Easter Sunday, 21 April 2019
Warmest Day Again - Rain Required!
Saturday took over as the warmest day of the year as the afternoon temperature reached 23.9°C or 75.0°F. The warm days have been very welcome but with lots of media hype around the spell of warm weather it's not been such a brilliant month for gardeners. The average temperature for April up until Saturday is 7.7°C (45.9°F) making it the third coldest April since 2010 with only 2012 and 2013 colder at this late stage in the month.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 22-March - 21 April 2019
Worryingly we've had to start watering on the allotment. As you can see from the chart above we've had virtually no rainfall in the last 4 weeks. Normally we'd expect around 50 mm of rainfall over a four week period rather than the 3mm we have actually recorded.
Rainfall in 2019 has been on the low side in any case with January and February having below average rainfall. March began with two wet weeks but since then nothing of any use for the allotment.
Rainfall Records for 2019
The current spell of warm weather is forecast to break down following Easter Monday with a more changeably outlook to follow. A decent rainy day would be most welcome at the allotment.
Easter Monday, 22 April 2019
Another Record - Lovely Easter Weather
Easter Sunday continued the spell of very warm weather for April becoming the warmest day of the year as the temperature hit 24.6°C or 76.3°F also making it the third warmest April day I've recorded in ten years.
Temperature Records 19-21 April 2019
However, there's been a reminder in the overnight temperatures that it's still only April, as the temperatures dipped to around 4°C or 39°F. I've taken the precaution of covering up tomato seedlings in the greenhouse to give them as much protection as possible against the cold overnight conditions.
Tomatoes - Red Robin
It's difficult to believe how cold it was only a week ago when we had those very keen frosts which damaged the kiwi Issai that we had just planted out on the plot.
Kiwi - Issai (Frost Damage)
I'm hopeful it will make a full recovery as it had been growing outside at home so it should be accustomed to cold conditions. Easter Monday looks to be the last day of the warm spell of weather as Tuesday heralds a return to more normal temperatures and maybe some rain for a very dry allotment and garden.
Tuesday, 30 April 2019
Tomato Test and Some Cold Nights
Since that lovely sunny warm Easter spell of weather it's gone rapidly downhill. Night time temperatures especially have been below average for late April with the thermometer falling into the 3°C (37°F) mark too regularly for my liking. As you can see from my weather station output we've had three very chilly nights over the last week.
There's are rumours that we might be set for something even colder over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend with temperatures falling to freezing as a cold northerly wind sets up. Far too much to expect two Bank Holidays in a row with good weather.
Forecast from Netweather.tv
I reckon the cold nights are slowing down the progress of seedlings in the greenhouse. One of the reasons I delay sowing our tomato seeds is that I'd rather they avoided these cold nights but my plan isn't working very well this year.
However, I did notice that in the pot that contained our dead nectarine tree there was a tomato seedling. This must have germinated from one of last year tomatoes that accidentally fell into the soil. I noticed the seedling a few weeks ago and over the cold nights, including some very frosty ones a few weeks ago, this young tomato plant remained unprotected.
In some ways it must be as far on as possible for a tomato plant in the greenhouse, having germinated as soon as conditions allowed. Of course I've no idea what the variety is. It's likely to have come from an F1 plant so it's unlikely to produce true to variety. I still decided to give it a bit of TLC and potted it up into a decent size pot with the intention of growing it on to see how early it might produce some ripe tomatoes of one kind or another. I'll be interested to see how far behind my other tomato plants are at producing their first ripe tomatoes.
As you can see it's got quite a head start on my tomato seeds sown on 15 April which are almost ready for pricking out into pots.