October 2018 Back to September
Monday 1st
8 to 12 to 10°C. 5.77kWh 800W max. Sunny intervals with some occasional light drizzle. Feeling warmer
Tuesday 2nd
11 to 16 to 12°C. 1.34kWh 200W max. Warmed up overnight to a very humid cloudy day with a few light showers.
The overwintering onion sets came today; Snowball, Radar, Electric and Senshyu Yellow. Planted them all in 7cm square pots to sprout in the polytunnel over the winter. They need a good root system before planting out early next year and may need moving to 1L square pots if the weather is mild. Hopefully we will have better weather for them than last year. The cold spring followed by the hot dry summer totally confused them and they ripened too early and are not keeping very well.
Wednesday 3rd
12 to 17 to 13°. 2.73kWh 1.8kW max. A warm cloudy day with a single sunny interval in the morning and some drizzly rain.
Thursday 4th
12 to 20 to 13°C. 3.26kWh 1.3kW max. Warmer but mainly cloudy with some light showers in the afternoon
Friday 5th
12 to 17 to 8°C. 1.77kWh 400W max. Bright start but clouded over with some rain in the afternoon and evening (3mm).
Started replacing the pots of summer flowers with autumn/winter ones, pansies and short stemmed chrysanthemums mainly but later there will be tall chrysanthemums, wallflowers and autumn stocks.
Saturday 6th
8 to 11 to 4°C. 2.52kWh 500W max. Another 8mm of rain overnight and some showers during the day. Came clear in the evening and could be frosty by the morning.
Sunday 7th
1 to 11 to 10°C. 4.66kWh 800W max. Cold sunny start clouding over in the afternoon and was warmest around 5pm.
Pat went out for a walk with Kirstin and Sarah. I stayed at home.
Monday 8th
11 to 15 to 12°C. 1.43kWh 400W max. Dark clouds most of the day but it didn't actually rain.
Tuesday 9th
12 to 18 to 10°C. 7.49kWh 1.7kW max. Cloudy start clearing my mid morning to a sunny day and remained clear into the evening.
Wednesday 10th
12 to 21 to 14°C. 7.11kWh 1.7kW max. A very warm day for October with a light southerly breeze.
Thursday 11th
12 to 16 to 8°C. 2.13kWh 1.6kW max. Warm bright morning but clouded over before midday with some heavy showers in the afternoon before clearing again in the evening.
Friday 12th
13 to 17 to 16°C 897Wh. Warm wet and very windy. Most of the rain was very light with some short heavier showers only amounting to 3mm.
I was going to pick a few more Bramley apples but the wind did it for me. There are also a lot ash leaves and twigs to sweep up once it quietens down.
Saturday 13th
16 to 20 to 16°C. 1.54kWh Some more rain overnight and into the morning, totalling 18mm and continued with showers in the afternoon. A very warm strong wind making it difficult to do anything outside.
Sunday 14th
8 to 11 to 6°C. 1.17kWh. Came much colder overnight with another 6mm of rain the morning. Cleared with some sunshine by late afternoon and no wind.
Started sweeping up the leaves, twigs and other debris. At least we don't get floods round here like they have had over the border in Wales.
Monday 15th
6 to 11 to 10°C. 1.51kWh. A grey damp day.
Tuesday 16th
10 to 12 to 11°C. 1.57kWh. Another grey day.
Wednesday 17th
8 to 14 to 8°C. 3.98kWh. Started off cloudy and damp but came brighter in the afternoon and the evening was clear.
I have nearly finished replacing the summer pots of flowers with autumn and winter ones. There might even be something taking a picture of soon; certainly better than anything we had in the summer.
Thursday 18th
2 to 13 to 4°C. 7.24kWh 1.2kW max. Misty start, perhaps even a touch of frost, then sunny for most of the day but not very warm.
The weather this year has had some strange effects on plants in the garden. Pat cut the last of the calabrese in June. Normally they grow another crop of side shoots almost immediately but this year they just stood there through all the hot dry weather, looking almost dead. Today she was starting pull them up and found enough fresh side shoots had grown for another meal.
Friday 19th
1 to 14 to 7°C. 5.15kWh 1.3kW max. Cold misty start. Some cloud mid-morning but cleared again by the afternoon.
Pat decided to get the log stove ready now that the evenings are becoming colder. She opened it and found a mummified bat clinging to the inside and some rather sleepy wasps wandering around in the remaining ashes. Thinking there might be a wasp nest blocking the flue we opened up the bottom section so we could clean it out with a rodding set. Fortunately all we found were some ashes which we needed to remove anyway.
Cut down the perennials down the south side of the drive. Some of the delphiniums are flowering again so I left these.
Saturday 20th
5 to 17 to 9°C. 2.55 kWh. 1kW max. Cloudy apart from one sunnier spell in the morning.
Sunday 21st
8 to 14 to 8°C. 4.13Kwh 1.2kW max. Sunny morning but clouded over in the afternoon with a few spots of drizzle.
Started turning the compost. Not a job for a warm day.
Monday 22nd
5 to 12 to 5°C 5.08kWh 1.2kW max. Sunny intervals.
I have finished putting out the autumn and winter flowers as you can see
Tuesday 23rd
7 to 14 to 13°C. 2.81kWh. Mainly cloudy with a cold wind in the morning which died down in the afternoon with a warmer evening.
Starting moving the overwintering onions which have sprouted into larger 1L square pots.
Wednesday 24th
6 to 12 to 10°C. 4kWh. Mainly cloudy with a cold northerly breeze.
Snowdrop has been out of sorts for a few days with no interest in food or going down the garden to forage. She stopped laying several weeks ago when she was molting. We don't expect to live much longer.
Thursday 25th
8 to 12 to 9°C. 836Wh. Cold and cloudy.
As expected Snowdrop didn't last the night.
Friday 26th
5 to 10 to 2°C. 2.23kWh 800W max. The temperature at 5am was still 8° but by 8am it had dropped to 5 despite some early sunshine. The rest of the day was dull with several heavy showers amounting to 5mm rain and a cold northerly wind.
The rain has cleared by late evening and it looks like we might have a frost. I hope not. There is always a danger with chrysanthemums being damaged by bad weather .They can cope with heavy rain and frost but if you get them both together the blooms freeze and when they thaw they have to be taken off before they are attacked by mildew. This happened once before 5 or 6 years ago. I like growing chrysanthemums but they are a lot of work and the wrong combination of early winter weather sometimes makes you wonder if it is worth it.
Saturday 27th
1 to 6 to 0°C. 2.21kWh 400W max. Slightly frosty start. Warmed up a little by lunchtime but the strong northerly wind meant you still needed several layers to keep out the cold.
Despite the slight frost the chrysanthemums and even thec remaining dahlias and begonias seem to be ok. Chose a nice warm job cutting up firewood.
Sunday 28th
0 to 5 to 0°C. 5.39kWh 1.1kW max. Sunny but with a cold northerly wind.
The frost has done for the rest of the begonias and dahlias so moved the begonias into the polytunnel and the dahlias into a sheltered position to dry out. Replaced them with more chrysanthemums, autumn stocks and winter pansies.
Monday 29th
-5 to 4 to -1°C. 5.55kWh 1.2kW max. Very frosty start which finally finished off the remaining summer bedding and penetrated the polytunnel which, by the afternoon, smelled of dying tomato and pepper plants.
Kept warm by cutting up wood and digging over some cleared areas.
Tuesday 30th
-3 to 6 to -1°C. 1.8kWh 500W max. A dull cold day with a chilly easterly wind.
Continued potting on the polyanthus but came inside early because even in the polytunnel it only reached 8°C,
Wednesday 31st
0 to 9 to 7°C. 5.15kWh 1.6kW max. Frosty misty start but soon cleared with sunshine until late afternoon when it rained for a while as the wind moved to the west and it came warmer, presumably a warm front.
Much warmer in the polytunnel so we started to clear out the dead tomato plants which takes some time as they are both tied to canes and to hanging strings.
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