June was off to a wonderful start with a day of long sunny spell and a temperature up to 24.3°C. I wonder how long it will last?
We had left a pot of crocuses to do their own thing after flowering. The pot was left by the bird bath for the plants to die back naturally and hopefully go on to produce a good display next spring. However, over the last week or so something had been rooting the bulbs out of the pot scattering the compost everywhere. The blackbirds got the blame for this. Our assumption was that the birds were tugging at the drying leaves for nesting material and uprooting the bulbs. Then the crocus snatcher made an appearance on Sunday.
A look of “what me - never?” didn’t convince us of its innocence. The squirrel soon moved into the Magnolia tree to check out the bird feeders.
It couldn’t find a way to get to the “squirrel proof” feeder full off sunflower hearts and the favourite of our goldfinches. However, it had more luck on the peanut holder sampling a few nuts before moving off through the magnolia tree and having a face to face with a young blackbird.
Monday 02 June 2014
The Year’s Record Intensity
After such a good start to June we only had to wait one day to find out that it wasn’t going to last. Monday was a mild muggy day with the threat of rain never very far away.
By tea time the cloud looked fairly menacing and at first it was a scattering of heavy raindrops which turned into a deluge for a couple of minutes. The rainfall intensity of 111.8mm/hr was the highest of the year and would produce about a month’s rainfall in 15 minutes.
Down on the plot, another 10.1mm of rainfall isn’t going to help the soil dry out ready to cultivate. Besides keeping a check on the precipitation the software supplied with my weather station calculates the amount of evaporation that takes place each day based on temperature, sunshine and wind speed. I’ve tabulated these values below since the end of that brilliant spell of weather in the middle of May.
22 May
23 May
24 May
25 May
26 May
27 May
28 May
29 May
30 May
31 May
01-Jun
02-Jun
Totals
Rainfall mm
11.2
17.2
11.2
2
0.4
0.8
10.8
4.2
0
0
0
10.1
67.9
Evaporation mm
0.7
0.7
0.9
0.9
2.4
1.6
0.4
0.5
1.5
1.6
3.5
1.6
16.3
As you see we’ve had 51.6mm of rainfall over evaporation which is why the ground is a bit on the wet side for digging. At home the plants in the greenhouse aren’t getting through enough water to prevent my water butt from overflowing and causing a rather large puddle outside the greenhouse doorway.
At least I’m not having to water the pots outside which seem to be managing very well without any additional help.
Tuesday 03 June 2014
Strimming and Strawberries
Tuesday morning was dull and damp with a little bit of rain but the afternoon brightened up with even a few short sunny spells. It remained mild.
Over the weekend the grass paths on the allotment had been mowed but the grass under the fruit trees had been left uncut. As we’ve a few spring flowers under the fruit trees the grass gets left uncut to allow the flowers to die back naturally. It was now time for a tidy up.
The long grass hadn’t dried out and there was still plenty of moisture left which created a fine mist as the strimmer wire cut through the long grass. Our plum trees still haven’t leafed up properly following the early spring attack from aphids. I’m hoping the plums still left on the tree will make it through to maturity.
We also decided it was about time to net our strawberry bed. The first few fruits are just beginning to turn red which is sure to attract the attention of the birds.
There were four fruits ready for picking. It seemed such a shame to leave them as it’s so much easier to pick them before the net goes over. It turned out that there were just three ripe strawberries for us to share as one had been eaten by slugs who kindly left a lovely red fruit on display that was almost totally eaten away inside.
Before we left for home the strawberries had been netted to protect them from the birds but if this damp weather persists we might loose a lot more fruits to the slugs and snails.
Wednesday 04 June 2014
You’ve Guessed It - More Rain but a Fox
Wednesday was another wet day with mostly light rain all day. The total only came to 6.0mm but on top of all the other rainfall it just keeps the ground continually saturated.
In a way it didn’t bother me too much as I was on a “Springwatch” mission making a visit to Leeds to photograph and video some urban foxes.
Well to be honest I went to Leeds to help a friend sort out a couple of computer problems and right on cue, as we’d finished sorting out the software, look who came looking for a meal.
Foxes are regular visitors to the garden and she was looking a bit worse for wear as she’s busy bringing up some cubs. I’ve added a video clip below of her crossing the garden for food. I wasn’t using my camera so it’s a bit more juddery than I would have liked.
I might have to revisit just to check if the computer issues really have been resolved and take along my camera too, just in case.
Thursday 05 June 2014
A Cold One for June
Thursday improved as the day went on, so after a dull start with drizzle in the air, it brightened up considerably by the afternoon. It was a little bit breezy but that should help to dry out the soil ready for planting out our runner beans.
Overnight into Friday the temperature fell to a low of 5.2°C the lowest June temperature I’ve recorded since 12 June 2011 when it fell to 4.7°C.
The clear skies overnight and into Friday morning have resulted a bright sunny start to Friday. Our osteospermums are putting on a stunning display in the greenhouse in their pots around our fig trees.
They should really be outside now but they fully deserve their spot in the greenhouse whilst they continue to put on a display like this.
Friday 06 June 2014
A Window of Opportunity
Friday was a lovely sunny June day with the temperature reaching a very pleasant 20.9°C and more importantly it was dry for the second day in a row.
On Thursday afternoon I’d gambled on being able to cultivate one of our allotment beds ready to plant out our runner bean plants. It was only possible to cultivate the top few inches of soil which had dried out a bit but lower than that the soil was still very wet and claggy. The tiller dealt with the top few inches of soil pretty well but if the tines were allowed to go any deeper then they just became clogged up with extremely wet soil.
Once tilled and edged the bed looked neat and tidy and the soil looked pretty good belying the fact that a few inches below the surface it was still saturated with water. The bed was covered with weed control fabric which was held down around the edges with wood chippings and four barrowfuls of manure were tipped on the bed to spread out around the runner beans when they were planted to stop the fabric from lifting or blowing about in the wind. This was how the bed looked when we left on Thursday night ready for planting up.
So Friday’s lovely weather allowed us to get our runner beans planted out although I’m not sure what they’ll make of the very wet ground. Normally we grow our runner beans up a wigwam of bamboo canes. This works well even though once the beans reach the top of the wigwam they continue to grow upwards before collapse back down the wigwam. I decided to try to avoid this by planting out our beans in rows this year as seen in the photo below.
I’m not particularly happy with the way this has turned out as the beans have taken up far too much space. Normally when we’ve grown our runner’s up wigwams we’ve had space in the centre of the bed for our sweet corn crop but that’s not the case with them planted like this. We did have space to plant a row of Inca berries across the middle of the bed. I think it might be back to wigwams next year.
In the plot greenhouse the tomatoes were provided with some supports in anticipation of the weight of tomatoes they are going to produce. So far they seem to be growing very well and have recovered from any minor set back when they were planted out into their grow bags.
Saturday 07 June 2014
Some Wizardry Required
Early Saturday morning was bright and sunny but it wasn’t long before the clouds rolled in and by mid morning the rain arrived. It rained on and off through until teatime when once again the sun made a bit of an appearance. After a couple of days without any rain had brought about a little bit of an improvement. another 11.2mm of rain won’t do much to help the soil dry on the plot. A spell of dry weather would be much appreciated.
At least I didn’t feel too guilty about a short trip out in the rain to photograph the Wizards Express hauled by steam locomotive 5972 Olton Hall, much better known as Hogwarts Castle from its appearance in Harry Potter films. This summer the locomotive is being used on a couple of charter trains “The Wizards Express” between Manchester and York.
We were very lucky that it wasn’t raining at the spot where I’d chosen to photograph the train as it headed for York. The train was also a little early at this point which was just as well because as we got back in the car to head for home it started to pour down.
In the late afternoon sun I decided it was time to transplant our sweetcorn into modules for it to grow on for a week or so before it is planted out on the plot. That’s provided it dries up enough for me to prepare a little bit of ground. The seeds had been spaced out in two A4 size seed trays and germination had been very good producing a total of 70 plants.
Sweetcorn plants need to be treated quite carefully when transplanting. In general they are easy to handle but the growing stem can easily be broken from the root system. Teasing the seedlings from the compost by pulling with the leaves is not recommended. I usually separate the young seedlings at soil level carefully pulling the roots apart. Doing this I was quite surprised how cold the soil felt. Obviously it had been cool in the greenhouse as the day had been cloudy and the soil just hadn’t warmed up.
Some better weather is needed so that the soil on the plot will have warmed and dried up by the time these sweetcorn plants are ready for the plot.
