Disclaimer
This weather site is operated as an amateur weather station site and should not be used as official data. I make every effort to ensure my data is as accurate as possible but I cannot guarantee that the data meets the requirements of the Meteorological Office or other professional weather monitoring organisations.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 14-16 September 2015
The Two R’s
The last three days have been a mixed bag as far as the weather goes. Monday and Tuesday were wet as forecast although we didn’t have much rain on Monday. It was more persistent very light drizzle all day. It made it feel wetter and damper than it really was. Wednesday was forecast to be wet but it turned out to be sunny and easily the best of the three days.
The temperatures have remained on the cool side for September with some chilly nights. It’s our coolest September since I started keeping records.
Temperature and Rainfall Monday 14 to Wednesday 16 September 2015
Our tomatoes are ripening fairly slowly which I’m putting down to the chilly nights and often dampish daytime conditions. I did pick this bowl of John Baer tomatoes on Tuesday a new variety for us which has done well this year.
However we’ve quite a few tomatoes that are beginning to rot away on the plants before falling off onto the greenhouse floor.
Not a pretty sight are they? Carrying on unscathed though are Sungold which have reached the eaves of the greenhouse and are using the grapevine for support. They’re still continuing to give a regular supply of very sweet and tasty tomatoes.
I might remove our remaining green tomatoes and see if they will ripen indoors rather than leaving them to rot on the plants.
Thursday 17 September 2015
Surprising Spuds
Thursday wasn’t bad. After another cool start to the day it wasn’t too bad although the morning’s short sunny spells disappeared altogether in the afternoon.
I decided it was about time I lifted our second bed of maincrop potatoes. I've been putting off lifting these potatoes for fear of what was underneath the weed control fabric. In some areas of the plot it's been a very bad year for slugs and I expected plenty of damage to our main crop potatoes thinking slug damage would be much worse underneath the fabric.
The potato tops have mostly died down. It seemed like that at each cut in the weed control fabric a nasturtium plant had grown through. The flowers were attracting a few bees but there was no way I could dig up the potatoes and save the nasturtiums.
I pulled back the weed control fabric and I've become accustomed to seeing a good number of potatoes on the surface of the soil but this wasn't the case.
The crop turned out to be better than we had obtained by planting more conventionally and even more surprisingly there was less damage from slugs and other pests.
I'd half expected the soil to be a bit wet for digging after the recent spells of rain but that wasn't the case and the soil dug over very nicely. All I need to do now is tidy up around the edges of the bed and replace the weed control fabric and the bed can be left over winter and it shouldn't need much preparatory work to get it ready for next season.
Out of interest the larger bed planted up conventionally produced a total crop weight of 36.4 kg against 38.4kg in the slightly smaller bed where the potatoes were grown under weed control fabric.
Friday 18 September 2015 and Weekend 19 & 20 September
Varied Weekend
The weather over the weekend was pretty decent and we made the most of Saturday’s weather with a little bit of harvesting on the plot. Although we can harvest a few bits and pieces on each visit production is beginning to wind down as we move further into autumn.
On Sunday we visited the North Yorkshire Moors Railway to get some pictures of 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, a steam locomotive making its final appearance on Sunday before been withdrawn for a major overall. This will take several years to complete and be a costly exercise.
It was one of those days when the Sat Nav went a bit haywire. Once into the North Yorkshire Moors things seemed to be going alright and the chosen route was alone decent enough roads.
Then all of a sudden we were off the main roads and heading along little used country lanes. We got a little bit worried but we’ve had this sort of thing happen before and it’s usually turned out okay.
This time it didn’t as we were instructed to turn right down nothing more than a bridleway which was narrow and unsurfaced. It didn’t look like the sort of road that you could turn around on if things got really tricky. Eventually we found our way back to some proper roads. However we did have to cross this ford which Sue wasn’t too happy about at all.
We managed to make it to Grosmont to get some picture of 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley leaving the station for the engine sheds. It was much later than planned and took place almost in darkness.
There were lots of other folk who hung about into the darkness to see the locomotive steam into the engine shed.
As Sir Nigel tooted its farewell, out of the darkness a male tawny owl hooted back.
Monday 21 September
Too Hot for Planting Onions
After the pleasant weekend Monday was mostly wet. The rain didn’t stop until the middle of the afternoon when the sun managed to come out. It never felt very warm even in the late afternoon sunshine.
Temperature, Rainfall and Solar Radiation for Monday 21 September 2015
The days rainfall came to 4.4mm (0.43”) bringing this months total up to 29.6mm or 1.17in. Average rainfall for the month is 43.2mm or 1.70in.
Rather bizarrely we were told in our local garden centre yesterday that their supply of winter onions hasn’t been delivered because their suppliers think the weather has been too warm. I wonder where they live?
|
Year
|
Average low °C
|
Average low °F
|
|
2010
|
9.8
|
49.6
|
|
2011
|
10.8
|
51.4
|
|
2012
|
9.0
|
48.2
|
|
2013
|
9.6
|
49.3
|
|
2014
|
10.3
|
50.5
|
|
2015
|
8.5
|
47.5
|
Last year our winter onions were bought from the same garden centre and planted on 25 September during a much warmer spell of weather. They went on to produce one of our best winter onion crops. We’ve found that if planted too late the onions don’t do any growing before the cold weather sets in and then they just rot away over winter.
We might have to look elsewhere for this year’s supply of onions.
Ossett Average Low Temperatures for Recent Septembers
