May Day Bank Holiday, Monday, 01 May 2017

We Could Do With Some Rain

May didn't start off too well with a very dull morning. We finished lunch and decided against an allotment visit in the cool and very dull conditions. Then, almost immediately after we'd decided not to go to the plot, the sun broke through and we changed our minds. It turned out to be a lovely sunny mild afternoon.

 

We do need a drop of rain for the garden and allotment. We had nothing that amounted to a decent rainfall all the way through April. We're now starting to get into a rather dry spell of weather.

 

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Certainly our rhubarb on the plot looks as though it needs a good drink. I'm sure it will recover once we get some decent rainfall.

 

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Hopefully the chart above gives some idea of how the dry conditions are developing. Our average rainfall for a year is just over 600mm (24in). At the end of April 2017 that little + sign on the chart shows that in the last 12 months we've had 500mm (20in) of rainfall. As you can see it's not that uncommon for us to be in this position and the drought at the end of 2011 and into 2012 was considerably worse.

 

April seems to be a rather odd month for rainfall. The average April rainfall over the last 7 years (not including this April) is 37.5mm (1.28in). However, we don't normally seem to get the average amount in April but vary wildly from one extreme to another. Our driest April produced only 2.4mm (0.1in) in 2011 with our wettest year coming the year after with 120mm (4.7in) which is our second wettest month in 8 years of records.

 

The dry weather means we are now having to do some watering.

 

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Finally, before leaving April's weather data, I ought to mention that for us it wasn't a particularly mild April.

 

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April Average Temperatures 2010-2017   (All Temperatures in °C)

 

If you want to see the detailed figures then clicking on the chart will open a full size version. Basically red on the chart indicates above average temperatures and blue below average temperatures. The bottom row represents April 2017 and has a disappointing amount of red shading.

 

Wednesday 03 May 2017

Cauliflower Spears?

May hasn't got off to too bad a start but the wind's coming from the north east which is rarely a good direction for us.

 

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 Temperature & Wind Direction 01-03 May 2017

 

Coming from this direction usually means lots of clouds being dragged in with the breeze from the North Sea. We still haven't got that rain which we could do with.

 

On the plot we harvested the last of our Aalsmeer cauliflowers. All the roots were dug up and none of them showed any signs of club root. It's a variety we'll be trying again as an over wintering type to produce an early spring crop.

 

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As you can see from the photo one of the plants decided to produce a little extra crop of cauliflower spears. These grew from the base and curved around the main head of the plant. I haven't noticed that happening on cauliflowers before.

 

Friday 05 May 2017

Still a North Easterly and No Rain

The weather's been very consistent at the beginning of May. We can't get rid of this cool north easterly breeze which has been blowing since the start of the month.

 

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Temperature, Solar Radiation & Wind Direction 29 April - 05 May 2017

 

However, since I wrote about how the wind from the north east always brought in cloud off the North Sea we've had some lovely sunny days. The wind on Thursday was particularly strong reaching almost gale force strength at times.

 

The sunny days and strong winds haven't helped out with the lack of rainfall over the last 6 weeks or so. All our seeds and young plants on the allotment need watering on a regular basis. I needed to cultivate a couple of bed but I wasn't too sure my little cultivator would be able to break up the hard, dry soil. The first bed I cultivated need to have some weed control fabric lifted which had been in place since last spring.

 

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It was slow going but the soil did break up but it did confirm that there's not much moisture left in the soil and we could do with some decent rainfall. The second bed I wanted to cultivate had had it's weed control fabric removed a few weeks ago. It needed a few old parsnip roots removing that remained from last year's crop. Once again it was slow going but the bed is now dug over. I didn't even try to add any fish, blood and bone fertiliser which would have finished up several plots away due the gale force wind.

 

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Adding fertiliser and covering with weed control fabric will have to wait for a calmer day.

 

Looking at the output from the weather models it looks like we'll have to wait a while for some proper rain.

 

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https://www.ventusky.com

 

The chart above is for the 12 May 2017 at 04:00. If this model prediction turns out to be correct we've another week to wait for the decent rainfall we need.

 

Sunday 07 May 2017

An Unplanned Visit to Clumber Park

On Saturday, the strong to gale force north easterly wind finally abated. Unfortunately what breeze remained was still coming from the same direction and it brought with it lots of cloud. The result was that the wind dropped but so did the temperature and the sunshine disappeared. It was a cold, grey day for early May.

 

 

 Temperature, Solar Radiation & Wind Direction 30 April - 06 May 2017

 

I'd planned a trip to Leicestershire and the Great Central Railway for Saturday. By the time we headed into Leicestershire the cloud was heavy enough to result in a rather unpleasant drizzle. We didn't fancy cold and drizzly so, after a stop for coffee, we decided to head back north to Clumber Park. We reasoned if it was still drizzly there we'd have lunch before returning home early.

 

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Clumber Park Lake

 

Indeed,  by the time we reached Clumber Park, the drizzle had stopped but it was still a cold, grey day as we walked down to the lake.

 

Both the Canada geese and Greylag geese had goslings so, even if it was a bit on the chilly side, there were at least some good photo opportunities.

 

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As we walked back through the woodland towards the restaurant for some lunch, the squirrels provided some more photo opportunities.

 

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After a bite to eat we headed to the walled kitchen garden. From what we could see we're pretty well advanced on the plot compared to Clumber Park. However, our refurbished perennial bed or herbaceous border or even long border at the plot still needs a little bit of work to match theirs.

 

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If you're interested in seeing a little bit more of Clumber Park I made a short video of our visit which you can find by following this link.