Sunday, 22 April 2018
Plum Blossom and a New Record
Well, what a month April is turning out to be. At the beginning of the month it was very cold, followed by a wet spell and then over the last few days, it's turned exceptionally hot for April.
Temperature & Rainfall Records for April 2018
I do mean hot rather than warm or mild. Thursday, 19 April 2018 was exceptional for mid to late April with the temperature here reaching 28.8°C or 83.8°F. Suggestions were that it was the hottest April day in the UK for 70 years. I don't know about the rest of the UK but it certainly smashed my April records although they do only go back over the last 9 years. Not only was it the hottest April day I've recorded it crept into my list of top twenty hottest days overall since I started keeping records.
We had a couple of days away in Norfolk visiting Pensthorpe Nature Reserve and the North Norfolk Railway. After our days out we decided it was time to visit the allotment. We hoped the bed for this year's main potato crop would have dried out enough to be dug over. When we got to the allotment we had a lovely surprise.
When we left the plot last Tuesday none of our plum blossom was out, but on Saturday all the trees had decided to flower at the same time. I can't remember them all being in blossom at the same time before and for all the trees to have so much blossom.
Once we'd finished photographing the fruit trees, we got on with planting our main crop potatoes. The ground had dried out nicely and once it was dug over and the bed covered with weed control fabric we had enough time to get our main crop potatoes planted.
Obviously, this lovely but exceptional April weather can't last and this week is due to cool down with some more wet weather in the forecast. It's been lovely while it lasted though.
Monday, 23 April 2018
Back to Normal
The good weather couldn't last and Monday morning has seen a return to more normal April weather. Sunday started off warm but it cooled down through the morning with a little bit of rain over lunchtime.
Temperature Records for April 2018
The combination of a very cold March followed by more cold and wet conditions at the start of April has put our gardening schedule behind. Now the mad dash to catch up is on. This meant sowing lots of seeds on Sunday. Some seeds needing a bit of warmth have been put under the indoor growlight and others like brassicas left in the greenhouse to germinate. The full list of sowings is in the table below.
List of Seeds Sown on Sunday, 22 April 2018
Our early brassicas, broad beans and sweet peas were growing slowly in the greenhouse through the cold spell of weather but over the last week they've grown quickly and the broad beans and brassicas need planting out fairly urgently of they'll spoil.
Early Brassicas - Cabbage (Regency), Cauliflower (Helsinki) and Calabrese (Aquiles)
Broad Beans - Witkeim Manitor
Some of our sweet peas have grown well enough to need the tops pinching out and moving out of the greenhouse and into the cold frame.
Strangely some sweet peas sown at the same time are only just starting to germinate. It looks like we will be busy at the allotment weather permitting.
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Funny Sort of Mainly Dry Day!
The forecast for Tuesday was mainly dry but it didn’t quite turn out that way. It was a reasonable sort of a day up until lunchtime when it started to rain. It then continued to rain on and off for the remainder of the day.
Temperature & Rainfall Records for 24 April 2018
By the end of the day we'd managed another 9.6mm (0.38in) of rainfall bringing the monthly total up to 72.6mm (2.9in) and a very wet month with around twice our average April rainfall.
I’m hoping that it hasn’t made the soil at the allotment too wet to dig. The beginning of April was very wet and the soil had only just managed to dry out sufficiently to allow a start to be made on digging.
At the beginning of the week much of the soil was in good condition for digging but some areas were still a little bit on the wet side. Fortunately, we've got a couple of beds already prepared, one for sowing peas and the other for planting out our brassicas. We could do without any more rain for a few days but with the forecast suggesting very unsettled weather over the next week that seems unlikely to happen.
Friday, 27 April 2018
We're All In The Same Boat
BBC Radio Leeds reporter, Oli Woodcock visited our site early on Thursday morning to do a couple of roving reports for the Richard Stead Breakfast Show. The Breakfast Show item was how the extremely poor weather was affecting vegetable growing in Yorkshire. This involved having a chat with allotment holders, that was us, who grow vegetables because that's what we enjoy doing and then to a farmer who grows vegetables for a living. It's clear that it's a struggle to get crops in the ground due to the cold and wet weather this spring.
Thursday was showery all day and of course it managed one of its heaviest showers as we did our second little segment at around 08:00. I've included the video of the BBC Radio Leeds visit below.
We decided to head home, when BBC Radio Leeds left, to see if the weather would improve in the afternoon. It seems quite incredible that last Thursday we were basking in hot summer temperatures and this Thursday it was back to big winter coats.
The Tale of Two Thursdays
We did make it back to the plot in the afternoon and managed to sow a couple of rows of Onward peas. Fortunately, I'd managed to get this bed prepared before the latest spell of wet weather.
Last year's pea sticks were moved from their winter storage spot on this year's brassica bed and placed over the rows of newly sown peas to act as a deterrent to cats, dogs or foxes which seem to delight in investigating freshly cultivated soil.
I did test three beds that are waiting their turn to be dug over and they're certainly too soggy and will need a few days of decent weather to dry them out a little bit. The only bed that we've got left, that's ready for planting up, is our early brassica bed and then we're going to have to wait for some drier weather to arrive to get more beds dug over. As I'd earlier cleared the brassica bed of over wintering pea sticks, I took the opportunity to get some supports erected and the environmesh cover in place. If the weather continues to be showery I'll be able to plant out our brassica plants without the worry of getting the environmesh in place to protect them from the wood pigeons. One night is all they need to decimate a crop if they take a fancy to it.
Friday has started off on a damp note. It's forecast to rain all day. So far we've had an hour or so of very light rain. It's not been enough to register on my rain gauge but just enough to keep the ground wet. The forecast for the next few days isn't that promising either.
Saturday, 28 April 2018
More Rain But Is There Worse To Come?
I mentioned in Friday's post that I'd checked out three beds at the allotment and that they were all far too soggy to be dug over. To make matters worse we had another 7.8mm (0.31in) of rainfall through Friday bringing this months total up to 81.8mm (3.22in)well over double the amount of rainfall expected in April. This comes on top of the wettest March I've recorded when we had 104.0mm(4.09in) of rainfall or around two and a half times our average March rainfall.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 01 May 2017 to 28 April 2018
As if we hadn't had enough rain this month the weather models are predicting torrential rain in places on Monday. The various models are all interpreting the outcome in different ways and changing their prediction each time they run which they do several times a day.
https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/gfs
This is how one of the weather models see the position of the heavy rainfall on Monday morning at 09:00. We are on the northern boundary of this rainfall. I'm hoping that we may be very lucky and miss the worst of this heavy rain but if we don't then our already saturated soil is going to get even soggier. We might have to consider some different planting techniques as it may take a considerable amount of time for our soil to dry out enough to be dug over and for sowing and planting to continue.
Longer term there is the prospect of some drier weather over the early May Bank Holiday so fingers crossed we miss the worst of Monday's rain and we get some warmer and drier conditions later next week.