Friday became our hottest day of the year as the temperature reached 29.9°C (85.8°F) in the middle of the afternoon. 

It wasn’t the hottest June day I’ve recorded as that now goes all the way back to 23 June 2011 when the temperature reached 31.6°C or 88.9°F. Temperatures are forecast to return to more average value for June on Saturday with a fall of around 10°C.

However, the hot weather won’t have done much to ease the dry conditions at the allotment. We haven’t had a proper wet day since February. Since then each month has had below average rainfall. with the situation gradually getting worse as the lack of rain continues.

Our long term average monthly rainfall is just a fraction over 50mm or 2in so we’ve had 5 drier than average months out of 6. It’s a good job February was a really wet month or things would be really bad.

It does mean we have to spend much of our time at the allotment watering in an attempt to keep everything growing. Most of our beds are now planted up but that doesn’t mean our only job is watering. Despite the dry ground weed seeds manage to continue to germinate and of course we are now hopefully entering the beginning of the main harvesting season.

Having had a look at the forecast there doesn’t seem to be any substantial rainfall in what remains of June. Hope our watering cans don’t wear out!