Tuesday, 03 March 2020
February Turned Out To Be A Record Breaker
If you've followed my blog post through February you will be well aware that it's been an extremely wet and windy month. I've now finalised the rainfall figures and wind speeds records for the month. It's turned out to be both the wettest month and windiest month of the last eleven years.
Wettest & Windiest Months 2010-2020
What's more neither record has just crept over the line into top spot but is there by some considerable margin.
There seems to have been an awful lot of talk about how mild this winter has been but my weather station records didn't confirm it as the warmest of the last eleven years, with the winter of 2014/15 still holding on to that record. Rather unsurprisingly with all the rainfall of the last month, this winter's turned out to be the wettest I've recorded.
Winter Averages for Rainfall & Temperature 2010-2020
It seems rather incredible that in the middle of September last year the plot was very dry. Some parts of the plot were in need of watering and I didn't start any winter digging because the ground was too dry. I thought a little bit of rain would make digging over the ground so much easier. Little did I imagine that once the rain started it was going to continue through the rest of autumn and winter without any break.
Plot 18 September 2019
February's average temperature was a little above normal but only managed fifth place out of eleven years. However, as you can see the amount of rainfall in the month was more than double the previous wettest February I'd recorded.
February Averages for Rainfall & Temperature 2010-2020
This winter has been remarkably frost free and it's meant that our early rhubarb hasn't had its early stems knocked back by any frost. We managed to pick a few stems at the weekend which I suppose you could say was our first "fruit" harvest of the year.
I'm rather glad to see the end of February and I'm looking forward to some better weather in March. Hopefully, we'll get some dry and sunny days to help the garden and allotment dry out for the start of the main planting season at the beginning of April. At least our only concern from all the rain is how it will impact on our start to the gardening year rather than those whose homes have been flooded and will need months of drying out and repair works before their homes are fit to live in again.
Friday, 06 March 2020
First Sowings on the Coldest Day of Winter - Err Spring!
It's funny how the weather likes to play tricks on us. We've had only a few frosts through winter and even then they haven't been all that cold. We're now in the first week of meteorological spring and what do we get the coldest night since last November.
Temperature Summary for 2020
The coldest night of the year, so far, has occurred in the first week of meteorological spring. It's worth noting the mean temperature for the month so far of 3.7°C (38.7°F) is well below average. The last night colder than -2.6°C (27.3°F), was on 30 November 2019, the last day of meteorological autumn when the temperature fell to -3.8°C or 25.2°F.
However, Friday has been a mostly sunny day. It felt nice and warm in the greenhouse and after a little bit of tidying up I sowed our first seeds of the year. First sowings were made of parsley, Moss Curled, and lettuce, All Year Round. Each seed packet contains lots of seeds so I can risk sowing some early in the hope of some early lettuces and parsley but, if they fail to germinate I've plenty of left over seeds for sowing when the weather hopefully warms up a little bit.
The seeds have been covered with a propagator lid which I'm hoping will serve to keep the seeds a little bit warmer and protect them from any mice hunting for food in the greenhouse.