Sep wk 3

Thursday-Saturday, 15-17 September 2016

September Arrives

Over the last few days the hot unseasonable weather that we've been experiencing for the first half of the month faded away and we are now back at the sort of temperatures we might expect for the middle of September.

Temperature, Rainfall & Sunshine Records for 15-17 September 2016

On the allotment we've cut back our butterflyless, butterfly bushes (buddleia) on the plot. Apart from cabbage whites we've seen very few butterflies on the buddleias while they were in flower over summer. This year's flowering had finished so we decided it was time to give them the chop.

This is how they looked in all their glory through the summer months. Now they look very different with just a few bare stalks remaining around the bases of the plants.

It's also left us with a very large heap of buddleia prunings to be disposed of. Some will make good pea supports for next year once some of the leaves have been removed.

I'm hoping that left over winter they won't root when pushed into the ground as pea supports next spring. Buddleias do seem to have a habit of taking root and producing a new bush given the slightest opportunity.

Sunday & Monday, 18 & 19 September 2016

It Was Going So Well - Until

Sunday was a lovely dry sunny day compared to Monday which was dull for most of the day until late afternoon when the sun managed to break through the cloud cover.

Even though it was sunny on Sunday the heavy overnight dew on the grass didn't dry up and so I decided against mowing the lawn. After a little overnight rain into Tuesday the grass was again wet but I decided to get it mowed even if it was on the wet side.

After watching a You Tube video last week, suggesting the demise of little point and shoot cameras, as almost everyone now can take a decent photo with their mobile phone, I decided to give my phone a bit of a test.

I didn't think that they were too bad. Now it was at this point that I decided it was about time we tried some of our Vales Sovereign potatoes. This is the first year we've grown this particular variety. Since they were lifted a couple of weeks ago they have been stored in a potato sack in the garage. As the potatoes weren't that easy to reach I put my hand into the sack to feel for a few potatoes. The ones I pulled out looked like this!!

Unless I'm mistaken it looks like blight. The next few potatoes that came out of the bag were okay. I'd better have a look through the bag and see if any more potatoes are affected. I suppose I ought to check through all our sacks of potatoes to see if these few were an isolated occurrence or if it's affected the whole crop of potatoes.

Tuesday & Wednesday, 20 & 21 September 2016

More Blight Problems & an Anniversary Harvest Photo

Although the weather's not as good as it was in the first couple of weeks of the month it's certainly not too bad for mid to late September.

Temperature & Rainfall Records for September 2016

I thought it was about time I dug up our last few potatoes on the allotment. This bed was planted up from the smallest of the seed potatoes left over when the main beds were planted back in April.

Planting Plan for Potatoes on Plot 28

Despite being planted late in the season they grew well as the photo below shows.

The rows run approximatively left to right across the photo and the first row in the foreground is Vales Sovereign so the varieties can be tied in with the plan at the top.

The Vales Sovereign have been a complete disaster and were devastated by blight. There were virtually no potatoes worth harvesting in the whole row. Most of the crop had turned to a brown mush in the ground.

Vales Sovereign

This is how the potatoes that could be picked up and removed from the bed looked. Not a pretty sight. This was the first row I lifted so I wasn't holding out much hope for the rest.

Immediately next to the Vales Sovereign was a row of Nadine. Very surprisingly hardly any of this row showed any signs of blight when lifted. I was pretty pleased with the crop seeing as it had come from the smallest left over seed potatoes. Nadine is one of my tried and tested varieties over the years and doesn't normally disappoint.

Nadine

At least this gave me a bit of encouragement to dig up a couple of more rows. Kestrel were the next couple of rows and these weren't too badly blighted either. There were a few potatoes that were clearly affected, and these were disposed of, but I'll need to keep a close eye on the remainder to see if they deteriorate in storage.

Kestrel

So it would seem that some varieties of potatoes are more blight resistant than others. From this very non scientific test I'd suggest that Vales Sovereign have very little blight resistance with both Nadine and Kestrel standing up to blight rather better. It's a shame as the Vales Sovereign lifted a few weeks ago produced a good crop of potatoes but I won't be growing this variety again because of its susceptibility to blight.

I noticed in the evening as I was cataloguing my photographs using Lightroom that I'd logged my 300th harvesting photo.

I normally take one photograph of each of our harvests which is used in our harvesting records. The photo showing all our harvesting on Tuesday is below.

The potatoes in the small brown dish are all that I dared to save from the row of Vales Sovereign. We'll have to use them first rather than put them into winter storage.

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.