It's not been a very good end to the month. In fact it's been disappointing after such a good start to May. The first week was brilliant and although we had plenty of sunshine in week two the temperatures fell away. Since then it has been unsettled although we have managed a few nice days.
Temperature, Rainfall and Sunshine Records for May 2016
The temperature for the month will be about average for Ossett. The average daily highs have been on the high side but to balance this the average daily lows have been on the low side. Probably not what the gardener needs.
Over the past year we've had our fair share of windy months, but May 2016 has turned out to be the calmest May I've recorded with no gusts of note all month.
I have been trying to catch up on some digging down on the allotment. That rain in the middle of the month made it a bit wet for digging so it was left until Bank Holiday Monday for me to do a bit of catching up. Still after a busy Monday afternoon we have a few more beds ready for planting up.
Some beds on the plot were still a little too wet to dig whilst others were in just the right state. I have wondered how covering the ground with weed control fabric affects the state of the soil. Just when I'm starting to think that covering the ground might be the reason why some parts are wetter than others I find a bed covered with fabric digs much better than one that's been left uncovered. This leads me to think that whatever it is that results in some beds being wetter than others it's not down to weed control fabric.
As meteorological summer time starts we're looking forward to some better weather although judging from the forecast for the next few days I think it might be a little bit of wishful thinking.
Thursday, 2 June 2016
Meteorological Summer Begins and Winter Weather Returns
June sees the start of meteorological summer but it's a pity nobody told the weather that. Wednesday was cold, windy and dull with the temperature only managing to make it up to 12.3°C around the same sort of value as Tuesday. With a strong north to north easterly breeze blowing it felt really cold not at all like June.
When the weather was a little bit better I had a little play at using my Dji Osmo to take some video of our allotments. I decided to do a little bit of film to show the progress our potato crop had made up to the end of May. It's uploaded to YouTube in full 4k video format but of course you can view it at lower resolutions. To be honest our broadband connection sometimes struggles to download 4k files at times.
Friday, 3 June 2016
A Wintry Start to June
We had to wait until late in the afternoon of the second of the month to see any signs of sunshine in June. Mostly Thursday was a repeat of Wednesday, dull and cold more like winter than the beginning of meteorological summer. I think we had days as mild as this in January. Perhaps I should look back through my records.
Blue Line - Temperature 25 Jan 2016 and Red Line Temperature 02 June 2016
I said it felt like winter but maybe I'm being unfair comparing one of January's mildest days with what I hope is going to be one of June's coldest.
The meteorologists correctly forecast the cold start to June so we headed out towards the east coast and Scarborough to do a bit of train chasing. We thought it was a little bit on the cold side for doing any gardening. My aim was to get some video of the first steam hauled Scarborough Spa Express of the season. Although the train is starting its journey in Carnforth it will only be steam hauled from York to Scarborough and back to York.
We found some byways trying to locate a suitable spot for some video and photographs. The spot I'd chosen could have been better but we didn't have enough time to try for a better spot.
Sue was in charge of capturing some photos whilst I tried my luck with some video.
After our photographic and videoing exploits we called in at a garden centre for lunch and of course added a few more plants to our collection.
These Verbenas are to help fill a large tub with what we hope will be a colourful summer display.
Friday, 03 June 2016
Frosty Morning?
Friday morning was cold with the temperature down to 4.3°C (39.7°F). It's the second coldest I've recorded in June. The lowest was on 09 June last year at 4.1°C (39.4°F). I expect it was even colder at the allotment site so I'm hoping our runner beans will have survived the cold and the cold blustery north easterly winds of the last few days.
Temperature, Wind Chill (Purple) and Solar Radiation Records 01 - 03 June 2016
I've included the wind chill effect of that cold breeze which was especially nasty on Thursday as the chart shows. I didn't think wind chill occurred in June.
On Friday the temperature eventually returned to more normal levels for the beginning of June and it was a little bit brighter. My weather stations recorded just 2.1 hours of sunshine in the first three days of the month.
Gardening remained on hold again on Friday as we wait for the weather to improve a little bit. I've had to make some changes to the way my weather web site works. It has involved removing the old web site entirely and replacing what was one complete web site for the year with a set of web sites for each month and an annual web site. I'm hoping all the links work to connect the various web sites.
Saturday, 4 June 2016 & Sunday, 5 June 2016
Big Improvement
The weekend saw the change in the weather we had been waiting for. On Saturday the temperature lifted to more like we would expect for the beginning of June although it remained mostly overcast all day. Sunday saw the sun break through the cloud early on giving us a lovely warm and sunny day.
Temperature & Sunshine Records 03 June to 05 June 2016
Saturday and Sunday afternoons were spent on the plot sowing and planting as well as looking after other crops to make sure they were weed free and well watered. On the dreaded "not up to standard plot 28" I'm carrying out a little experiment.
I'm attempting to grow some runner beans and Climbing French beans up hazel stakes. These are the stakes the pea sticks have been cut from leaving some fairly sturdy poles. I thought about giving natural supports a try. I only had sufficient poles to make a wigwam rather than a tent type of frame. It wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be as it's almost impossible to push the sturdy bases of the poles into the ground. I'm hoping I've set the base wide enough to stop the whole thing blowing over in strong winds.
The plants were left over from our main planting last week and so would more than likely have gone to waste. We've decided to make this bed into a hotchpotch of flowers and vegetables. So far as well as the beans we've included some chrysanthemums and dahlias to see how they do. We thought we might add some beetroot too.
We also managed to sow a couple of rows of Onward peas, plant more potatoes and also plant out our courgettes Sunstripe and Zucchini. In the plot greenhouse tomatoes Crimson Crush, Sungold, Gardener's Delight, Sunchocola, Mountain Magic, and Harbinger were all planted up in growbags with three plants to a bag.
All in all a busy weekend on the plot.
Monday, 5 June 2016
Plenty Warm Enough
Dawn till dusk sunshine on Monday produced the warmest day of the year so far as the temperature hit 25.1°C (77.2°F) late in the afternoon. The hottest June day I've recorded was 27 June 2011 with a scorching 31.6°C or 88.9°F.
The blips in the sunshine curve are caused by shadows from our trees falling on my weather station.
It was a day for enjoying the garden rather than doing anything too strenuous.
It hasn't taken this young starling very long to work out how to overcome the cage over the fat balls which is supposed to keep larger birds from getting at the food.
Looks like a fill up will be required soon.
Tuesday, 6 June 2016
Apricot Overload!
Tuesday nudged the year's warmest day up a bit further as the temperature reached 26.0°C in the afternoon. It wasn't as sunny as Sunday and Monday and we never really had that wonderful clear blue sky of the previous two days. Still unlike some places we missed any thunderstorms.
Sunshine & Temperature Records for Sunday 05 June to Monday 07 June 2016
I've been trying to work out how to show this wonderful problem we have with our apricot "Flavourcot". When we bought an apricot tree I never anticipated a problem of the branches being weighed down with the apricots. I thought we would be doing well to actually get any apricots at all.
I made the little bit of video above to hopefully show how the branch is sagging under the weight of apricots. I might have to think of a way of giving that particular branch some support. I'd hate for the branch to snap and for us to loose all those apricots.
As it was another warm day we made an evening watering trip down to the allotment. I didn't want to leave our newly planted greenhouse tomatoes another day without checking on them. Once they're decent sized plants I can give them a really good watering and they'll last for a few days. I didn't want to do that with smaller plants that have only just been transplanted.
We gave some of our newly transplanted plants outside a drink too although it looked like some rain might well be on the way.
Our first early potatoes, Casablanca, are doing well now and have recovered from the set back they had only a few weeks ago when they were caught by a late frost. I think they might actually appreciate a drop of rain. From the forecast they might have to wait until Friday or the weekend for a drink.
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.
