Wednesday, 01 November 2017
Eight Blog Anniversary
My blog celebrates its eighth birthday at the end of October. My first post was on the 27 October 2009 about setting up my weather station. It wasn’t until the 30th of the month that I decided to include what was going on in the allotment. If you’re interested you can find this post here.
Whilst the weather station has gone on to be replaced by a better model we’ve still got our allotments. Most of the beds in the first photo are mostly unchanged with crops being rotated on an annual basis. I think the bed in the centre of the picture is now our main strawberry bed.
Plot 30 - Date: October 2009
Plot 30 - Date: October 2017
The second photo shows the other side of our plots when these were still work in progress. The bed being dug over in the 2009 photo now contains our three pear trees. The beds in the background are part of plot 41 and these were being dug over for the first time. Our quince tree and black currant bushes now grow in the bed that is partly dug over.
Plot 42 - Date: October 2009
Plot 42 - Date: October 2017
As you can see there has been far more changes to the plots at this side of the allotments. Back in 2009 we had only just started developing these two plots.
Since 2010 I’ve kept a record of our harvests so just out of interest I thought I’d see how much fruit we’ve had from our three pear trees and quince that were planted around the same time.
Quince and Pear Tree Harvests 2009 - 2017
Our quince tree regularly produces a decent crop whereas that can’t be said of the pear trees. I think the main problem with them is one of pollination. They don’t normally flower at the same time which probably leads to poor pollination. I can’t really explain why our Invincible tree produced such a heavy crop this year. The crop was so large that the weight broke some of the branches.
Friday, 03 November 2017
October 2017 was Mild, Dry and Windy
October was a mild month as I recorded an average temperature of 12.7°C the mildest I’ve managed in eight years. It’s not quite as mild as 2001 at 13.5°C which I think was the mildest in the last 100 years.
It was also a very windy October as you can see from the graphic I’ve included. I’ve only shown the relevant months as the full size chart is a bit unwieldy.
We had three named storms through October starting with Amelia at the beginning of the month followed by ex hurricane Ophelia and finally storm Brian. We had some very windy weather in between the storms as well.
Strangely we didn’t have a great deal of rain with these storms and October was pretty dry with only around half the average rainfall for the month. we didn't have any very wet days at all, with most of the month's rainfall between 19th and 22nd of the month.
You may have noticed that I’ve changed my blog header picture and I haven’t cheated and gone back to a summer flowering plant but kept it seasonal with a photo of a Michaelmas daisy flowering merrily away in one of our borders. It’s enjoyed the mild October weather as some years it doesn’t manage to flower at all.
Saturday, 04 November 2017
Dangerous Compost
November's weather has started off a bit none descript. Friday wasn’t a particularly nice day but given that it’s November I shouldn’t complain. It was a dull, calm but mild day so we decided on an afternoon trip to the allotment.
I’m sure you are aware if you follow my blog, that I’m trying to refurbish one of our beds. It’s involved cutting down an elder tree and I spent some time chopping up branches and twigs so that they take up far less space. Whilst I was busy doing this Sue was tidying up our chard plants, cutting down the old sweet corn plants and adding the waste to one of our compost heaps.
Now I think you’ll have to agree that this particular compost heap is full and there isn’t any more space for composting material. I know that in an ideal world we should chop up all the material and mix the different materials together. We’ve no mechanical means of doing this and chopping it all by hand would take forever. So we settle for adding the material without chopping and accept that it will take longer to turn into compost.
However, when I saw how full this compost bin was, I decided action was required. I was a little bored of chopping up elder tree branches and I thought it would be a good idea to investigate the compost, that had been left to rot down for a couple of years, in one of our heaps.
As it turned out the material had broken down into some excellent compost. I had time to dig out a couple of barrow fulls before it was time to leave, as the light was starting to fade.
The main problem is that the area around our compost heaps is infested with bindweed. The only saving grace is that the long white roots are easily spotted as the compost is dug out. You can just about make out some of the long white roots in the photo above. I have to be very careful not to miss any of the roots as the compost is transferred to bindweed free beds.
Before leaving I covered the material with some weed control fabric to keep the worst of any rain off the excellent compost.
I’m making it a priority to empty this compost heap before I continue any other jobs. The compost is too good to waste. Once I’ve emptied out the compost we can start refilling the bin.
Monday, 06 November 2017
First Below Zero
Monday morning saw the temperature fall below 0°C (32°F) for the first time this autumn as thermometer recorded -0.3°C or 31.5°F.
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Temperature Record for 06 November 2017
It's not unusual for this to happen in the first week of November. Over the last seven years this is now the fourth occasion that the temperature has fallen below zero in the first week of November.
Frost on our home greenhouse
Sunday was a lovely sunny although cold day but we made the most of the fine weather with a trip to the allotment. Sue did a bit more tidying up and I emptied one of our compost heaps.
Sue picked some chrysanthemums for cut flowers at home. I wonder if they managed to survive Monday morning's frosty weather?
