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A Gardener’s Weather Diary - July week 2
Friday, 08 July 2011
Thundery showers
Friday was a miserable cloudy day with some heavy but brief showers.
It seems that for the last few weeks we have missed the heaviest of the rain and although we had 4.4mm today I think it could easily have been a lot more.
At 16:30 the clouds got darker and thunder was rumbling in the distance. In the end it was almost dark and if you look at the solar radiation chart you will see that the value fell almost to zero at 16:30.
The rain started as though it meant to make up for the last few dry months all in one go but it only lasted for a few minutes. Perhaps somewhere close by got a real soaking.
Today's rain was enough to bring the actual rainfall above the expected amount for the 8th of the month by 0.6mm. It’s the first time since February that actual rainfall has exceeded expected at any time in the month. There’s still a long way to go in July but it has been a wet month for the last few years.
Saturday, 09 July 2011
Improving as it goes
Saturday started off dull and cloudy but improved as the day went along and by early afternoon it was warm and sunny if just a bit breezy at times.
We made the most of the fine weather to harvest some soft fruit on the plot. For the first time our new raspberry and blackcurrant bushes are providing us with a plentiful supply of berries this year.
Sunday, 10 July 2011
A dull day
Sunday turned out to be a dull and cloudy day which is pretty unusual this summer as we’ve normally had some sunshine during the day. A casualty of last winter was our pond side gunnera. It wasn’t exactly killed off but only produced a few weak new shoots and so we decided it was time for a change. A consequence of removing the gunnera is our water lily gets much more light and after a few flowerless years in the shade has produced some flowers this year.
Our outdoor cucumber (Burpless Tasty Green) planted in our experimental air pot is doing well and now has its first tiny cucumbers forming. Its doing better than the ones at the plot as it’s getting a bit more TLC.
Monday, 11 July 2011
Where’s my lettuce gone?
Monday was a much better day with some long sunny periods and warm.
We had been lucky this year with slug and snail damage but that's ended now. This is all that's left of my last batch of lettuce seedlings. A few days ago these were good plants just about ready for transplanting in the plot. Not anymore after a couple of nights of snail attack there's just nothing left. They've also been at some flower seedlings too so I'm going to have to try to keep the snails away from my young seedlings.
Plan 1 is to fix a strip of copper tape around the edge of a large watering tray and keep my precious seedlings in this tray. The copper tape has worked well protecting our hostas in pots so I'm going to test out further possibilities. Watch this space for more experimentation. In the meantime I'd better get some more lettuce seed sown.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Feeling cool
Tuesday was a mostly cloudy day. It was noticeable that the wind had moved around into a north or north easterly direction and it certainly took the edge of the temperature making it feel a little cool.
My carefully nurtured lettuce and calabrese seedlings have been moved into my snail protection zone or at least that’s what I’m hoping. My next batch of lettuce sowing have also been placed in this tray so it’s now fingers crossed that the snails are kept out by some tiny electric shocks from the copper tape.
If this is successful then I'll be using this method to sow my spring cabbage seeds in the next few weeks.
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Nothing special
Wednesday was a fairly ok sort of a day. We had a reasonable amount of sunshine but with the wind still from the north east it took the edge off the temperature. I keep reading reports of how wet the month has been but that’s not the case here.
Our fruit trees and bushes are producing good crops this year making up for what looks like a poor year for vegetables due to the dry weather. Our Peasgood Nonsuch apple tree is loaded with fruit.
Thursday, 14 July 2011
Bright start, turning cloudy
It was a bright sunny and cool start to Thursday. The overnight low had fallen to a rather chilly 7.9°C. By lunchtime it had warmed up but then the clouds rolled in to give us a dull, cloudy afternoon and evening.
On July 14th last year (a Wednesday) we had our wettest day I’ve recorded. An extract from my blog post follows.
Well Wednesday really made up for the lack of rain with two thunderstorms giving torrential rain. The first storm broke around 17:30 and lasted about an hour, giving around 15mm of rain. At one point in the storm the rainfall was fast enough to give us all July's rainfall in just 20 minutes. The second storm began around 21:30 and deposited another 15mm or so in the next hour. The rainfall for the day was 33.4mm……….
I noticed that I thought it was a dry spell last year until these storms arrived so I’ve done a little comparison of the spring and summer rainfall up to and including the 14th July. All the values are in mm.
No wonder crops are struggling as it’s certainly a dry growing season. The forecast for the next few days is for rain. If July remains dry our 12 monthly running total for rainfall will take a dramatic drop as in July 2010 we had double the amount of anticipated rainfall in the month and this of course will drop out of the running 12 monthly total
|
Month |
March |
April |
May |
June |
July |
Total |
|
2010 |
50.9 |
24.1 |
10.0 |
33.9 |
47.6 |
166.5 |
|
2011 |
7.2 |
2.4 |
33.7 |
33.6 |
12.0 |
88.9 |
In the greenhouse this variety of tomato is German Red Strawberry and it looks like producing some large tomatoes. I can see why its got strawberry in its name as it certainly has a strawberry shape to the fruit. All I need now is for it to take on a nice red strawberry colour.
