Wednesday 01 October 2014
Ossett’s September
It turned out to be a very mild September but not the mildest of the five Septembers I have records for. That honour still goes to September 2011 with an average temperature of 15.0°C compared to this year’s 14.6°C. It’s rather strange that even though the month was on the mild side it didn’t do very well in the sunshine stakes as we had lots of dull mild days as cloud came in off the North Sea.
In the end it’s the lowest September sunshine total in my five years of records. High pressure remained in charge throughout the month keeping rainfall totals down. By the end of the month we’d had only 9.8mm of rain making it the third driest month I’ve recorded.
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Month
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Rainfall (mm)
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April 2011
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2.4
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March 2011
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7.2
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September 2014
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9.8
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May 2010
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10.0
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March 2012
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13.0
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Thursday to Saturday 02/04 October 2014
Quince and the 1940’s
Thursday was another lovely day for October with some long sunny spells.
Last year we picked our quinces in the middle of October and although we had a good number of fruits they all suffered from what we think may have been bitter pit which rendered all the fruits unusable. This disorder mainly affects apples and as none of our apples growing close by have ever suffered in the same way I was sort of hoping that it would go away of its own accord or it was something other than bitter pit.
The quinces ripening on our tree look to be in good condition as does the tree itself so I decided it was time to test a few fruits. Using the apple test, lifting the quince upwards in the palm of my hand, this particular fruit parted company with the tree very easily.
I picked three more fruits for testing. Quinces make a superb addition to apple crumbles or pies so I decided to try these four out, with some damaged apples in a little apple and quince crumble.
All four quinces were peeled and were fortunately free from any signs of bitter pit.
It was quite a relief as I peeled the first quince to find it looked in excellent condition beneath the skin. The next problem was how to get the best flesh off the fruit. Although a quince may look like a pear the centre core is extremely hard. I’ve never managed to quarter and core a quince in the same way I would prepare an apple or pear. I’ve found the easiest method for me is to pare pieces of flesh from the fruit until only the centre core remains. A few large Egremont Russets that were damaged were added to the quince.
With a little Greek yogurt it was a tasty treat for dessert at dinner time. I do hope the rest of our quinces are just as good.
Friday was forecast to be the last day of the fine settled spell so we decided to make the most of it and have a day out. As it turned out we finished up back in the 1940’s.
If you hadn’t already guessed I’d dragged Sue out again to photograph steam trains, this time on The Great Central Railway a heritage line operating in the Leicestershire countryside.
The weather forecasters turned out to be correct about the change in the weather as Saturday brought us a cool damp morning with some drizzly spells followed by some brighter sunny spells in the afternoon. I wouldn’t say the rainfall ended our dry spell as it amounted to only 1.8mm. There looks to be plenty of rain in the forecast for next week though so our dry spell is set to end any time soon.
Sunday 05 October 2014
A New Crop
Sunday was another sunny day but there was a distinctly autumnal chill in the air. The temperature on Sunday morning was down to 3.3°C and despite the sunshine it took a considerable while for Sunday to warm up a bit. It was our coldest day since early May a sure sign that autumn has arrived.
A new crop has grown up in a field close to us.
Apparently if we build enough of these we’ll change the weather.
Monday 06 October 2014
It’s Arrived
Autumn’s finally arrived and after a few weeks of pleasant late summer weather autumn finally announced its arrival. After Sunday’s low temperature of 3.3°C Monday turned out to be wet and cold with 9.8mm of rainfall, equal to the amount for the whole of September, and only 9.8°C by lunchtime.
The poor weather did allow lots of recent photographs to be sorted out and uploaded onto our web sites.
We’ve added two albums of pictures from our visit to the Great Central Railway gala.
One album’s pictures cover the arriving and departing of the trains at Quorn and Woodhouse station and can be found here or by clicking on the photograph.
Sue took some pictures of the station buildings and displays. The station was originally opened in 1899 eventually becoming part of the Great Central Railway. The station played an important role in the Second World War. The area was considered safe from enemy bombing raids and the station area and sidings were expanded and ammunition was stored locally and transported by train to where it was required. A fuller history of the station can be found on the Great Central Railway’s web site here. The station has been restored with a 1940’s style theme to reflect its role in World War II.
Sue’s photos of the restored station can be found here or by clicking on the photo above.
With more showers or longer spells of rain forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday it looks like many more photos and some video editing might get sorted out.
Tuesday 07 October 2014
Winding Down
It’s a bit of a shock to the system to have this spell of cold damp weather after those lovely late September days. Tuesday wasn’t particularly wet just damp with some spells of drizzle. The temperature only just made it out of double figures with a high of 10.7°C.
Our greenhouse crops are winding down and I picked the last of the Himrod grapes today.
As usual they’ve done well producing a total of 3.25kg of lovely sweet seedless grapes. We picked our first bunch on 16 August and had a dozen bunches of grapes.
We may well just have another tiny harvest of Sungold tomatoes to pick next week. I picked a few today and the tiny fruits are now pressed up against the greenhouse roof. They’ve lost none of their super sweet taste though and are well worth picking.
Coincidentally our growbag of three Sungold tomato plants has produced 3.25kg of fruit exactly matching the weight of Himrod grapes. Some of the Sungold tomatoes were even smaller than the grapes. I managed to fit a dozen tomatoes into my lunchtime sandwich.
We’ve been waiting all summer for our Morning Glory plant grown from seed in spring to show any signs of flowering. As the saying goes “better late than never” and it’s now putting on a spectacular show in the greenhouse.
Each flower only lasts at its best for a couple of days but there’s an amazing number of flower buds to come out if they manage it so late on in the season. It’s made all that watering through the summer worthwhile. I’ve got no idea whether or not it’s an annual or perennial plant but we’ll probably try to keep it over winter and see if it will produce some flowers earliier next summer.