Tuesday, 22 October 2019
Drying Up A Bit!
Tuesday morning's temperature was the lowest of this autumn as the temperature fell to 1.4°C or 34.5°F.
Temperature Records 20-22 October 2019
Daytime temperatures haven't been all that impressive either with Monday's reaching a high of 11.0°C or 51.8°F. We needed to harvest some fresh vegetables so in a very light drizzle, we set off for the allotment not intending it to be a long visit. However, the drizzle stopped so we decided to clear a few beds and see if they would dig over.
I thought this bed on plot 29, which grew some onions through summer, might be too wet to dig over but it was just about manageable. It was pleasing to make a start of getting some autumn digging done.
One of our winter jobs is to progress the rejuvenation of our old strawberry bed. It had been covered over with weed control fabric and wood chippings since spring. The ground had large cracks in it when the strawberries were cleared.
Strawberry bed spring this year
The weed control fabric and wood chippings were cleared away to reveal the ground beneath.
First impressions were that the ground was very wet but all those large cracks that had developed as a result of a long spell of dry weather had disappeared which was what we had aimed for when we covered the bed.
The next stage is to roughly dig over the bed and leave the winter rains and frost to break down the soil. Hopefully, in spring we'll be able to plant a crop of potatoes in this bed.
Sunday, 27 October 2019
Non Stop Rain for More Than 24 Hours
If I had any doubts about the ground being too wet to dig over, rain on Friday and Saturday has put an end to them. It began raining on Friday lunchtime and it continued unbroken until the middle of Saturday afternoon.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 25-27 October 2019
Friday's rainfall amounted to 25.8mm (1.02in) making it the tenth wettest day I've recorded over the last 10 years.
Top Twenty Wettest Days 2010 - 2019
After Friday's rainfall October becomes the wettest October I've recorded and a further 14.6mm (1.59in) on Saturday before the rain eventually stopped was enough to move it into third spot in the table of wettest months.
Wettest Months 2010-2019
The daytime temperature on Saturday only made it up to 6.7°C (44.1°F), the equal lowest for October since 2010, tying with 27 October 2018.
It's difficult to believe now but three quarters of the way through September the ground at the allotment was too dry to dig over. Since then we've had 182.2mm (7.2in) of rainfall and the ground has gone from too dry to waterlogged in a little over 4 weeks. I've a feeling the ground won't really dry out until spring making for an extremely busy spring next year, weather permitting of course.
Before the last bout of rain I managed to make this birds' eye view of our plots.