ossettweather.com
Friday 22 June 2012
Wet Wet Wet!
Friday was wet, very wet as we broke our record daily amount of rainfall managing 35.1mm (1.4”). This followed on from a pretty wet Thursday. It also means that this June 2012 becomes the wettest month since I began keeping records 3 years ago. It takes over from April 2012 which didn’t hold the record for very long.
Just to add insult to injury my main rain gauge stopped working too. I noticed in one particularly heavy downpour that it wasn’t recording any rainfall at all. Fortunately like all good record keepers I have a back up rain gauge and this recorded 35.1mm for the day.
As a check both gauges recorded 9.6mm of rainfall on Thursday. I’ve investigated the cause of the problem which turned out to be a blockage where the water runs out of the funnel to be measured.
It’s easy enough to unblock the hole but much more difficult to correct the rainfall figures which appear on the graphs linked to this blog and on my other web pages. It might take a couple of days for these figure to be rectified.
|
|
Month |
Rainfall (mm) |
|
1 |
Jun- |
120.3 |
|
2 |
Apr- |
120 |
|
3 |
Nov- |
118.3 |
|
4 |
Jul- |
90 |
|
5 |
Feb- |
84 |
|
|
Date |
Rainfall (mm) |
|
1 |
22- |
35.1 |
|
2 |
14- |
33.4 |
|
3 |
20- |
26.2 |
|
4 |
03- |
22.8 |
|
5 |
26- |
22.7 |
These are my current figures for the wettest days and months since I started my weather station in July 2009. Obviously the figures for June will be updated at the end of the month.
Saturday 23 June 2012
Doing Well
Thankfully Saturday turned out drier, and with a little bit of sunshine, but on the downside it was windy so another not very June like day.
Back on the 12th June I posted about a large chunk of timber found in a bag of Levington’s compost when I planted up my tomato plants. The true test of the compost must be the quality of the plants and harvest produced. Well I’m pleased to report that the tomato plants are looking very healthy after their first few weeks in these grow bags.
These are the plants just after planting out in our home greenhouse on 6th June. It had been a struggle to raise these plants and I wasn’t that impressed by the quality of the plants but I was determined to give them a chance.
So despite a poor start to life these plants are now growing away extremely well in Levington’s grow bag compost. I’m looking forward to a good crop of tomatoes even if they are much later than I would normally expect.
Sunday 24 June 2012
Strawberries Survive the Rain
After overnight rain the rest of Sunday remained dry but once again with a strong to gale force wind blowing it wasn’t all that pleasant outside.
We decided a trip to the plot was required as the tomatoes in the greenhouse would probably be ready for a water. It was a chance to see how much damage the wind and rain had done at the plot. Surprisingly we had plenty of strawberries to pick.
These are the variety Marshmello which have stood up to the rain very well. The weed suppressant membrane we had put down rather than straw has worked well and stopped the fruits form being splashed with mud during spells of heavy rain. We had a number of fruits damaged by slugs and snails but only a couple of small fruits had gone mouldy in last week’s damp conditions.
Our rhubarb clumps have enjoyed the cooler wetter weather this year and are continuing to produce succulent stems for harvesting.
Last year our rhubarb suffered badly in the very dry condition and the harvest was small as the roots dried up from the lack of rain.
Our courgettes are struggling. I’ve never had a problem growing them before. I sow the seeds, they all grow, I plant them out and have more courgettes than I know what to do with. However, this year some of this plants definitely aren’t enjoying the weather.
We’ve a couple of plants looking like this. I don’t think that they will recover. I think that slugs, helped by all the wet and windy weather, have nibbled through the stem close to the ground effectively killing off the plant. If all our other courgette plants survive we should have an ample supply to see us through summer. Perhaps some decent weather would help!
Monday 25 June 2012
Autumn Planted Onions are Ready
Monday afternoon finished up mild and sunny with the temperature managing to just make it to 20°C - a rarity this June.
On the plot the overgrown bed of last year’s over wintering cabbages and weeds has been cleared and is now ready for digging over. The ground was on the wet side so I’m leaving it a couple of days to let it dry out a little.
Our winter onions planted on the 4th October last year have survived winter and are now large enough to use. These onions don’t store well and usually keep us supplied in onions for the next three months when the onion sets planted in Spring will be ready to lift and store over winter.
Another couple of harvesting first’s for the year were a few radishes “Sparkler 3” sown 26th May and a few alpine strawberries.
Tuesday 26 June 2012
The Winter Brassica Experiment
Tuesday was mild and muggy with a little light rain in the afternoon.
My winter brassica experiment is now in full swing. Having been disappointed with last year’s plug plants I’ve set about raising my own this year. I’ve tried this in the past and the plants have either not survived due to lack of attention or the constant battle with slugs and snails has been lost. I’m also using New Horizon peat free multipurpose compost to to add a little more edge to the growing process.
So far so good. These cauliflower seeds “Aalsmeer” sown on the 17th June quickly germinated under our indoor grow light and produced some excellent seedlings. These were transplanted into modular cells today and moved into the cold frame. The battle now begins to prevent them becoming either waterlogged in any rainy spells or too dry should we be lucky enough to have some fine warm days. Let the mollusc wars begin!
Wednesday 27 June 2012
Caught Red Handed and a Crazy Place to Build a Nest - Birds!
Wednesday was a mostly dull and humid day. The sun made an appearance in the afternoon and it was enough to produce our warmest day of the month with the temperature reaching 25.1°C.
On the plot this week during a coffee break we heard a blackbird noisily clucking amongst our red currants. The short video shows exactly what was going on.
Apologies for the quality of the video but my camera insisted on focusing on the netting rather than where the action was. The young blackbird took cover in our nearby apple trees no doubt planning another smash and grab on our redcurrants.
Last Friday I blogged about the virtues of a backup rain gauge. After wood pigeon problems with my main weather station, my reserve gauge, which resides in an open spot on the wall by our new pebble garden now has its own bird issue.
The gauge can be seen to the top right hand corner of this picture at the end of the wall. It’s been there over 12 months with no problems. Then this morning something odd. I found grill to the top of the collection funnel was on the steps next to the wall.
It seemed a bit odd as it hadn’t been windy and severe winter gales hadn’t dislodged it in the past. I picked it up to replace it and was then surprised by what I saw in the rain gauge funnel.
It appears that a bird may have deliberately removed the cover and made a start at building a nest. Seems a little late for nest building but anyone got any better ideas?
Thursday 28 June 2012
Seeing Sense
Thursday was warm and humid with heavy thundery showers occurring several times during the day. They were very short lived so we didn’t experience the flash flooding that other parts of northern England suffered. On a day with very little sunshine we managed to push up the warmest temperature this month as it reached 25.6°C late in the afternoon.
Whoever had thought of nesting in my rain gauge thought better of it and kindly removed all the material that had been placed there. They didn’t replace the cover leaving that for me to do.
So my spare rain gauge has been cleaned out and is now fully operational once again.
I transplanted some more winter brassicas. One tray is cauliflower “Clapton” which I hope will produce some tasty picking in autumn. Most of the seedlings once transplanted have been transferred to my cold frame where they are more at the mercy of ravenous slugs and snails especially in this damp and humid weather.
The seedlings have survived so far but it only needs one attack and most of the plants could be devoured in one night. I’ve still some more seedlings to transplant but I’ll need to set up another tray alongside these first.
Friday 29 June 2012
A Proper Harvesting Day
Friday would have been much better if it hadn’t been for the strong wind blowing for most of the day.
On the plot we had our best harvesting day of the year. Our Marshmello strawberry plants which are in their second year have produced in abundance. Quite a few berries had been nibbled by slugs and one or two showed some sign of mould due to the wet and muggy weather of the last few days but that still left plenty for us. Our day’s harvest is detailed below.
I made some late sowing of carrots, peas, sweet corn, broad and french beans on the 18th June. Most of these are just starting to germinate although I couldn’t see any signs of the sweet corn. If we have a decent autumn I’m hoping for these late sowings to make up for the bad start to the season. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
Saturday 30 June 2012
End of a Wet June
Saturday was another day with sunny spells and heavy showers bringing to an end a very wet June.
When not trapped in the summerhouse in the pouring rain I did manage to get into the greenhouse to transplant some “January King” cabbages and broccoli “Red Arrow” which will be transferred to the cold frame as soon as I sort out some space and get some slug protection measures in place.
Until then they’re on the greenhouse floor where I must admit slugs and snails can be a menace but less so than outside and unprotected.