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A Gardener’s Weather Diary - September week 4
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Home from Wales
After a week on holiday in Wales we know how wet the rest of the UK can be. It rained on most of the days we were away, some days torrential other days just drizzle and certainly not much sunshine. Click on the image to read more about our trips out and my weather blog for our week in Wales.
Sunday, 25 September 2011
Dull and mild
No sunshine on Sunday until late in the afternoon. After our damp week in Wales it was a change for us to have a dry day. The rain has certainly missed our garden whilst we were away and once again it looks like yet another dry month.
The forecast for the week is better than anything we had all summer.
If this forecast is even remotely right then it doesn’t seem likely we’ll get any more rain this month but we’re certainly in for a brilliant spell of weather.
Monday, 26 September 2011
Club root free
A very pleasant day for late September, plenty of sunshine, mild and just a gentle breeze so it tempted us to visit the plot to do some tidying up and see what we had to harvest after our week away.
This year we grew some club root resistant cauliflowers, Clapton, after seeing how well they had done on Beechgrove Garden. We have a hit and miss affair with cauliflowers, mostly miss, so we gave Clapton a try.
These had produced some good cauliflowers, ten to be exact, throughout the first couple of weeks of August but I’d left the root in the ground after cutting the cauliflowers. In the mood for tidying up I decided to dig up the left over stumps. Normally I don’t have much of a root to dig up, but not with these.
These had a well established root system and not a trace of club root to be seen. It’s amazing how clean these roots came out of the ground. Our dry soil not clinging to the roots at all and just a few gentle taps on the fork and the bone dry soil fell from the roots.
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Coldest and Hottest
After the coldest overnight temperature of the month (6.7°C) we had the hottest day of the month (24.8°C), in fact the hottest day since the 3rd August.
It wasn’t a windy day but the lawn certainly took on an autumnal look as even a gentle breeze was enough to bring leaves falling from our crab apple tree.
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Amazingly even hotter
Today was even hotter with the temperature getting up to 26.8°C. In West Yorkshire apparently we’re not in danger of breaking any temperature records as this spell of weather has come at the end of the month. However, should this spell last into the weekend and the start of October who knows!
We decided on a walk around the RSPB reserve at Fairburn Ings in the afternoon. It was pleasant walking around the lake under the shade of the trees and just a gentle breeze blowing.
Most of the trees are still looking very green but a closer look reveals that the leaves are certainly taking on an autumnal tinge.
It’s fantastic to have this superb spell of weather but we are going to have yet another dry month. We’ve only had 50% of the rainfall we would normally expect in September and it doesn’t look as though this will change in the next couple of days. This will be our seventh month in a row with below average rainfall. On our drive to Fairburn we noticed that some of the ings were looking a little low on water and one smallish ing was nothing more than mud. More watering will be required on the plot but at least now we can concentrate on our crops that will be over wintering. We’ve never had a whole growing season where the crops have required regular watering throughout. We often have a dry spell but not one lasting for seven months.
