ossettweather.com
A Gardener’s Weather Diary - July week 5
Friday, 29 July 2011
Clumber Park - Walled Kitchen Garden
After yesterdays high temperature it was back to normal today. We made a visit to Clumber Park and had a look round the walled kitchen garden.
It appears like us that they too are suffering from a lack of rainfall with the most obvious signs being the dry grass lawn paths and some plants in the herbaceous borders suffering too.
I was surprised to find this article in the Daily Telegraph this week regarding the rainfall. The article goes on to quote the Met Office as follows;
The appraisal comes as forecasters predicted another week of mixed weather, and despite statistics showing above-average rainfall for May, June and July.
Met Office figures show that in the first two weeks of this month alone, Britain was deluged with 2.4in (62.1mm) of rain – 89 per cent of the average total rainfall for the whole month. Rainfall was also up by 48 and 14 per cent for May and June respectively.
If the article had stated much or many parts of Britain was deluged with…. then that would be fine. But all Britain hasn’t had this deluge of rain and nor was our rainfall above average for May and June. In both cases it was well below average. So exactly how do the Met Office arrive at these figures.
Since having a very wet February our rainfall from March to July is well below average.
Our average long term rainfall figures are February 47.8mm, March 41.9mm, April 57.9mm May 51.4mm, June 55.2mm and July 42.7mm. The graph of actual rainfall shows just how much we are below these average figures.
Saturday, 30 July 2011
Indoor and outdoor grapes
Saturday was fine, dry and warm with the afternoon temperature up to 23.7°C. This was after another chilly July night when the temperature fell to 8.2°C.
Our indoor grapes are coming on a treat and look like they might be ready in a couple of weeks time. I’m not sure I’ll be able to risk the temptation of testing one that long as the grapes are seedless and very sweet.
In stark contrast, on the plot, are our outdoor grapes. These much younger vines planted in 2009 not only managed to survive last winter’s cold spell but were severely affected by a late spring frost. They have some grapes on them but these are only immature fruits compared to the ones in our greenhouse and I doubt these will have time to mature before the cold weather arrives.
Grape - Himrod
Grape - Madeleine Sylvaner
Sunday, 31 July 2011
Warm end
With only a light southerly breeze Sunday turned out to be a warm muggy day with hazy rather than strong sunshine. It was yet another dry day which means the last ten days of July have been rain free.
I’ve put together a video of our visit to Clumber Park on Friday so you can see just how dry some areas of the kitchen garden are looking.
