermittent showers. It continued mild for late January.
We had a nice mid morning rainbow but I couldn’t find a spot in the garden where the full rainbow was visible. Then we had our final delivery from Kings seeds. This time it was a couple of sacks of seed potatoes.
They're not all for us I hasten to add a few are for other plot holders as we have ordered through the Kings Allotment Holders Scheme. I’m guessing I’ll have to get them set out in trays to chit in the greenhouse over the next few days. It’s a matter of keeping them cool so that they don’t start growing too quickly producing long thin straggly shoots. They won’t be planted for a couple of months. We don’t normally start planting our potatoes until the beginning of April.
We had a quick visit to a garden centre on Wednesday afternoon and apparently I bought another hellebore, Spring Promise, to add to our ever growing collection.
Whoever decided on the purchase I think it was a pretty good choice.
Saturday & Sunday 30/31 January 2016
Steam and Potatoes
The weekend was cold and miserable but it didn't stop us from visiting the Great Central Railway's Winter Steam Gala. We were lucky to miss any showers that were around although there were a few snowflakes falling late into the afternoon.
There's obviously been plenty of rain in Leicestershire judging from the amount of water in the railway car park. Some puddles were the size of a mini lakes.
It wasn't an afternoon to be very far away from the cafe. A cup of coffee is great for warming fingers back up after they’ve become numb spending a couple of hours clicking away in freezing cold weather taking photos.
Fortunately all the necessary facilities are well sign posted.
The Great Central Railway always seem to manage to arrange for a few historical vehicles to be on show in the car park. This particular vehicle wasn’t on show but it looks as though it needs a bit of TLC.
Heading home on Saturday evening we encountered some snow showers on the M1 as we headed north but nothing too serious. Once we were home the snow showers continued and around midnight we had a covering of soft, slushy snow.
By Sunday morning the snow had disappeared but the weather continued cold and damp - not out of the ordinary for the end of January. One of our local garden centres had arranged a potato weekend where it was possible to sample a selection of potato varieties cooked in different ways. If you find any that you like, individual tubers can be purchased.
We tasted a few different varieties and then decided to buy a few tubers of some varieties we’ve never grown to see how they perform in the plot and more importantly how they cook and taste.
In the end we finished up with 5 tubers each of six varieties each for £1.00. As you’re allowed to pick out your own tubers I went for the biggest I could find. To be honest all the tubers on sale looked to be in excellent condition. Now I’ve got to keep them that way until planting time.
The varieties we chose are listed below.
