Kitchen Garden Forum

Out here near the sea it only got down to 6C, so no problems.
How have those of you inland fared after a cold night?

I was pleasantly surprised to find a minimum of 5.9. I thought with the beautiful starlit night it would have been colder.
I think the polytunnel mice are finding it cold or at least chilli; they are nibbling them off, opening them up and eating the seeds. I've caught 7 in the last week to overtake my summer mole cull of 6.

The grass had certainly got a tinge of white at first light, but all the plants seem to be uneffected. The ground is still very warm, so i suppose this must help.

Seems to have gone a bit warmer - glad I'm not in Northern Ireland at almost minus two.
Chilli eating mice are getting silly, now trapped 11.

The other mornings cold snap was no surprise. The temp during the night was a constant 6C but as dawn approached it went down to 2.8C very rapidly. I mean within a half hour period.
Having only 5 runner bean plants this year and I thought that they would perish but yesterday I picked 6 beans all unaffected by the chilly experience. Thanks to a plague of millipedes I lost 135 plants and too late to resow any. Due to circumstances beyond my control I was out of the country at the crucial period of growing in pots and relied on a direct sow.
Never again!
JB.

I don't know how cold it was here though like Alan we're close to the sea so winter/night-time temperatures tend be be higher than inland and particularly the SE regions.

How do you monitor nigh-time temperatures to such an accurate degree that you can spot a temperature drop at dawn ? Do you need help sleeping ?

I have French climbing beans in flower and took the risk on the basis of warm autumns this far west, it's the wind I have to keep an eye on.

Desiccation became part of my vocabulary ten years ago when even plants recommended for coastal areas didn't survive without some shelter.

Baro-thermograph, (clockwork recording barometer and thermometer combined) electronic equivalent weather station.

Ahh-yes.

An electronic device that records the weather in detail at my spot so I can compare with the forecasted version ?

I'm into stuff like this, I used to have a similar devise erected on my roof. The wind ripped the cables to shreds then the anemometer read-out got stuck and I took it all down. What remains is the wind direction indicator.

Half of the fault with that installation was down to me not realising the effects of wind blowing through cables and the damage caused by resonance though the electronics packed up first anyway.

If I install another the cables will run through conduit.

We have telecoms overhead lines down and power cables all the time, you would think they would be good at working with the elements by now.

Our lowest temperature this season has been 3C three nights ago but since then it has been comparatively warm again.

On weather recording equipment: I have recorded the weather here for nearly 30 years on very simple stuff - a max-min thermometer, a barometer, humidity meter and plastic rain gauge and a damp finger in the air (boys scout fashion) to measure the wind direction. Every end of the month I compare the monthly maxima, minima and precipitation with somebody at the other end of the village who has very complicated electronic equipment. and do you know what? Other than rainfall (which depends very much on local showers), his readings are usually the same as mine. In fact, in heavy snow, mine is easier to work because I just pop out, bring in the snow to melt in the microwave and measure it, then put the gauge out again, whereas his gauge gets clogged up by the snow.

Boys need gadgets and though I'm a sucker for internet forecasting sites I do have an application for whats really happening on the ground.

What I have got is is a very expensive wind-strength meter that reads the wind strength just above my head which is fairly relevant to what is going to happen to my home and it's surroundings rather than whats happening 100 foot above.

Seriously, 50 knots wind speed has never-ever been recorded by me on land for the simple reason I can't stand-up in that sort of wind and 30 knots is ripping rooftops off along with my cap. In under 30 knots I need a bucket full of coal to hold me down between the barn and the coal bunkers.

A lot of nonsense is talked about wind-speeds, the nonsense is based on people reading internet recordings from 100 foot towers on the coast and buoys 3 miles out to sea.

I use a 1st Step Wireless Weather Station from Urban Green Energy. I bought it to check wind speeds as I fancied a vertical axis wind turbine from them but the data said I had insufficient wind (that was a different thread Richard). It looks like it is no longer available and the UK agent I bought it from also seems to have disappeared. Might be needing to check the data tomorrow morning according to the forecast.

Wind turbines need a clear look at the wind in the same way as a solar panel needs to see the sun. Both will work to some extent without perfect conditions though both aren't worth the investment unless you have a clear shot.

I have used both for six years, my motorhome is connected to an 80 watt solar panel right now. On bright days the panel only just copes with the standing current that all the relays use. The only time the turbine is any use is if I'm parked right on the coast or somewhere flat, otherwise the turbine is spending more time changing direction than being useful.

I live in a very windy place but the wind is rarely constant from one direction.

I am very interested in the weather forecasts as they govern my fishing trips on the boat, the most accurate I have found up to the last 3 weeks is the met app on my phone the last 3 weeks have been a guess not one of the more popular forcasts have been anything like right